SIUYA

a friend of mine does this which you might like to read as its the same time zone, same markets. Trading diary of a late riser He does not wish to talk to anyone and he blogs for his own peace of mind, but it is a good read.

This is an often interesting point, that for me actually delves into so much of trading, finance and actually almost everything we do. The idea that Rande Howell is putting up in another thread, about fear.....is also related. Even TRO (the rumpled one ) and the Rat The fact we think through careful planning that we can eliminate bad luck. Isn't that the whole definition of luck. That it can be good or bad and cant be planned for, but ideally the plan can only minimise the devastation from bad luck, and maximise the opportunity from good luck. History is littered with people - but lets focus on the finance world, who thought luck was irrelevant. For some reason LTCM always comes to mind. Its even related to the often quoted - put 100 lawyers/doctors/professionals in the room and tell them half of the room is below average intelligence for the room and watch the disbelief that everyone has. Hell...., imagine being a farmer and planting half a million dollars in the ground and crossing your fingers the weather holds out and the timing is good. Off course it will, 100million years or so of constant repetitive seasons suggests it will, HOWEVER, making it economically viable to do so is an entirely different matter. Does that make the farmer a gambler or a trader?

""I am saying that fear needs to be managed before you start experimenting with trading style."" doesn't this sort of assume that everyone will start out as a scalper..... surely different people have different personality traits, and different fears. Some people have a fear of pulling the trigger, some people fear missing out, some fear giving back a winning position. Not everyone is suited to a scalping as you say, but from what I am reading into it, while you dont like to pigeon hole people into characteristics, there is an assumption that everyone starts out as a scalper of sorts or at least with a similar trading style. That may be true in the day trading sphere i guess. Which comes first the chicken or the egg? (I'm not trying to be difficult, just feeling like a discussion ) and yes, in terms of the types of fears, the website looks interesting

as an aside..... what are the currency futures actually based on? the spot price. So given that, wouldn't the most important thing if you are worried about crappy/real/imagined prices is the integrity of the broker you are using.

MM, while you read more into my point that was intended, you do raise a very very good point and I agree with you. In many ordinary business plans they are called contingencies etc. and even then they are often too optimistic, a common flaw for any business. Read Outliers by Malcom Gladwell, it has an interesting take on luck and being in the right place right time, among other things.

The FX market is made up of more players than you could imagine. not only are there retail players, companies hedging exposures, governments and central banks, people remitting money back to their own countries (think of Indian/Chinese/Phillipino workers sending money back from where they work to their home countries), travellers, traders and speculators, funds hedging. When it comes to FX it is ALL a relative bet. You dont buy shares in a company that may have earnings, you dont buy physical assets such as gold, oil, land. The only underlying thing is trust in the piece of paper that is the currency, and that you think it will rise relative to another. When it came to Mr Soros, people forget, the idea to short the GBP was formulated well before it was implemented, his sidekick - Drunkenmiller from memory was the one who put the trade on, and George basically went for the kill..... at the time they were the market for a short period. Ultimately....Scott says it best "There are a huge number of issues surrounding the fx market but in the end, if you are on the right side of the trade, you will make money."

Luck, good or bad, is irrelevant. So long as you recognise good luck for just what it is - luck and not skill, then thats all that counts.

would a person who had no emotion be able to trade well? (I assume it would be like a computer if given the right rules...so yes given the right rules) Can you teach a computer fear? (or is that just part of the money mgmt rules to help stay in the game) Is it more important to control/regulate emotion or fear, or is it more important to suit the type of trader to the correct style of trading for them? To focus on what suits them rather than trying to remap the brain.

zzzman....not that I know of. I am in Australia and to be honest I would be worried about the systems in place at a broker that does not expect you to be able to cover your liabilities. Do you want to watch your account be frozen because other traders at the same broker went belly up and pulled the broker down? One of the things the GFC has taught people (or more so reminded people) that sometimes the biggest risk you have is with your counterparties - brokers.

For all those who have not been to Australia to put it all in perspective the reported size of the flood affected areas over the last few weeks is that its an area the size of France and Germany combined.

without uncertainty there is no opportunity. by planning and understanding there can be opportunity from uncertainty. This helps reduce the fear....but not eliminate it. Fear, can also be a good thing. Not of uncertainty, but fear of being unprepared, fear of betting the house and blowing up. Luckily I have always been conservative enough to respect the fear, but also to embrace the uncertainty.

