The Journey from the Basement

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I am glad I dont have to think it is a war !!

My preferred anology is sailing.
I am on a boat on the ocean, and the markets move the currents and wind.
I must observe the flow of currents to decide how to move forward, ( make money ), through setting my sails and rudder ( risk analysis ) correctly. ( spinnachers when the current/wind is strong ! )

If the ocean gets choppy - I stop moving. Thats all; no dead bodies, no confrontation, no blood. I am merely becalmed momentarily.

I avoid the idea of having to "fight", I am merely sailing along.

The ocean going liners are the BIG guys. And if you know how, you can ride their tails ( Level 2 ? ).

You, darksiders, are surfers !!
You are on the waves, much closer to the surf. You can see even the slightest eddys and profit from them, and can change tack more swiftly than me on my boat.

But we are all going, at our own speeds, in the right direction.

This mindset does not require battles or war. Just sailing, or being becalmed.

It makes for gentler trading.
 
TheBramble said:
How about the calm, intuitive contemplation of a monk coupled with the highly conditioned and lightning fast reflexes of a warrior?

It doesn't have to one or the other.

If you're building a hybrid - you can choose.
Click to expand...

Aikido comes to mind.
 
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trendie said:
You, darksiders, are surfers !!
You are on the waves, much closer to the surf. You can see even the slightest eddys and profit from them, and can change tack more swiftly than me on my boat.
Click to expand...
Or even dolphins! :cheesy:
 
losing a trade

trendie said:
re: the Trading Persona.

Why does it have to be a "warrior" fighting a battle.
I find the militaristic mindset quite traumatic, and actually induces stress, cos if you lose a trade, thats the equivalent of being shot, or losing ground to the enemy.

I have my own ideas about mind-set, but, must the mindset be couched in such confrontational terms ?
Click to expand...

That is spot on. When I lose a trade it feels like u r getting told your 20 tanks just got annihilated. 5 yrs in this game and it still feels the same.....

NOW WE COME EXACTLY BACK TO MY POINT! what does a deserter do when he hears about those tanks scorched? runs away - and good for him. what does a "normal" person do? rushes hastily into the battle to avenge for his comrades (starts entering silly trades to make up his losses). AND gets burnt as well. that is an amateur soldier. what does a professional do? plans the next battle so he loses only a battle but wins the war.

Pls do not mis-read me - I am no warmonger. I wish trading was a civilised exchange of ideas at a London Fashion Week cocktail party. The problem is I know too well it is NOT. Someone makes the dosh u just lost. AND even if u do not trade - someone is making the money that shud've been yours.

We all laugh at Hitler's lunatic ideas about "life space" for Germany in Eastern Europe. He lost and Thank God for that. What we forget though is that the "life space" he lost fell on a plate to Stalin, and Eastern Europe just got one nut case instead of another for the following 50 years.

Sorry for the militaristic example - but do u honestly think no-one racked up the money that LTCM and Enron lost? :)
 
TheBramble said:
Bushido is what encompasses it all.
Click to expand...
Aah Bushido - "The Way of the Warrior (or Samaurai)" depending which translation you wnt to take.

Wrap it up in Japanese and make it sound profound. Sounds like "Just in Time Inventories"...great idea in an inverted market, economic suicide (insert your preferred Japanese word) in a carry!

The world moves on- the markets move on- we can all learn from history, but if we wait for it to replicate itself, we will be part of it. We should however always respect it!
 
It looks as though my response to "China White"'s post has already gone AWOL. (What was that - 20minutes?)

Apologies if I am wrong, but what sort of Fascism are we promoting here exactly? I was merely trying to project a view , using CW's assertions para by para, that showed them for what they were!

I feel this thread is marching to a particular beat!! (I hear drums, I see uniforms, I see gold braid)- stick it on private messages at best, or best they meet face to face!!

This is NOT trading Psychology! A trading pit is where everyone, provided they meet the ONLY criteria of a minimum financial stake, can meet.

So what is this? Some derivative or other?
 
