zdo

Most traders should develop some tape reading skills for certain situations (in the same way a military general should still know how to fire a machine gun, etc.) But ( in the big picture ) it requires 1 a certain aptitude / talent . It doesn’t require extreme ‘autism’ but it does require a natural degree of ‘savant’ 2 a natural fascination / attraction to it 3 then a lot of screen time and development of execution skills (4 and most likely, to be an adept at it, it requires an early start at it in one’s career – a la Tiger Woods ) These days, with programmable graphing capabilities, ‘visual tape reading’ is becoming more feasible. ie one does not have to be a digits freak to ‘tape read’ Maybe cut back to 15 minutes a day then adjust from there...

It's all Edge It's all Mentality it’s all ‘strategy’ it’s all ‘psychiology’ C’mon guys - It’s a continuum! Only a few on the tails will be able to just concentrate on one and ignore the other. Most have to go up the middle of them and work both of them. Everyone is different and each individual will have more challenges in some aspects than in others. A long time ago, ‘Mike’ Douglas stated that he had only trained one beginner who was ready to go apply an edge right out the gate. Every one else had pre-existing “psychological damage” ( his term ) that needed to be addressed first. Even if he has encountered a few more since then, it confirms the industry statistics of a pretty high failure rate… Db you are right about ‘learning directly -- not by proxy’ and ‘faith’ But I have to disagree with you slightly. From the sounds of it you’re one of the exceptions; but for most a modicum of pre-existing “psychological damage” needs to be addressed first before one can perceive with enough clarity to begin to formulate a ‘self derived’ strategy / edge. “The key to understanding the difficulties of instigating change is understand the role of subconscious habits... The important point to be understood is the degree to which the process of stimulus – response is handled by the subconscious. The widespread conviction that the process is dealt with directly by the conscious part of the mind, and that emotions are therefore only ‘fall-out’ from the process is essentially false… the strategy for dealing with the original stimulus is … formed within the subconscious part of the mind…It is only after this point that consciousness enters the process. Conscious thought will be used to determine the details of the response – that is, to determine the appropriate tactics” From The Psychology of Technical Analysis by Tony Plummer (pg 232). Basically, each of us brings a quantity and quality of pre-existing habits and biases to the table that will forever condition our responses and adaptability. These should be brought to awareness and neutralized very early in each person’s trading career or most don't stand a chance of discovering and or applying a functional strategy. Doing this is only a minor issue for some, important for others, and absolutely crucial for still others. Db your counsel from out in the tail is appreciated by all – but most traders have to go up the middle – dealing with both ‘strategy’ and ‘sychiology’ at the same time.

Bill, Thanks for your post. I was doing great until I came that word 'fractal' What the fv@( is a fractal? :o

forsearch re It’s only abuse if it is registered by the system as abuse kiwi re The sensitive little woosees aren’t going to make it in any case. So, not so ironically, my comments were actually about the battle hardened warriors. You know the ones that from all appearances have no residual ptsd carryover from the traumas… the ones that build up a certain air about their persona … you know the ones that it takes a while but invariably the damage and denial and serious vulnerabilities begin to show up big time. But that’s not where I was going with that dissociation post… If that post was setting anything up at all it would be the importance of entering and maintaining a certain (fully associated, among other things) state BEFORE going screen. I’m loosely theorizing that before ‘playing in the zone’ that something happens in the ‘locker room’. And that screen time may be partially wasted, even detrimental, if done in sub optimal states. Some noobs would be well served by making it an explicit priority of reaching state instead of racking up screen time then realizing much later and usually too late the importance of state. (and few will of course ) In my own discretionary trading, the times that I persisted in ‘doing state’ before ‘doing screen’ resulted in entry into more positions that immediately went for or against, longer runs / strings of winners, more experience of flow instead of conflict, and in general a lot more fun trading. The times when I left state to chance / previously established repetoire of habits still resulted in some ‘zone’ play but more often resulted in regression to ‘struggle’ and increased susceptibility to ‘impulse’ trading (btw many types of ‘impulse’ trading are there?) The idea here is if you want to vastly improve the quality of your screen time then explicitly go state before you go screen. During screen time, mindfully watch the state and if you slip out of state then get away from screen too - until state is reinstated…

