Trading Wisdom for Aspiring Hedge Fund Managers

Discussion in 'Professional Trading' started by darkhorse, Aug 6, 2012.

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  1. Jesus Cube strikes again... still can't see his posts, only the ghost trails of comment replies.

    Re, How to Make Money in Stocks, it always amuses me when someone says (or implies) that "this is the the book that will help you break through."

    The trading book -- or lesson, or idea, or methodology adjustment, or whatever -- that truly helps a trader break through will be different from trader to trader.

    This is pretty commonsensical when you think about it. Every trader owns a unique compendium of experiences, knowledge gaps and biases. The "missing puzzle piece" for Trader A thus may well be completely different than the one for Trader B.

    This also speaks to the impact that various trading books have on traders. Many traders will recall such and such as "one of the best trading books I have ever read" mainly because they read the book earlier in their careers, when knowledge gaps were greatest -- coming across the same text five years later might get little more than a shrug.

    (This is one reason why some trader, somewhere, will always be deeply impressed by the latest mediocre hash of a trading tome -- the leftovers, presented lukewarm, will taste exciting and new.)
     
    #361     Oct 7, 2012
  2. Trading Wisdom 40: Harnessing Fear of Failure

    "Quite apart from sacrifice, there is a last brutal truth to be confronted. If the fear of failure is holding you back -- and it almost certainly is -- then what strategies can be devised to set you free? No book, including mine, can do it for you. All I can do is alert you to the problem and suggest a course of action.

    "Here is my suggestion. Think of this fear not as the King Kong of bogeymen, but as a mare. A nightmare. A mare, after all, is a horse. A horse can be tamed, bridled, saddled, harnessed and (eventually) ridden. Harnessing the power of such a creature adds mightily to your own. Thus the nightmare of prospective failure provides you with the very opportunity you are seeking. Not only does it restrain smarter people than yourself from becoming rich -- and there can only be so many rich people in the world -- it affords you the chance of increasing your confidence, both when you confront it and when you master it.

    "For make no mistake, if you will not confront and harness this all too human emotion in one way or another, then you are doomed to remain relatively poor. You either get over it, go round it, go at it, mount it, duck under it or cosy up to it. But you cannot surrender to it. That way lies paralysis, prevarication, ignominy and defeat.

    "After a lifetime of making money and observing better men and women than I fall by the wayside, I am convinced that fear of failing in the eyes of the world is the single biggest impediment to amassing wealth. Trust me on this.

    "If you shy away for any reason whatever, than that way is blocked. The gate is shut -- and will remain shut. You will never get started. You will never get rich."

    - Felix Dennis, How to Get Rich

    [​IMG]

    JS Comment:

    Facing fears head on -- directly confronting them and, in so doing, diffusing them -- is a long-standing component of enlightenment and fulfillment, encouraged by the ancient thinkers of East and West (Epictetus, Buddha, Lao Tzu, just to name three).

    What are some of the ways (subtle or not so subtle) fear of failure might be holding you back?


    Buy How to Get Rich on Amazon

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    #362     Oct 8, 2012
  3. #363     Oct 8, 2012
  4. I'm sorry you missed the points William J. O'Neill makes.
     
    #364     Oct 8, 2012
  5. I was given, at my request, one book to read when I began in 1957. It was 4th Ed of Magee. Here I learned the pieces and how to put them together. In a month of trading stocks.

    The only maths that applies to markets is Boolean Algebra.
     
    #365     Oct 8, 2012
  6. Are you fucking KIDDING me surf?

    Sometimes I swear you are just trolling for attention... Ken Fisher is about as opposite as it is humanly possible to be from an actual trader.

    He picked up the money management business from his dad Phil -- who basically created the template for him -- then built what is basically a slick mutual fund business wholly oriented to fee collection and insane amounts of asset gathering. The guy has more than $41 billion spread over 38,000 accounts. He might as well be Vanguard or Charles Schwab.

    So yeah, "how popular folks actually become wealthy'... have a famous father, get in the exact same line of business he did (preferably taking it over if you can), and then use the family fortune (that someone else seeded for you) to spamblast every investor who has ever given their mailing address to a financial publication.

    Also, who said shit about "rich dad poor dad?" The book I cited has nothing to do with Kiyosaki's self-help pablum for the masses. Felix Dennis is one of the wealthiest self-made men in Britain, and what he has to say about the subject of building wealth is useful, powerful and applicable. I actually have taste and critical opinion in reference to the books I cite.

    Rich dad poor dad... Fisher... give me a friggin' break... and as for "a nutty one off rich guy," you don't even know what you are criticizing because you don't know what he says in the book! Are you even paying attention?

    I swear Surf, sometimes you are like a parody of yourself. We used to do this years back, you would take a view opposite of me for the sake of attention, try to sucker punch me, and then accidentally hit yourself in the face.

    I don't get it, really I don't. I don't come after you or antagonize you. I don't understand why you feel the need to come in here and piss on someone else's candle, unless it is just a pathological craving for attention.

    If you don't like the selections I choose then feel free to make your own. But for the love of god, please, pick better candidates than a self-serving, mutual fund pushing, permabull buy-and-hold asshole like Ken Fisher.
     
    #366     Oct 8, 2012
  7. Kurgan

    Kurgan

    And how do you apply it?If it goes up it is 1,if it goes down it is 10?
     
    #367     Oct 9, 2012
  8. NO NO NO... don't encourage him. You'll learn...
     
    #368     Oct 9, 2012
  9. Kurgan

    Kurgan

    #369     Oct 9, 2012
  10. p.s. Behold Fisher's deep insight:

    [​IMG]

    Did you pick this at random or what?
     
    #370     Oct 9, 2012
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