"If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected."
"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him."
- Sun Tzu, the Art of War
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
weakness as strength
"If you are going to coach yourself for success, you have to embrace your shortcomings and view them--not as threats--but as opportunities for growth.
If you are threatened by your weaknesses, you'll tend to avoid thinking about them. That's a great way to ensure a lack of professional development.
If, however, you look at each weakness as a personal challenge to overcome and an opportunity to become more than you are, you will sustain the optimism and motivation to extend your learning curve."
-traderfeed
http://www.wallstcheatsheet.com/WS/WS/Entries/2009/5/26_WSCS_Trading_Combine%3A_Lesson_3.html
If you are threatened by your weaknesses, you'll tend to avoid thinking about them. That's a great way to ensure a lack of professional development.
If, however, you look at each weakness as a personal challenge to overcome and an opportunity to become more than you are, you will sustain the optimism and motivation to extend your learning curve."
-traderfeed
http://www.wallstcheatsheet.com/WS/WS/Entries/2009/5/26_WSCS_Trading_Combine%3A_Lesson_3.html
Friday, May 22, 2009
Coping well = better intuition
"Improving our coping is important, not just to moderate the impact of stress, but to help us retain access to those subtle cognitive, emotional, and physiological cues that are markers for our implicit knowledge. As I've noted in past posts, we know more than we know we know. What we call intuition is actually an internalization of repeated experience that makes us exquisitely sensitive to patterns in events...
When we do not cope well and are overwhelmed by the mind and body's flight or fight responses, we lose access to those implicit cues...
Similarly, the trader who is enmeshed in panic, worry, and frustration loses access to subtle market patterns--and especially to the internal cues that are alerts to those patterns. This is how we can make decisions in the heat of market action that we later look back upon and wonder, "How could I have done that? How could I have missed that?"
Coping is crucial, because it keeps us in a zone in which we can reason well explicitly, but can also act swiftly upon our implicit knowing."
http://traderfeed.blogspot.com/
When we do not cope well and are overwhelmed by the mind and body's flight or fight responses, we lose access to those implicit cues...
Similarly, the trader who is enmeshed in panic, worry, and frustration loses access to subtle market patterns--and especially to the internal cues that are alerts to those patterns. This is how we can make decisions in the heat of market action that we later look back upon and wonder, "How could I have done that? How could I have missed that?"
Coping is crucial, because it keeps us in a zone in which we can reason well explicitly, but can also act swiftly upon our implicit knowing."
http://traderfeed.blogspot.com/
Trader's Spouses
"As I began interviewing traders for this book, I was surprised how many of them wanted to talk about their love for their wives. One after another talked with great feeling and without any prompting from me about the trust, support, and encouragement he felt at home.
The intellectual demands of the market are not very high. In this game we only have to deal with five factors: open, high, low, closing prices, and volume. Why then do so many people who are successful in their professional lives fail in trading? This is because trading places immense emotional demands on all of us. It evokes powerful feelings- fear, greed, and so on, making it very easy to make bad decisions. A person with a happy personal life has an advantage, while the one with a stormy personal life finds himself doubly stressed.
This is not to say that every trader in this book lives in marital heaven. Some are single, and at least one is currently going through an unpleasant divorce. Curiously enough, he is also in a draw-down this year, although as a professional trader, his losses are minimal, and I am sure he will pull out of his slump. I still remember the deep slump I had at the time of my divorce many years ago.
A person who goes home to a smiling, loving spouse and does not need to spend an ounce of mental energy on figuring out the angles of a tense personal relationship is in a much better position when he sits in front of the computer to analyze charts and make decisions. While most traders in this book conformed to this pattern, it is difficult to translate it into a specific recommendation. What you do with this insight is entirely up to you. I can only share with you my surprise at discovering this factor in the lives of many successful traders."
Entries and Exits, Elder, p. 317
The intellectual demands of the market are not very high. In this game we only have to deal with five factors: open, high, low, closing prices, and volume. Why then do so many people who are successful in their professional lives fail in trading? This is because trading places immense emotional demands on all of us. It evokes powerful feelings- fear, greed, and so on, making it very easy to make bad decisions. A person with a happy personal life has an advantage, while the one with a stormy personal life finds himself doubly stressed.
This is not to say that every trader in this book lives in marital heaven. Some are single, and at least one is currently going through an unpleasant divorce. Curiously enough, he is also in a draw-down this year, although as a professional trader, his losses are minimal, and I am sure he will pull out of his slump. I still remember the deep slump I had at the time of my divorce many years ago.
A person who goes home to a smiling, loving spouse and does not need to spend an ounce of mental energy on figuring out the angles of a tense personal relationship is in a much better position when he sits in front of the computer to analyze charts and make decisions. While most traders in this book conformed to this pattern, it is difficult to translate it into a specific recommendation. What you do with this insight is entirely up to you. I can only share with you my surprise at discovering this factor in the lives of many successful traders."
Entries and Exits, Elder, p. 317
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Spock her
StockTickr: What do you like best about trading?
Michelle: It continually makes me a better person, calmer and more rational. You can’t say that for most jobs.
http://blog.stocktickr.com/2006/10/30/interview-with-michelle-b/
Michelle: It continually makes me a better person, calmer and more rational. You can’t say that for most jobs.
http://blog.stocktickr.com/2006/10/30/interview-with-michelle-b/
Sunday, May 17, 2009
from Traderfeed
"Without freedom there is no trading. Trading is a celebration of economic and political freedom. Slaves are traded; they do not trade.
All this freedom, however, is for naught if we, ourselves, are not free. It is the deepest of ironies that we experience greater freedom--far broader potentials--than those who came before us. And yet, in our lives, in our abilities to master ourselves, we are no freer. Amid opportunity, we remain partial: tethered to our conditioning.
What it means to be free is to be able to choose, to live with intention. The free life is one that we guide: a life lived with purpose, direction, and meaning.
Trading, like all the great performance activities, is an opportunity to cultivate the intentional life. Pursued properly, it is a path to freedom."
Enhancing Trader Performance
p. 254
All this freedom, however, is for naught if we, ourselves, are not free. It is the deepest of ironies that we experience greater freedom--far broader potentials--than those who came before us. And yet, in our lives, in our abilities to master ourselves, we are no freer. Amid opportunity, we remain partial: tethered to our conditioning.
What it means to be free is to be able to choose, to live with intention. The free life is one that we guide: a life lived with purpose, direction, and meaning.
Trading, like all the great performance activities, is an opportunity to cultivate the intentional life. Pursued properly, it is a path to freedom."
Enhancing Trader Performance
p. 254
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
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