Yes – and my intentions were not to take the thread in the direction of the expert psychiologits either. It’s just that some of Steenbarger's descriptions did get at the big picture of when my ‘screen time’ had been effective and when it seemed to have no effect a whole lot better than I could say it. More and more I’m starting to believe that quantity of screen time is best seen as a measure of one’s passion, if it’s in the blood, bones, brains… whatever… and if the quantity isn’t coming automatically without any need for will, then one should look for another game. So if the passion is present, in this belief, it’s then the quality of the screen time that is pivotal. In the (pushing buttons ) extreme, passive screen time may be as detrimental ultimately as is ‘paper trading’. If that’s true, what makes it so? Please pardon more psychology, but the concept of ‘dissociation’ comes up. [1] Old school = [1] New school = [1] The markets are not truly abusive and losses are not truly traumatic. However a major trading mistake compounded with downright euphoric sizing error compounded with a major loss compounded with a bit of infrastructure failure compounded with the ‘market then turning and leaving you behind’ and a trader can feel the same as if he or she has been abused and traumatized! Traits like “fantasy proneness” etc and many other factors have to be in play for it to be permanently “damaging” and the “habitual tendency to dissociate would likely be a marker of a more pronounced psychopathology.” [1] – but most of you get the picture One really shouldn’t trade after making a trading mistake until that mistake is really corrected. But how should one approach screen time after such an event? 2 Again, the “habitual tendency to dissociate would likely be a marker of a more pronounced psychopathology.” [1] However, for a functionally sound individual, is it possible that screen time after an event that is upsetting and before homeostasis has re-established itself is actually building maladaptive grooves, even ruts, in processing patterns? Could it be virtually building a trance pattern? I think so. What do you think? And I’m thinking it needn’t be fully traumatic or large scale for this maladaptive trance to build its “rut” … a series of small upsets may be enough. Then after the ‘trance’ operates routinely, will even just casual carefree screen time deepen the rut and dilute, even harm, the benefits of screen time we’ve been discussing?!!!? One of the ‘old’ trading rules is “Don’t trade if you are upset”. Should that rule be updated to “Don’t screen time or trade if you are upset” ?? Just some thoughts and questions. Am sure there are other and better perspectives regarding quality screen time... 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociation_(psychology) 2 http://www.isst-d.org/education/faq-dissociation.htm#dissoc

