I wanted to start a thread to discuss the hindrance or empowerment of INTUITION in the game... I was going to start the thread off with some of my own thoughts -- but after some reflection I think it might be a better idea to let the thread take on a life of its own; for the intention is to have an open discussion on the topic and not my particular views... PEACE and good-trading, Commisso
The empowerment of intuition allows us to perform without traditional barriers in an unstructured limitless environment. The clear drawback though is the limits our perceptions place on the intuitive landscape. I have never felt ignorance is bliss. Every bit of knowledge, a moving average, a comment on the wire, the price of oil, or plain tape reading, may jar my creative sense into a particular successful setup. Many times I have no idea where the feeling comes from. But with all of these ideas and indicators and expectations, comes not only a clear voice from deep inside, but a much louder voice. I think in EST it was called your critical voice. That bitchy impulsive asshole voice that is bullish on every high of the day. The trick is identifying the quiet unassuming force that moves through your physical and mental, from that conscious voice that is right just often enough on the micro level that you still pay him undeserving heed. The critical voice carries all of your bullshit, maybe all of humanities bullshit with him. The clearest path to your intuitive soul, is through the strangulation of that critical voice. Looking at your hands Hands can understand Waiting for the chance Just to hold your hand Stevie Wonder- Golden Lady - Intervisions (1973)
Dear brethren: It's often said that intuitive trading is the most advanced level of trading. For the sake of being more accurate, shouldn't we call it the simplest level of trading? INTUITION = SPONTANEITY = RESPONSIVENESS Commisso, you always have better words than mine. Hence the plagiarism. cpo
Intuition can be a prison. You can get so bad that you can't even decide whether to watch tv or make a sandwich until it feels right. One time I am hearing this voice telling me to trade beans, then I ask long or short? and it says short and the mkt rallies big time. The trick is, uniting the inner and outer mind. Getting them thinking the same way with the same goals and purpose. The outer mind directs and the inner mind serves. He who is greatest shall be a servant to all. The misconception is that it is all a lot of new age mumbo jumbo. I'm actually a system trader, but my system needs intuition to work. And basically, all my intuition does is tell me to trade the system. It's that simple. But I need confirmation from my intuition to trade the system. So...for me, both my objective outer mind, and my powerful inner mind combine to produce intuition.
There are people like Soros who have been known to exit trades because they woke up feeling funny. But you have to understand that you are dealing with Soros, and not the average scrub daytrader. Intuition is really just the subconscious that has learned from past experience. If you have enough experience, then your intuition might be valuable, otherwise you are just kidding yourself.
ah, that uranium is just a rock. If you get it hot enough you might be able to warm your hands. If you expect to unleash more energy than that from it, you are just kidding yourself.
If you think of yourself as just the average scrub daytrader, I doubt you will have much success, but good luck anyway
I agree with you. There are times when I do a trade and really have no idea why, but it works like a charm and I can pin point the exact entry and exit point. It doesn't happen often, maybe once a week, but let me tell you, it's freaky. Your subconscious has seen a situation. It's able to process that information much faster then the conscious. Just like trading, it's not 100%, because not every good setup works out. I almost always listen to it, cause it tends to be more right then wrong. After the trade is complete I go back, and then see why it was a good trade. Think of the subconscious as a ferrari, it can go from 0 to 60 in 4 sec., and the conscious does it in 10 sec. If you wait for the conscious to get the information, the trade could be gone. Subconcious trading is something that I love to go over with new traders, and experienced ones, cause the reaction is usually the same, they all think it's BS, until it starts to happen to them. Then they come to me with this freaky smile, that says it all. Trust it!!! But you have to know when it's your subconcious, or it's the taco bell you had last night, LOL.
It seems to me that intuition is the common link among truly great traders (or for that matter any skill). I think there are two kinds of intuition: 1) you just get so much experience that things start to get automatic or unconscious. 2) what some might call a psychic power to instantly know something you previously had no knowledge of. It's the second kind that intrigues me. If it were real, it would afford incredible power to the intuitor. If you'll indulge me, consider the following: What if psychic powers (among them intuition) are really just additional senses. Perhaps not unlike sight, touch, hearing, etc. And what if the reason these senses are not available to us is merely our blindness to their existence? These are not my ideas but those of a wide number of highly specialized brain scientists and biochemical engineers. Who among us hasn't tried something for the first time and did incredibly well; only to try again repeatedly and failed miserably. What was the difference. Only one thing, your conscious beliefs about the activity. You chalk up the first time to beginners luck. Was that all it was? There are some that beleive the universe is like a giant holograph and that all the intelligence that exists is contained within every single particle, down to subatomic. This would me that you, right now, have the capability to do literally anything you can imagine. Tantalizing? Lets face it, weird shit happens. And "reasonable" people explain it away as luck, happenstance, etc. Unfortunately, charlatans have created a huge business out of this(witness miss cleo). If you're willing to dig a little deeper, look around. There is an incredible amount of scientific proof (from institutions as auspicious as MIT) that pyschic powers exist. Quantum mechanics by mathematical definition allows for information to travel instantly across virtually infinite distances. A small community college with a $500 gadget has recently published an experiment (that has been repeated numerous times) where they transmitted information (in this case electrons) many times faster than the speed of light. The fact is, for all our great learning as a race, us humans know very little of anything significant. Please excuse me for wasting bandwith on my "argument", but I wanted to preempt at least some of our group who think this sort of thing is hogwash. It's not. You might not be familiar with it. You might be scared of it. It might contradict strongly ingrained beliefs, but the proof is, these powers exist. My trading plan specifically has a section for education and for daily rituals. I scan books, the net, and articles for specific ways to apply intuition, practice tuning in to it, learning how to understand what it's telling me better. It's a skill everyone of us possesses, all you have to do is choose to use it. One practical tip that works well for me is the following. I do my normal analysis pre and post market as well as intraday. Interpreting charts, reading internals etc. When I find a setup that makes sense to me logically, I check it against my intuition and gut feeling. Intuition and gut feel are different. They come from different places physically within the body. To do a "gut check", focus your awareness on the solar plexis. It's good to get a baseline awareness when you are relaxed and not trading. Intuition comes from an area directly above the corpus collosum (the top middle of your brain) sort of like a funnel expanding out of the top of your head collecting from Infinite Intelligence. Sorry about that, yes, I'm kind of a spiritual guy. I don't believe for a moment this is all by accident. For those of you who would rather stick to trading and forget about sidetracking on such issues; I respectfully request that you consider the limitations that you're placing on yourself. Intuition is the ultimate edge and you can have it right now and it's free.