Hi,
and I'm breaking all records for posts now - yes, Soc could call a good trade. However, he also tended to overdo the verbals a bit, and he spent a long time telling people he was a good trader before actually proving it, which put a lot of backs up. (Memory may prove me false, but I seem to remember his premier thread running to 2000 posts or something equally odd with him still saying he was the bee's knees without a single posted trade to support his stance as demi-God, and he DID come across as someone who appeared to consider himself 50%+ divine).
After several mobs had visited his castle bearing torches and pitchforks he eventually started a live thread calling trades. He called several good trades, then announced his next work of art (I think it was something to do with naked puts) and after an initial burst of profit it went south bigtime - by this stage a few members had delved into the alleged trade and could find no record of Soc having (as he claimed) making the actual trade. Then Soc said he'd actually had a bad feeling when he went to make the trade so he hadn't actually done it - rather ignoring the long list of posts meantime when the trade was looking good....now, at that point, even though he did indeed seem to call the market pretty well most of the time, those of us who had survived any length of time decided that if you couldn't be honest about the losers as well then you probably weren't a good example to base yourself on.
I liked Soc, but he was badly flawed - he was good but not perfect, and in my view he refused to accept that he could be wrong, even when he obviously was. Ego will kill you in this game faster than anything else, and Soc was so good (this is my fairy tale version, looking on the bright side - it may not be this cheerful in reality) that he began to believe himself invincible. He was better than I am at TA, and probably still is, but I don't find it as hard to admit a mistake as he did, and my way is likely to work better in the long run I would suggest.
There's a lot of rubbish on here (and all boards) about psychology - Van Tharp has a lot to answer for - where people are told (and eventually believe) that successful trading is about psychology...it isn't. BAD psychology (such as Soc's assumption of infallibility) is destructive and can make you lose big time, but the other side of the coin - 'good' psychology makes you profitable - isn't true. If you have good FA or TA skills, or even if you are some sort of lucky bunny, so you can pick good trades then if your psychology is bad you will still lose over time, good psych means you can take advantage of your skills. Good psych won't turn someone with bad trading skills into a winner.... which is a common mistake amongst those who follow the 'attitude is everything' approach.
(That last para is nothing much to do with Soc, but something I decided to get off my chest while I was here, as I'll not be around long and it's taken me 10 years to realise why I've always hated the 'know thyself' stuff that is endlessly churned).
