Bad Assed Trader: When I first started trading I could imagine succeeding but it was only in complete ignorance. I had no idea. It's like imagining yourself driving a car when all you've done is sit on the pavement and watch people getting into cars, driving and getting out. You have no knowledge of gears, brakes, clutch, mirrors, hazards, road signs, stalling, other road users, roundabouts, crashing...
You have no insight into what sort of a driver you'll be - aggressive, timid, safe, risk averse, foresighted, impatient etc or whether you'll even like driving.
Only when you get into the driving seat and the instructor takes you through the driving tools, the dashboard of indicators and all the complexities do you start to comprehend how much information you will need to process simultaneously in order to launch this thing onto the road and safely reach your destination at a reasonable speed.
So it has been with trading. First learning to go and stop. Accelerator and brake or place the order and stop loss/target. The market is everything external: the road conditions; other road users, some of whom are completely barmy/random; and the car itself which may have erratic performance if it's like any of the cars I had as a student. Thank God for AA membership.
When my dad (bless him) was teaching me to drive he would, on occasion, sit gripping the sides of his seat, his arms rigid and his shoulders up by his ears. When he did this he went very quiet, I couldn't even hear his breathing. But once I sensed the shoulders easing off and the lungs exhaling the words would come, in a controlled manner through gritted teeth: "You were only an inch away from that tunnel/car/wall..."
My reply was always chirpy: "That's OK then, an inch is all it needs dad"
I didn't hit anything, well at least not whilst my dad was with me in the car, but that's another story.
If my dad sat next to me during my trading I suspect those shoulders might get reacquainted with the ears because often it seems that with my trading style price does come perilously close to my stop loss before heading back towards my target. This is because with my snipers I always have a 20 pip stop and even if price initially goes my way it often retraces back a good 15 or 16 pips before bouncing back up.
I've learnt to expect this to prevent my own posture deteriorating into something akin to Quasimodo.
But coming back to my vision of success, the first few times I drove a car it seemed unlikely I would ever pull it off and become a safe and efficient driver. I've since driven hundreds of thousands of miles over nearly 30 years - argh! - and not (yet) been involved in a car crash of any significance (ie no injuries to any party)...long may it last.
During my first 6 months or so of trading I gradually started to actually see and comprehend the complexity and bizareness of the external conditions and my dashboard of indicators. I also slowly realised that my performance as driver fluctuated between being a slow fool and a reckless idiot.
What took 2 or 3 driving lessons has taken 6+ months of trading - gaining the ability to visualise in a more informed way (rather than from complete ignorance) how one might actually be able to ride this thing without crashing.
But as with driving there's also a time lag between being able to see how one might actually be able to trade with some consistent success and achieving that. One's inclination to take corners with a little too much speed, one's inability to use the clutch smoothly, all leading to dents in one's confidence if not in one's paintwork. And so it is with trading - jumping in too quickly and not riding smoothly to target - leading to dents in the trading account.
The skills need finessing. Overconfidence one minute, depression at one's jerky start off the next, and then panic when stalling at a busy junction. Yet with persistence, patience, discipline and the right safety mechanisms in place the goal can be realised.
Gradually I am honing my skills to trade and I can see the journey will take months/years. I understand it takes longer to see the results in trading because of the significantly random aspect of the market and because it is a harder set of skills to acquire.
The psychological aspect, the winning and losing money, the greed and the fear all massively affects the trading performance in unseen, unheard and often undetected ways until one honestly identifies it in oneself and deals with it. Not masking it or avoiding it but actually confronting it and working through it.
Here the similarity with driving ends. There is no such need to work through one's weaknesses and self delusions when driving, which is why we all agree that the roads are full of idiot drivers and that those driving more slowly than us are fools, those more quickly - reckless, and the rest are stalkers.
You have no insight into what sort of a driver you'll be - aggressive, timid, safe, risk averse, foresighted, impatient etc or whether you'll even like driving.
Only when you get into the driving seat and the instructor takes you through the driving tools, the dashboard of indicators and all the complexities do you start to comprehend how much information you will need to process simultaneously in order to launch this thing onto the road and safely reach your destination at a reasonable speed.
So it has been with trading. First learning to go and stop. Accelerator and brake or place the order and stop loss/target. The market is everything external: the road conditions; other road users, some of whom are completely barmy/random; and the car itself which may have erratic performance if it's like any of the cars I had as a student. Thank God for AA membership.
When my dad (bless him) was teaching me to drive he would, on occasion, sit gripping the sides of his seat, his arms rigid and his shoulders up by his ears. When he did this he went very quiet, I couldn't even hear his breathing. But once I sensed the shoulders easing off and the lungs exhaling the words would come, in a controlled manner through gritted teeth: "You were only an inch away from that tunnel/car/wall..."
My reply was always chirpy: "That's OK then, an inch is all it needs dad"
I didn't hit anything, well at least not whilst my dad was with me in the car, but that's another story.
If my dad sat next to me during my trading I suspect those shoulders might get reacquainted with the ears because often it seems that with my trading style price does come perilously close to my stop loss before heading back towards my target. This is because with my snipers I always have a 20 pip stop and even if price initially goes my way it often retraces back a good 15 or 16 pips before bouncing back up.
I've learnt to expect this to prevent my own posture deteriorating into something akin to Quasimodo.
But coming back to my vision of success, the first few times I drove a car it seemed unlikely I would ever pull it off and become a safe and efficient driver. I've since driven hundreds of thousands of miles over nearly 30 years - argh! - and not (yet) been involved in a car crash of any significance (ie no injuries to any party)...long may it last.
During my first 6 months or so of trading I gradually started to actually see and comprehend the complexity and bizareness of the external conditions and my dashboard of indicators. I also slowly realised that my performance as driver fluctuated between being a slow fool and a reckless idiot.
What took 2 or 3 driving lessons has taken 6+ months of trading - gaining the ability to visualise in a more informed way (rather than from complete ignorance) how one might actually be able to ride this thing without crashing.
But as with driving there's also a time lag between being able to see how one might actually be able to trade with some consistent success and achieving that. One's inclination to take corners with a little too much speed, one's inability to use the clutch smoothly, all leading to dents in one's confidence if not in one's paintwork. And so it is with trading - jumping in too quickly and not riding smoothly to target - leading to dents in the trading account.
The skills need finessing. Overconfidence one minute, depression at one's jerky start off the next, and then panic when stalling at a busy junction. Yet with persistence, patience, discipline and the right safety mechanisms in place the goal can be realised.
Gradually I am honing my skills to trade and I can see the journey will take months/years. I understand it takes longer to see the results in trading because of the significantly random aspect of the market and because it is a harder set of skills to acquire.
The psychological aspect, the winning and losing money, the greed and the fear all massively affects the trading performance in unseen, unheard and often undetected ways until one honestly identifies it in oneself and deals with it. Not masking it or avoiding it but actually confronting it and working through it.
Here the similarity with driving ends. There is no such need to work through one's weaknesses and self delusions when driving, which is why we all agree that the roads are full of idiot drivers and that those driving more slowly than us are fools, those more quickly - reckless, and the rest are stalkers.
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