Here is a little bit more from Steenbarger supporting quality screen time. “…implicit learning research suggests that much of the expertise we acquire is the result of processes that are neither conscious nor intentional… It appears that much repetition is needed before implicit learning can occur… The implicit learning research suggests a provocative hypothesis: Perhaps expertise in trading is akin to expertise in psychotherapy. While therapists say their work is grounded in research and makes use of theory-based techniques, the actual factors that account for positive results are implicit, and acquired over the course of years of working with patients. Similarly, traders may attribute their results to the research or patterns they are trading. In reality, however, the research and patterns serve as rationales that legitimize the absorption of markets over a period of years. It is the implicit learning of markets across thousands of “trials” that makes for expertise, not necessarily the conscious strategies that traders profess… There are many ways of becoming immersed in the markets: through research, observation of charts, tape reading, etc. The specific activity is less important than the immersion. We become experts in trading in the same way that subjects learned Reber’s artificial grammars. We see enough examples under sufficient conditions of attention and concentration that we become able to intuit the underlying patterns. In an important sense, we learn to feel our market knowledge before we become able to verbalize it. While simply “going with your feelings” is generally a recipe for trading disaster, I believe it is also the case that our emotions and “gut” feelings can be important sources of market information. The reason for this is tied up in the neurobiology of the brain. In his excellent text The Executive Brain: Frontal Lobes and the Civilized Mind, New York University’s Elkhonon Goldberg summarizes evidence that suggests a division of labor for the hemispheres of our brains. Our right, nonverbal hemispheres become activated when we encounter novel stimuli and information. Our left, verbal hemispheres are more active in processing routine knowledge and situations. When we first encounter new situations, as in the markets, we tend to process the information non-verbally—which means implicitly. Only when we have made these patterns highly familiar will there be a transfer to left hemisphere processing and an ability to capture, in words, some of the complexity of one’s understandings. As we know from studies of regional cerebral blood flow, the right hemisphere is also activated under emotional conditions. It is not surprising that our awareness of novel patterns, whether in artificial grammars or in markets, would appear as felt tendencies rather than as verbalized rules… So finally we get to the traditional domain of the trading psychologist! How do we know when our feelings convey real information for trading and when they merely provide interference from our conflicts over success/failure, risk/safety, etc.? Developing trading expertise is not so simple as following such slogans as “tune out your emotions when you are trading”. Much of what you might know about the markets may take the form of implicit knowledge that is encoded nonverbally and experienced viscerally… the key ingredient in trading development may be the immersion, not the research or the patterns per se. If this is true, efforts to find the best trading system or the most promising chart pattern are off the mark. The what of learning trading may be less important than the how… I believe the most exciting frontier for trading psychology is the development of tools and techniques for maximizing implicit learning processes. Such techniques would assist in the acquisition and utilization of expertise by training individuals to sustain states of consciousness in which they are open to implicit processing. As I hope to demonstrate more thoroughly in my forthcoming book, there are reasons for believing that experienced traders possess greater expertise than they are aware of. This tacit knowledge, to use Michael Polanyi’s memorable term, reveals itself during “hot streaks” in trading and those wonderful experiences where we just “know” what the market is doing and place winning trades accordingly. Too many traders look to emulate others. The secret to success, conversely, might well be to gain greater access to the expertise we have already acquired implicitly and learn to become the traders we already are when we’re at our best." From the article Learning to Trade: The Psychology of Expertise by Brett N. Steenbarger, Ph.D. “You shape your brain and then your brain shapes you” Of unknown origin and of questionable accuracy

Sledge, re: "If after a month or so of screentime that’s not happening for noobie – s/he should probably look into another game. " was my statement and I think you missed the point. 'that' was referring to immersion not expertise. Hopefully you only 'refused to give up' on activities that expressed your gifts and had long term meaning and purpose for you from within. If a Student B noob doesn't have that drive from within to the point where immersion is occurring quite naturally - then s/he should acknowledge that early and walk away. More Steenbarger (after not thinking about his stuff for months, seems I got it on the brain today :\) "Many are called, few are chosen – I believe the implicit learning perspective helps to explain why so few traders ultimately succeed at their craft. Quite simply, they cannot outlast their learning curves. If, indeed, it takes thousands of trials to generate successful implicit learning, a great number of traders would have been bankrupted by then. Many others might not survive that number of trials simply due to the time and energy required. It is impossible to hold a full-time job and generate the degree of immersion in the markets needed for implicit learning. On the other hand, it is impossible to obtain a full-time income from trading without developing the mastery conferred by years of experience. Part-time traders never develop expertise for the same reason that part-time chess players or athletes are unlikely to succeed. For purely practical reasons associated with raising a family, making a living, etc., few people can undergo the “starving artist” phase of skill-building. " And btw, there are no Student A's on this or any other trading forum. This is strictly a conversation between us Student B's

downrivertrader I have some eurojunk you might be interested in purchasing...call me