This is the appropriate juncture for me to interject, because of the above, here we have again some more irrelevant nonsense. The minimum stake is not one of pecuniary value but of intellect. Never mind, let us continue with what interests us.Let us return to and continue with the Animal Lessons.

We are proceeding with using the Animal Lessons now for a different purpose to the first lot of responses.
In the first lot of responses we used the Animal Lessons to help us trigger realisations.

Now we are making use of the Animal Lessons to help us progress with the construction of the appropriate separate persona we have to create in parallel, the Trading Persona.

When in the second round of observations we looked again at the story of the twig bird we arrived at different conclusions, we began to realise when dealing with trading we have to look at everything relating to trading through the eyes of a trader (the trading persona) and not through the eyes of an ordinary person (the ordinary persona). Those of you who persist in not doing this will continue to be trapped in your visions of what ought or not ought to be via the viewpoint of the ordinary persona, which when viewed through the eyes of a trader are irrelevant and frequently banal, sorry.

Now when we turn our attention to the story of what Alice experienced at the Game of Croquet. In this mode we are learning from Alice several very important facts. We are learning how to isolate oneself from what is happening around us, however baffling or nonsensical. It will surprise many people who only posess the ordinary persona and not the trading persona to think it "necessary" to isolate themselves to give themselves not only the space but the insular environment necessary to further develop themselves as traders.

They argue that it is not necessary. They proceed to do the opposite and club together tightly in the hope that an experience shared is an experience lightened. This is exactly the wrong thing to do. The opposite is the right thing to do because it induces the individual to reflect, have reallisations and become self reliant.

It may astonish you to learn that for most ordinary people this is almost impossible.
They view isolation as a sort of punishment. Therefore by not consciously forcing themselves to become isolated they become contaminated with the ideas of others to such an extent that they now are really confused. This confusion brings out not the worst in them, but the real them, that they have been able to hide and camouflage in ordinary life but not in front of a screen with its cruel yes/ no outcomes that are unforgiving .

Of course the knitting circle in which they find themselves in has lost all direction except a love of money. They forget the most important part of all of this IS THE ABILITY TO BE RIGHT~CONSISTENTLY ~ only then is success really attainable. They also ignore they must take precautions to protect their positions in case they turn out to be wrong by using stops.
They deliberately do not use stops. Their perception of their own love of money via their inabilities attached to the human persona prevents them from accepting they may have started out by being right, but that conditions have changed, now making them wrong.

The knitting circle is therefore the exact opposite of what is needed.

In the construction of the trading persona several ingredients are needed. One of them is to view evernts for what they really are from a posture of impartiality, that means having a view and not an opinion. We also learn to choose, that is the excercise of choice, meaning the ability to intervene or not. We learn to ignore what is not relevant, and we learn to not behave like the White Rabbit. In the above, notice that I use "we". I am doing this because we are discussing this collectively and not because I am also in this. I cracked all this long ago.
I am telling you because you need to crack it - otherwise it will crack you.
 
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Socrates,

Now when we turn our attention to the story of what Alice experienced at the Game of Croquet. In this mode we are learning from Alice several very important facts. We are learning how to isolate oneself from what is happening around us, however baffling or nonsensical. It will surprise many people who only posess the ordinary persona and not the trading persona to think it "necessary" to isolate themselves to give themselves not only the space but the insular environment necessary to further develop themselves as traders.

They argue that it is not necessary. They proceed to do the opposite and club together tightly in the hope that an experience shared is an experience lightened. This is exactly the wrong thing to do. The opposite is the right thing to do because it induces the individual to reflect, have reallisations and become self reliant.

It may astonish you to learn that for most ordinary people this is almost impossible.
They view isolation as a sort of punishment. Therefore by not consciously forcing themselves to become isolated they become contaminated with the ideas of others to such an extent that they now are really confused. This confusion brings out not the worst in them, but the real them, that they have been able to hide and camouflage in ordinary life but not in front of a screen with its cruel yes/ no outcomes that are unforgiving .
Click to expand...

