Hey Marketsurfer: How come no more spelling errors..and the pseudo-idiot grammar has disappeared....Whats up with that? So you fooled Maverick, but apparently you can't keep the act up for very long.. By the way, your bullshit CV says that you "attended" law school. For how long? Did you graduate and if so where did you pass the bar? I was going to stay away but your new appearance has inspired me to get back in...I don't expect to get an answer from you here, but I will bet I get one soon, if not from you, from the school records dept.... Seeya Steve Edit: I don't want to be accused of straying off the subject too much.. I have had the pleasure of speaking to Dr. Kiev and during our brief communication, he seemed to me to be pretty on the mark as regards "the zone" From my point of view it (the zone) is when you have your ducks in a row, your emotions under complete control, and you are just processessing the data as it rolls by, you are a human computer..You are seeing the signals, putting on the trades, kicking ass and taking names...any good athlete knows what that is about, any good card player, or game player knows it as well....I have read Douglas as well, but I prefer Kiev, just my bias.
I found "Trading in the zone" to be very repetitive, and slightly misleading. pg 6 "For those who have learned to be consistant, the money is not only within their grasp; they can virtually take it at will. I'm sure some of you will find this statement shocking or hard to believe, but its true. There are some limitations, but for the most part, money flows into the accounts of these traders with such ease and effortlessness that it literally boggles people's minds" Trading is one of the hardest "careers" to master and he makes it sound sooo easy. Just because your "consistant" doesn't mean your going to be rich anytime soon or that trading is as easy, like he claims it is.
I have a little more to say about this.. First Cash, I used to think like you...I used to believe exactly as you do...I managed money and traded and it was a struggle every day for a long time...Lots of adrenaline... There came a time when I asked myself if there might be another way.. I found Dr. Kiev's phone number and we talked...I tried what he suggested and for some reason it clicked with me...No idea why. I am not saying it was an overnight thing...and please don't misunderstand...I am not attributing all of it to Dr. Kiev, but just saying that somehow, whether it was the cumulative effect of years of experience followed by my discovery of a way to trade that really worked, I just seemed to be able to shift down, kind of like putting your car in overdrive, you still process the data at a speed, but you see it slow down and you have plenty of time to think and to make your play...and the emotional impact of the fill isnt there anymore...if the entry is good, well then there you go, if not...well you make your next move...you just move from one thing to the next...Same with the management of the position....You just see it...and you watch the momentum..you watch it move to your stop....and you get off the bus...It becomes matter of fact and at the end you see the result...At some point you realize, it is easy, you just do it and you make it one trade after another...As Douglas puts it, it is like pulling the handle on a slot machine, one after another...I am not trying to sell you anything...I am just describing what it feels like for me...and you have to realize that it took over a decade to get there.... Good luck, Steve
Steve46 "you still process the data at a speed, but you see it slow down and you have plenty of time to think and to make your play...and the emotional impact of the fill isnt there anymore..." "It becomes matter of fact and at the end you see the result...At some point you realize, it is easy, you just do it and you make it one trade after another" -- Tell me what you think, but I kinda feel the same way. Two days ago I bought a stock without hardly doing any "research". I glanced at my charts for probably no more than two minutes then bought a position. Next day the stock was up 2 + points. "Easy" I thought. I had done this before, and both times my mind was calm before and after I made the trade. The odd part is that my emotions seem off-balance. When my stock is going up, I feel fine (emotionaly stable), but when the stock turns slightly negative, I second guess myself. Normally people have a problem with greed, but for me, fear seems to be the biggest factor in my trading.
"What I think" is that it is all one thing...it is a process. After doing it over and over for years, much of it has become the realm of the subconcious, so ingrained that I am able to do it without a lot of internal "debate"..It is not a case of black or white, but a realization that all decisions are made with insufficient data, therefore you calc the odds as best you can and make your decision. Is there enough reward there to justify the trade? or not...Once you are there...the easy part is "sorting" the opportunities...The reason it feels easy is that you know that you can't do more than you are doing...and you know what the expectancy for your system is....The rest is bookkeeping....