"The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer." Edward R. Murrow Bootstrap, hope I’m not taking the thread in a direction you would not prefer, but your’s and Sledge’s excellent comments reminded me of some thoughts I had garnered re screentime that may be helpful to noobs. This paragraph is mostly about quantity of screentime. After the curious ‘playing around with it stage’ for a beginner, the quantity of screentime needs to really accelerate. “Let us begin with a straightforward hypothesis that emerges from recent research: There is a core set of characteristics that distinguish the greatest participants in any field of endeavor—including trading. … In “Greatness: Who Makes History and Why”, Professor Dean Keith Simonton points out that mastery of any domain requires approximately 50,000 “chunks” of information and skills. This applies across different fields, from chess and sports to scientific research. To acquire such a wealth of experience and data, the accomplished individual needs to be able to sustain focused attention on work for considerable periods. One of the most important factors distinguishing successful people from unsuccessful ones is the ability to become immersed in work—to become so focused on the task at hand that all self-consciousness is lost. In this state of cognitive focus, the successful person can process information deeply and efficiently. It is as if they enter a state of super-learning, mastering complex skills and material far more readily than the average person…How can people sustain such a focus for a length of time? The psychologist Mihalyi Czikszentmihalyi has found that this is possible because the creative person enters a pleasurable emotional state—a state of flow—when immersed in effortful activity. This intrinsic pleasure enables achievers to weather periods of uncertainty and discouragement on the way to success. All of us have experienced flow states at one time or another: when we get ‘into the zone’ on a basketball court or during trading, when we are absorbed in sexual activity or a stimulating discussion. People achieving the highly focused flow state typically lose track of time and stop thinking about personal plans and problems. It is as if they and their efforts become one.” from Brett Steenbarger article NewPsychiologyOfExceptionalAchievement. If after a month or so of screentime that’s not happening for noobie – s/he should probably look into another game. This paragraph is about quality of screentime. In his latest book, Steenbarger also emphasizes the importance of deliberative practice. “The essence of deliberative practice is what I call the learning loop. A learning loop is an attempted performance, followed by specific feedback about the success/failure of the performance, followed by renewed efforts that incorporate the feedback…If done correctly, a log will reveal patterns. Patterns of what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong and when and how often and under what circumstances”. paraphrasing Steenbarger in ETP “Contrary to the advertisements common in the popular media, trading expertise is not a function of possessing a superior indicator, mind-set, or chart pattern. Expert traders process market information differently from nonexperts, cultivating sophisticated mental maps that enable them to eliminate irrelevant information and implicitly process the patterns amid the market noise. Armed with such maps, expert traders respond more rapidly, confidently, and accurately to market events than do nonexperts.” also from Steenbarger in ETP. Noob’s see – http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/104/wisdom-from-various-classic-books-3435-2.html “We don’t see things as they are. We see them as we are” Anis Anin

Yes. He only uses daily (and greater charts) and the trading method introduced in the book is 'old school' but the understanding about trading in general that he has accumulated over the years is applicable to many styles and approaches. btw. You may be able to buy the book directly from him for less...

Bullbear re: ‘So if you want to make a small fortune...’ Yep, every trading system makes money – if you sell enough copies. Winner Takes All by W.R. Gallacher is an excellent book but to make the Gann traders wrong (OR the un / anti / non Gann traders wrong) might be from a confusion of terms, concepts, and constructs. Here is an analogous ‘mess’ regarding plain ole water and esoteric water - “...Clearly the origin of some of the inherent confusion in the field is based on the materials scientists’ and the chemists’ use of the same term to mean different things. Chemists use “structure” to describe the structure of the molecules or ‘structural building blocks.’ Materials Scientists use “structure” to describe the 3-D structural architecture of the material. The former describe the size and shape of the bricks or cement blocks; the latter describe the shape and size of the walls and the room and how the bricks and blocks are arranged within it....” http://www.rustumroy.com/Roy_Structure%20of%20Water.pdf

Chick Goslin has some pretty good thoughts about different ways to manage 'waiting and watching' / 'watching and waiting' under various situations and conditions in his book Trading Day by Day

You have my deepest sympathies. Dogs form such pure relationships with us and I’m starting to suspect a huge, strong component of that relationship is at emotional brain levels mostly unconscious to people – and that’s part of why it hurts so much to lose them… as far as trading goes, Patches would probably want you to get back in the game and play as soon as possible… all the best. zdo

