Hi Travis
I've read your post (if we put our replies together, you've succeeded in making me read a whole book). Thanks for the infinite patience you've had in replying in detail to all the things I said, even taking time away from sleeping.
No problem, it is always interesting to be able to consider other's point of view and compare and contrast it with your own. I've found it's best to always have the attitude that pretty much anyone can teach you something (or at least, you can learn something from interaction with them). Furthermore, I feel genuine sympathy and even empathy with your struggles and genuinely would like to see you progress and succeed in your mission to become a succesful trader. We are very alike in many ways, even if we are clearly also quite different in many ways.
However, maybe we should try to keep our replies shorter for our health (so we both can sleep at night), because doing things perfectly on a forum (replying to a post, point by point) could hurt us in other areas, like not being able to sleep enough. Reasoning and arguing is important, but also sleeping is important.
Yep, probably a very wise idea to curtail the posts... (and yes, sleep is important.)
What I will shortly say (you wouldn't want to spend another two hours replying to my reply anyway) is this: in my opinion, you're overestimating the usefulness of books, and not realizing how obsolete they have become in the age of internet. Books are way surpassed, their time is over. You don't read a book: you skim through a .pdf, using the search function to find what you need. You use wikipedia, youtube, you chat... books used to be the only tool people had to communicate things to distant people. Nowadays they're surpassed by much better instruments. Text and writing is useful as before, but since you can skim and search, you should do it: reading an entire book is not an efficient way to learn. It used to be necessary because books were written on paper. Not anymore and it should be avoided when possible, except of course when you are reading a novel for pleasure, but I am against that as well.
Well, thanks for stating your point of view so clearly. While I understand it fully, I cannot agree with it. For my part, I actually suspect you underestimate the usefulness of books. For reference, I'm very much a tecno geek (as you might guess from me being a programmer.) We have 5 computers in the house, and you have to remember that I spend all day every day using computers and technology, searching the web, interacting with PDF's and other electronic documents and so on. I'm no luddite as far as technology is concerned, on the contrary I'm very much a pro-technology self confessed geek. As for trading specifically, I have a heck of a lot of PDF's and E-books in electronic form, so it's not like I shun search engines and electronic versions of books at all.
Despite all this, or rather, maybe precisely because of this, I'm
acutely aware of the shortcomings of modern technology. In many situations I just simply find the simplicity of a physical book much preferable to the electronic alternatives available today. Searching is useful and well and good, and forums and blogs ceratainly have their place, but to me they can, at least currently, not replace the place of good reference (or other) books. Search engines, forums and the web in general is often ephemeral/transient and fragmented. Sometimes you want to have a thorough (shall we say exhaustive treatise) of a subject in one place, without having to squint at a screen for hours on end. To list just some irritations with electronic books (PDFs):
1) Need a computer to read them, which needs power. Books need no power, and can even be read by candle light.
2) Can't typically annotate easily or at all. (In a book you can underline/make notes, fold over page corners etc.)
3) PDF's can be searched but good books will have indexes as the back anyway, which compensates reasonably.
4) Books are highly portable, computers are not. Laptops are portable but typically the more portable laptops are not that useful for reading e-books.
Bottom line is this: I've read many books in my life, I continue to read books, and I continue to learn a great deal from them. In addition, I follow (for loose meanings of the word follow) 65+ blogs (RSS feeds), are a member on numerous forums, receive probably on the order of 20 newsletters and other e-mail based information pieces per day, am an avid Twitter user to keep a finger on the pulse of the markets where I follow several hundred traders who appear to know their stuff, and generally make extensive use of the internet to further my learning and support my interactions with others. I would therefore submit that on that basis I'm reasonably qualified to have a grounded opinion about how books stack up to their electronic alternatives. The bottom line to me is there's room for both, and anyone trying to use either only books or either only electronic alternatives will be poorer for that choice.
I mentioned the newsletters I monitor. Co-incidentally I noticed
this blog post here from John Forman today where it was linked to from an item I received today in the mail. It happens to speak directly to this discussion and your view of books. (Clearly your view/attitude towards books is more common amongst traders than one might think.) :
I quote:
I see the attitude of this emailer in trading book/product reviews all too often. For some reason these individuals think a book which doesn’t lay out a specific trading system or methodology is useless. This is a foolish, narrow-minded viewpoint. In fact, I’ll turn that thought process around.
Trading systems outlined in books are worthless (at best – very costly at worst) to the vast majority of traders.
Why do I say that? For the very simple reason that most trading systems won’t work for most people. I’m not saying the systems are not, or cannot be, profitable. They just have specific timeframes or markets or risk characteristics which are suitable to only a relatively small number of traders. What works very well for one person won’t work nearly as well for most other people because we all come at the markets differently.
The value to be found in books and other educational resources is not in specific trading systems and like. It’s in how the resource guides us in the development of our own unique way of taking on the markets. The reason I always recommend the Market Wizards books is that the allow the reader to benefit from the experience of a group of highly successful traders, ones who had to overcome many of the hurdles we all face on our development path. In their interviews they share how they did that.