For fear of sounding like a mindless "dude" I can relate much of my athletic experience with trading. During high school and college I surfed competitively. Yes, I know it sounds silly to some of you who live removed from the ocean, but, here in coastal CA, surfing is actually quite developed as a profession. There are a handful who make an OK living via surfing. Well, what does this have to do with being in the "zone"? Two things: an extra level of awareness and a subconscious ability to react given your surroundings. I've been surfing for over 16 years and via surfing I am quite familiar with the zone. From spending so much time in the water, my subconscious abilities became very well developed both in ocean knowledge and surfing form. My knowledge base grew in reading conditions, swell direction, knowing a particular surf spot as it receives a swell from a certain angle with a certain period ~ all this knowledge (while acquired through years of surfing) doesn't really mean much when actually being in the water and catching a wave. I personally relate this to having all the theory and "knowledge" of market dynamics as opposed to actually having the skill required to trade/surf effectively. The act of catching a wave, much like executing a good trade has all the same emotion/intuition involved. I am able to read the market clearly and without thought, I anticipate my signal approaching and I execute knowing the result before hand. Patience is the key. I wait patiently for a good wave as I do for a good trade signal. Wave selection in competition accounts for 50% of your score, if you aren't patient and wait for the better wave, your opponent will beat you even though his surfing ability may not be as developed. Simply put, the ocean doesn't always produce good quality, it takes years to identify quality waves and even longer to combine the "identify" aspect with the "execute" ability. While surfing, I can see a wave approaching, while completely ignoring the crowd and other distractions I paddle into the correct position, position myself correctly in the peak (the point of the wave that is just about to break) and as the swell starts to produce momentum for me, I pop up. I know right away if this is going to be a good wave. The "pop-up" and execution on the wave (i.e. turns and maneuvers) are not preconceived, they are simple reactions to what my environment (i.e. the wave) is producing. There is no thinking, I hear almost nothing, there is no foresight, just pure reaction combined with ingrained muscle memory response. More than 80% of my surf sessions I experience this type of stimulus. The other 20% my mind is distracted, I am worried about family, women, something trivial like a unpaid bill, other times I am hungover and I cannot focus on my surroundings and I have a poor session. The same applies when I trade. The experiences are similar from a mental awareness/clarity requirement. Given challenging conditions the physical aspects of surfing are very demanding and frankly, physical fitness is a higher prerequisite. However, the mental aspects of trading are by far the most challenging I have encountered. As a side note: for all you attempting to learn to trade; It took me over 6 years to become what I consider a "competent" surfer (i.e. I feel comfortable in most ocean conditions). I believe it takes at least that long, if not longer to become a "competent" trader. Its a simple matter of experience.
I find it interesting how experienced traders and beginners view this book differently. The experienced traders think Well, of course. Whereas the beginners think it's nowhere near that easy, what a crock, etc. Of course, the beginners cherry-pick quotes to disagree with. They invariably gloss over the underpinnings of Douglas's approach to finding the zone, which is the development of a consistently profitable trading strategy, mostly because developing such a strategy is work. The experienced traders, on the other hand, have put in the time and the effort and have such a strategy. Thus Douglas makes perfect sense. LC
Mike, your surfing analogy sounds exactly like trading to me. Wave selection, knowing conditions, etc, that is the best comparison to trading I have heard. Learning ocean conditions at a glance takes years of experience, just like knowing the markets. There are so many subtlety's to learning this process. The majority of it does not happen in the conscious part of the mind. You look at the market or ocean and your brain just processes it and lets you know if its a go or no-go. I read in a book somewhere about learning. there were two kinds of learning, one is where you can explain everything in detail, like hitting a key and the computer types the letter. the second type is more like trading or surfing, its the type of learning that you pick up by osmosis, for lack of a better word. Like trying to teach someone how to walk. You probably could not teach them by telling them. there are hundreds of muscles flexing hundreds of time a second just to keep your balance. trading is like that, you really have to learn it by doing it. Someone can give you the basics like "put one foot in front of the other", or "trade off the pivots", but until you actually do it and get the experience, its pretty tough.
The surfing analogy is a good one, though sailing is for me closer to the mark, particularly when it comes to reversing direction. All of this is missed, however, by traders who view trading as a battle, a fight, as killing the competition, as lying in wait before pouncing, etc. And while they may be profitable with their view, trading as sailing is a lot less stressful.