I have, (and without realising it), gone through this stage in my trading development. At one point I was in constant contact with other traders whilst engaged in trading. Over time and without consciously knowing why, I reduced this and then stopped completely. When I trade now I have no-one and no distractions to interrupt me. I even turn off MSN Messenger and I sit in a silent room and trade quietly. I had not really thought of this as a stage in trading development but maybe it was.


Paul
 
SOCRATES

So when we trade the trading persona must be adopted.
When we visit this site we are no longer trading and so revert to normal persona
Therefore if we are able to adopt a trading persona it is not one that would be used on this site.
So the normal persona visits this thread learns from it and passes it on to the trading persona who will not be seen by others. Is this correct ?

Regards

bracke
 
SOCRATES said:
Of course the knitting circle in which they find themselves in has lost all direction except a love of money. They forget the most important part of all of this IS THE ABILITY TO BE RIGHT~CONSISTENTLY ~ only then is success really attainable. They also ignore they must take precautions to protect their positions in case they turn out to be wrong by using stops.
They deliberately do not use stops. Their perception of their own love of money via their inabilities attached to the human persona prevents them from accepting they may have started out by being right, but that conditions have changed, now making them wrong.

The knitting circle is therefore the exact opposite of what is needed.
Click to expand...

I am with you in thinking that the noise and chatter of a knitting circle (trading room, office, chat-room) is the antithesis of what is required. Although is there not a paradox in holding this view while at the same time attaching value to, and conducting, virtual knitting circles (online forums)?

I agree that flexibiliity and realisation of reality is essential ("Oh, it is a flamingo, let us put it down and stop trying to use it as a mallet"). One should abandon positions whose logic has turned into a flamingo.

I recognise the phenomenon of self-confident knitting circles, and their inability to confront the possibility of error. But which knitting circle is it that is so attached to the value of money that it refuses to acknowledge the possiblity of error by using stops? The orthodoxy seems to be that stops are required, as a matter of prudence; I have not encountered anyone - this side of the Looking Glass or elsewhere - who advocates a no-stop policy. (One could construct an argument to the conclusion that stops reduce the probability of success, but this is of course a position that can be occupied only by the very brave, or those with an infinite tolerance for drawdown; but a high tolerance for drawdown is surely not the same as over-protection of the persona through a refusal to admit the possibility of error).
 
I am very pleased at your response to this, Growltiger. I am gratified that you recognise that a knitting circle is the antethesis of what is required, but you have omitted to mention that these knitting circles are only damaging to the nascent trader. The developed trader who has evolved an efficient methodology and is not reliant on what is bandied about in chat rooms and so on has already in place a solid methodology that chat room chit chat cannot damage. For this reason knitting circles are deadly to the beginner or the uncertain but a luxury to the properly developed successful trader, and that is the difference. The problem is that everyone is entiltled to what they percieve to be opinions. One must always disregard the opinions of the majority, because they are nearly always wrong.

With regard to a stoploss policy, if you ask any broker at any level of experience in dealing with the public you are guaranteed to be told that there are many individuals who persist in disregarding the wisdom handed down that insertion of stops does not cost anything and is an essential protective measure. You are also guaranteed to be told that they cannot force any client whether private or otherwise to place protective stops let alone to trail them. The broker is therfore powerless to enforce what is essentially in the interest of his client and to his ultimate benefit. This is a very frustrating position to be in, you must admit. You would be horrified to learn that there are many individuals who refuse, agianst all evidence to the contrary to use stops - and if they grit their teeth and do put them in, then tinkering with the stop when a position begins to develop the opposite to that expected, thus converting a situation that is acceptable into one that is not, for starters. As if this were not sufficiently stupid, then further tinkering makes the situation even worse by degrees, ultimately in the most stupid of scenarios the stop being removed altogether, all of this in the light of repeated warnings that it is not something instantly invented but the benefit of the experience of all who have gone before us who have recorded that the use of stops is crucial . This should never be ignored but the fact that it is deliberately ignored is more widespread than you would credit.

The main reason why stops are disregarded is probably due to Greed. Greed is an emotion. Emotions have the nasty ability to disable Reason. The stop viewed through the perspective of the ordinary persona is regarded as an expense, and as a contradiction, this means the ordinary persona views the use of stops as a sort of threat, invalidatory to the ordinary persona. This is because the ordinary persona is apt to have opinions.