Listening to other traders without working out your own rules.

they are not mutually exclusive. I have not come across many/any traders who are are pessimistic about their trading. they may be bears, they may be realistic, skeptics, objective......but they also approach trading from a positive point of view in terms of their approach, their ideas, beliefs of the market. off topic maybe.....luck and gambling related, but also different.

just remember the brokers, all their forms, all the PDS and the like are not really designed to protect you. they are designed to protect the broker from you suing them when you loose your money. All those forms you read state the risks, get you to cover your own liabilities and make sure the broker is covered from every angle. Thats why a broker document the other day was 79 pages of writing, for 3 pages of form to fill in. Kinda reminds you of the whole sub prime, and liar loans doesn't it Then it also makes you wonder why you pay for commissions other than for direct market access and clearing. Sorry....have been filling in too many forms, and waiting for too many requests for more information of late. Good luck.

its generally all that often spouted rubbish about the power of positive thinking etc; For me its all the same, no matter how you want to call it/market it...... if you focus, think rationally and positively about things, learn from mistakes, plan and dont blame the world for everything, accept responsibility, avoid false hope (like winning at the poker machines) and generally learn to participate in things from a positive and constructive point of view.... soon you will be lucky, its amazing how it seems to work that way. Now people will package this and sell it off in a course. Now this is completely different luck to the purely statistical viewpoint of buying lottery tickets. (or is it???, as you still need to participate with a dose of reality and not false hope) Amazing considering the poor responses to the current contest MMS is trying to run to pick the market closes, and very few want to participate in a free trade. So tell me, is it luck when you dont win and you dont particpate positively.

Is this standard procedure for opening a LLC account? Yes. thanks to the anti money laundering and anti terrorism laws, Bernie Madoff, etc; etc; the world is now all about compliance and PYA - protect your ass. Currently I am opening about 20 accounts (dont ask) and every form is different, every broker requests different information. the more directors you have, the more bank accounts, the more complex the company, the more difficult it is. and heaven forbid you want to change some details...... some brokers are definitely easier than others. GET USED TO IT. example; the other day, for a sole shareholder/sole director company I needed to file a compliance report....WTF! So I checked with my compliance officer (Me) who reported to my Manager (Me) who reported to the board (Me) wrote a little note saying that it was OK and I was duly authorised to open an account with a particular broker. This one page compliance report had to be on a company newsletter and signed by all directors. what a waste of time - but it has to be done.

dont underestimate the importance of luck - and remember that luck is usually something you can also put in your favour

I agree with UB Basically life is a gamble. When it comes to trading think about this.....what other pursuit can you dictate the odds, attempt to put them in your favour, get great scalability with these odds, in a liquid market, low costs and low barriers to entry. Treat your trading like a business and you will see it as less of a gamble.

Not at all. You don''t need to be a man to trade. But I would argue you are not likely to be a trader if you cannot see a free trade/option. this was deliberately meant to goad you into participating......and the same for everyone else. (it has nothing to do with your manhood.....maybe I should have asked are you a man or a mouse :haha:) Given the oft quoted 95% failure rate......and the lack of willing participants in the contest, then I am starting to think there is more likely to be a 99.9% failure rate, and the reasons are becoming obvious.

MightMouse - clearly then you are not a trader ....and I say this for anyone who does not want to participate. You have been given a free option to guess at where the market will be at zero cost to yourself. ( Apart from a bit of ego), and you dont really need to do anything except guess at a few numbers...... and yet you say no...... call me old fashioned.....its a great trade. I will take this all day everyday.

What has been your breakthrough moment? I have them all the time, and I hope to continue to have them. Until I am 100% automated.....and even then, I will still be interested in learning, having break through moments, and customising what I am doing for the market at hand. For 2010 if pushed for one thing that has made a difference..... consistency - in plan, attack, research and results analysis. While stopping the musical chairs jumping around of ideas is welcome, at some stage I see it as an essential way of organising, researching. learning - and keeping fresh.

For both the end of the Quarter and the end of the year SPX 1260 COMPX 2265 INDU 11570 Basically the prices as at the end of the year 2010 as I have no method of predicting future prices. thanks.

George Kodak Eastman also ended his own life, all be it under different circumstances.....so I would not think it fair to judge his great acts and lessons to be learnt from based off his final act. The nature of speculation and risk taking means that there will be multitudes of failure along the way, maybe the ultimate lesson is that risking it all will result in both spectacular gains and spectacular blowups....... you can choose to be more cautious.

I dont know about the lies lies and damn stats, but from experience I have seen many traders over the years, make more money for them selves, in bonuses etc; than they did for their clients. Usually as their trading records are something like.... +120%, +30%, +72%,+100%,-10%,+20%, -300% Its that last one that does the damage. Whilst working for yourself is completely different. There is no one to bail you out. The successful traders - I do know a few - probably about 1% of all those traders I have known, usually have trading records along the line of +30%,+10%,+40%,+15%,2%,-5%,+25%..... given this effort for consistency, after costs, after taxes and after living expenses, growing an account requires a larger base equity amount to start with, otherwise eventually inflation will still get you over the life of the person (20 + yrs). So the fail rate can still be high even for those who make money. Now you also have to distinguish between those that trade and those that make markets, those that follow indexes, those that operate peoples orders, those that do merger arbs, those that trade order flow for a bank etc. Not that there is anything wrong with these, but very few traders actually end up taking on risk as such and make a living from "pure" speculative trading.