Poker/gaming professionals transitioning to trading: Should be less susceptible to the ‘holding losers’ biases and schemas – ie know when to fold… Should be able to generate more ‘staying power’ by ‘transferring’ the skills and attitudes of a having very short memory about each loss. And consequently - Should be able to do well with a smaller edge than the typical noob trader… all but one gambler turned trader that I know ended up systematically / consistently working a small edge instead of forever trying to improve their edge / grail searching. For a while long ago I did an occasional few minutes in my trading journal comparing gambling and trading – how trading is similar to this or that game (like poker, bjack, etc.) Then one evening it hit me. Each of the gambling games is a practice / a substitute / a simile for a certain style of trading. Way back when, the games developed when non professional ‘traders’ (i.e. road warriors, etc.) had nothing but coin to trade but still wanted / needed to ‘trade’ their way into the situational pareto of the pareto… The games substituted random outcomes for the ‘random-like’ outcomes of real markets… Trading is like gambling - not. Gambling is like trading…

Very generally - The largest percentage of 'beginners', by far, start their trading in unleveraged equities. A smaller percentage of beginners are attracted to the 'power' of leverage that futures provide seamlessly - etc. Few realize that single lot futures trading is one of the hardest games out there... Almost immediately most beginners begin to explore and migrate to instruments and timeframes that fit them individually

The cbot 'prefixes' mini contracts with a Y The M might have just came from the pool of available letters or it might come from mini too like in 'mini-dow ...

BF, you guessed right! Mentors bring forth wisdom not via answers but via questions. That is the way to qualify a mentor. A true mentor will NEVER offer or respond with advice. Rather than offer 'answers', a true mentor only helps to guide you to the correct questions to be asking yourself. Very few potential mentors realize this, even fewer learn how to actually do it consistently. This ‘answers’ business also explains why so few truly qualify to be mentored… the great majority are looking for guidance and answers and avoid the tough questions that take years to answer… Combine these and it becomes obvious how modern psychological counseling and the ‘coaching industry’ is a pitiful charade of true mentoring. Two egos must truly step aside – and to withstand the failed and successful ‘tests’, they must commit to stepping aside multiple times…Such a process involves certainty of some discomfort and the risk of great discomfort. Such work may start with trading among the dominant concerns but it also requires that whole life issues be opened and examined – issues of bodies minds souls and spirits. … a mentor can not be mentoring if need or want to charge money. Just as the old souls passed on wisdom via oral traditions in pre tablet times, true mentoring is not an exchange or a ‘trade’ … when passing a torch with two hands one does not hold out an empty hand for recompense… http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/3/how-much-would-you-pay-to-3619-2.html#post32448 http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/f30/the-right-coach-mentor-3335.html#post29096

Slighty different aspects but this may help http://kreslik.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1093&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

This thread is drifting in and out of discussion about utility and fungibility. Foods, lego configurations, basketballs, hopes and dreams, ES, futures, oil, art, etc. Serious, ie not rhetorical, question – is that part of the issue here of intermittent anomalies in what prices ‘typically’ / ‘should’ / ‘normally would’ do in a given supply and demand context?

Yes. Thanks. My intention was to ask what he meant by 'market movers' Too much drive by posting - my apologies. But still not too much golf...yet Question still stands... thx in advance David

Thanks. Harsh! Radical!? Out of the box?? What do you mean by "Market Makers" ?? In trading...just let the yen take most of the risk :o

More ???'s What is ‘jobbing’? What percentage of daily volume is ‘jobbing’? Under what conditions do ‘they’ cease / temporarily refrain from ‘jobbing’? Under what conditions to ‘they’ resume ‘jobbing’?

Dhammapada ...and other eastern teachings indicate that there are only limited moments in each breath where mind has any chance of accomplishing that at all... no small wonder if 'having' is as biologically entrenched as this article suggests...

smwinc, If you have time, could you post a graphic / chart illustrating that pre-market action? Thanks, zdo AND... Thank you all for avoiding KISS and embracing some theoretical complexity. I really appreciate each of your thoughts

Thanks for the welcome guys. But really - any quality of answers to these questions would not be altered by their location… and here the questions and potential answers are, ostensibly, a tiny bit safer from corralling and censure. enuf soapn up online personalities – got any insights or theories on multiple SD chains?