The trading persona in contradistinction to the above, is specially construced not to suffer from these viruses that its humanistic mechanism harbours., therefore the trading persona is impartial, calm, free of emotion, has high attention stamina and so on, that it is able to sustain indefinitely. For these reasons the trading persona does not view the use of stops as an excercise to thwart, but instead as an excercise to protect, and indeed enhance. Why is this ? The trading persona does not view the world from a survival point of view it sees the world as is. It views the use of stops as an ordinary expense in the ordinary course of business and not as a threat to the probability of success as you put it. Why ? As I have explained above, the trading persona has already in place an effective trading methodology, the final plank being mastery of self. It is the mastery of self that ordinary people cannot achieve. They are prevented from doing so by their own perceptions. It is their own humanity that gets in the way of all this.
 
Trader333 said:
Socrates,



I have, (and without realising it), gone through this stage in my trading development. At one point I was in constant contact with other traders whilst engaged in trading. Over time and without consciously knowing why, I reduced this and then stopped completely. When I trade now I have no-one and no distractions to interrupt me. I even turn off MSN Messenger and I sit in a silent room and trade quietly. I had not really thought of this as a stage in trading development but maybe it was.


Paul
Click to expand...
Well done 333 ! You have inadvertently followed the correct path, as a consequence of your own life experiences that have prepared you to excercise choice consciously, as you have told us something of your resolve with your running and so on. To what you have evolved naturally is what I am trying to get this audience to realise, and then to aspire to and then to work towards. Marvellous post.
 
bracke said:
SOCRATES

So when we trade the trading persona must be adopted.
When we visit this site we are no longer trading and so revert to normal persona
Therefore if we are able to adopt a trading persona it is not one that would be used on this site.
So the normal persona visits this thread learns from it and passes it on to the trading persona who will not be seen by others. Is this correct ?

Regards

bracke
Click to expand...
No, you must firm up your resolve to initially view all of this through your trading persona first, to enable you to enact impartial judgement, and then if you so choose you can switch to your ordinary persona to enjoy and have fun and so on. But your first approach must be from a critical professional viewpoint that you may then modify if you wish as the excercise of choice, not through need. This is because this site is devoted to the topic of trading, therefore you must take precautions not to damage your progress.
 
SOCRATES said:
With regard to a stoploss policy, if you ask any broker at any level of experience in dealing with the public you are guaranteed to be told that there are many individuals who persist in disregarding the wisdom handed down that insertion of stops does not cost anything and is an essential protective measure. You are also guaranteed to be told that they cannot force any client whether private or otherwise to place protective stops let alone to trail them. The broker is therfore powerless to enforce what is essentially in the interest of his client and to his ultimate benefit. This is a very frustrating position to be in, you must admit. You would be horrified to learn that there are many individuals who refuse, agianst all evidence to the contrary to use stops - and if they grit their teeth and do put them in, then tinkering with the stop when a position begins to develop the opposite to that expected, thus converting a situation that is acceptable into one that is not, for starters. As if this were not sufficiently stupid, then further tinkering makes the situation even worse by degrees, ultimately in the most stupid of scenarios the stop being removed altogether, all of this in the light of repeated warnings that it is not something instantly invented but the benefit of the experience of all who have gone before us who have recorded that the use of stops is crucial . This should never be ignored but the fact that it is deliberately ignored is more widespread than you would credit.

The main reason why stops are disregarded is probably due to Greed. Greed is an emotion. Emotions have the nasty ability to disable Reason. The stop viewed through the perspective of the ordinary persona is regarded as an expense, and as a contradiction, this means the ordinary persona views the use of stops as a sort of threat, invalidatory to the ordinary persona. This is because the ordinary persona is apt to have opinions.
Click to expand...

Only two days ago I was a witness to a discussion between a trader with 18 years of experience a trader with about 8 days (give or take a couple) of experience. The less experienced one was arguing (opinion) that a paper loss is not a loss. It becomes a loss only when you close the position. From a technical point of view this is correct (you only take a loss when you sell a losing long position), but he was arguing that because of this he didn’t need a stop loss. I could listen to it and walked off.
This incident just proves to what extent people are not willing to go to feel ‘right’ and support their convictions (opinions).