I know my own development as a trader (and eventual professional analyst) was seriously accelerated by reading the Market Wizards books. I was able to understand from their experiences the pitfalls I should watch out for and where there might be opportunities for me to pursue things. In that way they gave me much more than I would have ever gotten from some trading system.
Anyway, I can't help but feel that you're somewhat unnecesarily prejudiced against books, perhaps for reasons that lie in your past. Now, if you don't like books (for whatever reason) or don't like reading (for whatever reason) them, then that's fine, but simply admit it and say so then. Please don't instead try to rationalise your prejudices/dislikes, as that is in fact subtle self-deception and will just stunt your progress needlessly. If however after all the above case-making by me you're still truly convinced that electronics are more practical/better in absolutely all circumstances and for all purposes compared to books, then we'll just have to agree to disagree about that. (Which is fine of course, but as I say I just think that you might possibly be doing yourself a disservice as a result...)
In my opinion, also, you're underestimating the power of my reasoning (not everyone's reasoning, just mine, because I am an intelligent person, not the case with the majority of people, who can keep on being told what to think by other people, and be sheep).
Maybe, however I didn't think I was actually doing any estimation of your reasoning at all -- I'm simply responding to your reasoning, arguments and points of view as best I can, outlining where my points of view differ from yours as well as why, so that we both can learn from the exchange.
Yes, by doing all by myself I risk reinventing the wheel and other things that are already explained in some book, but first of all I don't know which book that is, and second of all I don't where that book talks about what I need to know right now (for doing that reasearch, internet is much faster and more efficient, and that is what I do: and that is why browsing on the internet is superior to reading books).
Sure, the internet is *great* for finding relevant books about whatever subject you can think of...
:cheesy:
And third of all there's only a limited number of inventions that I need to make in order to become profitable at trading (please don't tell me the usual "but admittedly you suck at trading", because you'd be neglecting the automated systems that I've built).
And I will be done faster with them by inventing them myself, or browsing the web, than by reading books. Yes, I've been an unprofitable discretionary trader for 12 years so far (but a profitable automated trader, and I haven't read a single book - except 2 excel manuals - to build those systems), but reading van tharp and all the other psycho-babble would not have sped up my process (as far as my discretionary trading).
OK, forget about the automated systems then. Just focus on your current endeavour with discretionary trading.
Now, from where I'm sitting, you've been trying for 12 years to get that going as well, and have had a very hard time of it. Just recently, by your own admission I got you to read some of Elder's book, and immediately this seems to have already had a positive impact on your approach to the markets and your discretionary trading. To me this really looks like some little evidence that a bit of book reading did you some good!
And now, if we go back to automated system trading, by your own admission you read a book on systems trading which you also spoke favourably of (by Chen?) and which I interpreted to mean it must've helped you with your automated trading systems implementation etc. So clearly again not totally useless.
So from where I'm sitting, despite your protestations to the contrary, reading some books (even though electronic) has clearly benefitted you!
Why exactly can you not just admit that sometimes books can be useful (whether electronic or otherwise), in addition to other tools like the internet and forums and things? Is this perhaps some sort of rebellion thing again against schooltime experience of books and teachers?
The more you write, the more stupid you get, because when you teach you don't learn (you know it's true).
Sorry but again I have to disagree. Have you ever taught anyone or had to explain something in detail to someone and answer their questions where your role was as subject matter expert and theirs was the as learner/student/trainee? If not then I submit the above assertion is an idle ungrounded opinion which should not be held too tightly.
As for me, I have been in effective teaching/tutoring positions, both while I was student tutor at university as well as currently/more recently in an informal mentoring relationship with one of the younger developers at work. My experience there in the past, and currently work, is that usually there is a very notable syngergistic effect between you as a mentor/coach/teacher, and the "student"/learner. Due to having to explain things and being asked questions, your own understanding also improves. Oftentimes you will be asked a question that you don't know the answer to and will go have to investigate/find the answer. Usually, this process further solidifies/clarifies and strengthens your own mastery and understanding of the subject matter at hand. Even the process of having to reproduce knowledge and understanding in different forms (written, speech) has the effect of involving different parts of the brain, that ultimately also benefit you as "teacher" or "mentor".
So, in summary, I must vehemently disagree with your assertion that "when you teach you don't learn (you know it's true.)" Sorry!
That's why we should keep our posts short. And academics spend their whole life teaching and writing, and that's how they write books like "A Random Walk Down Wall Street", that are widely acclaimed, brilliant and wrong.
I must admit I've not read that book but yes. Things need to be as simple as possible, but no simpler. Unfortunately in some cases this means things will still be relatively complicated, since life often is more complicated than we'd like. While I am just as against "ivory tower academics" as you are, it is a step too far to conclude that since some academics are like this that all academics are like that or that all academic endeavour is completely worthless. As is often the case, I submit reality is a little more complicated than that and that the there's a few more shades of grey present than you seem to allow for.
Anyway, before this becomes another overlength post I'll post this. (Oops, it probably already is, sorry!!!)
Edit: Just read
this page here. Sounds usfeul, don't you think (at least if, like me, you have trend following leanings)?