I feel that a lot of ‘us’ come to trading not because of a profession we are in/want to be in. There are other reasons we MAKE this CHOICE and hence we make this choice freely a lot of us feel very self-righteous (very often we are forced into section of our lives without our approval and here you can do what you want).
We don’t go to a collage as you would do if you wanted to become a professional soldier (howdy chine white ;-) ). Before we start trading we are not taught by professionals in the field, we don’t fail exams for not placing a stop order etc. The free choice we made breeds an approach of ‘I know everything, so back off’. This is raison d'être of so many market casualties.

Just a long thought.

Robert.
 
brys said:
Only two days ago I was a witness to a discussion between a trader with 18 years of experience a trader with about 8 days (give or take a couple) of experience. The less experienced one was arguing (opinion) that a paper loss is not a loss. It becomes a loss only when you close the position. From a technical point of view this is correct (you only take a loss when you sell a losing long position), but he was arguing that because of this he didn’t need a stop loss. I could listen to it and walked off.
This incident just proves to what extent people are not willing to go to feel ‘right’ and support their convictions (opinions).

I feel that a lot of ‘us’ come to trading not because of a profession we are in/want to be in. There are other reasons we MAKE this CHOICE and hence we make this choice freely a lot of us feel very self-righteous (very often we are forced into section of our lives without our approval and here you can do what you want).
We don’t go to a collage as you would do if you wanted to become a professional soldier (howdy chine white ;-) ). Before we start trading we are not taught by professionals in the field, we don’t fail exams for not placing a stop order etc. The free choice we made breeds an approach of ‘I know everything, so back off’. This is raison d'être of so many market casualties.

Just a long thought.

Robert.
Click to expand...
That is correct. Now hang on tight for the next post, below.
 
Hi All,

I would just like to say thanks to SOCRATES et al for the enlightening thread. I have read through the thread from the beginning this week, great stuff. After thinking long and hard about what I can add to the discussion I thought about SOCRATES notions that the ordinary human mind is not suited to certain problems, and that it takes effort to change your perspective. Here is a problem that I just love telling people, not becuase it catches them out but to see their reactions. I have seen people on the verge of angry that the solution isn't what their reality tells them. They just become stubborn and refuse to accept the solution even after the proof. They will not cross over and see the other side. It really gives you a window on the human psyche when this happens and the preservation of the current "reality" is of paramount importance to the human mind. Anyway the problem is quite famous and is as follows:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Car and the Goats
You are a contestant on a television game show. Before you are three closed doors. One of them hides a car, which you want to win; the other two hide goats (which you do not want to win).
You get to pick one of the doors, and you will win what is behind it.

However, the way the game works is that the door you pick does not get opened immediately. Instead, the host (Monty Hall) will open one of the other doors to reveal a goat. He will then give you a chance to change your mind: you can switch and pick the other closed door instead, or stay with your original choice.

Which of these two strategies gives you the better chance of winning the car?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Most people say it makes no difference as it is a 50:50 chance and will argue until they are blue in the face about this.

The solution is that you actually stand a 66% chance off winning the car if you switch.

This caused quite alot of controversy even with mathematicians.

More information can be found here: http://www.math.toronto.edu/mathnet/games/monty.html

Hope this helps if not I'll happily self moderate and remove the message so as not to detract from the quality of the thread.

Kind Regards,

Jinxed
 
Jimbo57, let me assure u that i am not promoting what u call "fascism" on this site or ANYTHING of the sort.

Let me respectfully make it clear to u that what I described is how I SEE AND APPROACH trading - which in my firm opinion, is no game but a complete and utter battlefield rather.

This perception works well for MY psychological attitude to trading. It may be absolute rubbi*h for someone else.
 
The less experienced one was arguing (opinion) that a paper loss is not a loss. It becomes a loss only when you close the position.

Give him a futures position. He'll soon change his mind ;)
 
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