T2W Trading Community

THINK LIKE A FUNDAMENTALIST;
TRADE LIKE A TECHNICIAN
R U L E  10

To trade/invest successfully, think like a fundamentalist; trade like a technician.

It is obviously imperative that we understand the economic fundamentals that will drive a market higher or lower, but we must understand the technicals as well. When we do, then and only then can we, or should we, trade. If the market fundamentals as we understand them are bullish and the trend is down, it is illogical to buy; conversely, if the fundamentals as we understand them are bearish but the market's trend is up, it is illogical to sell that market short. Ah, but if we understand the market's fundamentals to be bullish and if the trend is up, it is even more illogical not to trade bullishly.

 R U L E  11

Keep your technical systems simple.

Over the years we have listened to inordinately bright young men and women explain the most complicated and clearly sophisticated trading systems. These are systems that they have labored over; nurtured; expended huge sums of money and time upon, but our history has shown that they rarely make money for those employing them. Complexity breeds confusion; simplicity breeds an ability to make decisions swiftly, and to admit error when wrong. Simplicity breeds elegance.

The greatest traders/investors we've had the honor to know over the years continue to employ the simplest trading schemes. They draw simple trend lines, they see and act on simple technical signals, they react swiftly, and they attribute it to their knowledge gained over the years that complexity is the home of the young and untested.

UNDERSTAND THE ENVIRONMENT
R U L E  12

In trading/investing, an understanding of mass psychology is often more important than an understanding of economics.

Markets are, as we like to say, the sum total of the wisdom and stupidity of all who trade in them, and they are collectively given over to the most basic components of the collective psychology. The dot-com bubble was indeed a bubble, but it grew from a small group to a larger group to the largest group, collectively fed by mass mania, until it ended. The economists among us missed the bull-run entirely, but that proves only that markets can indeed remain irrational, and that economic fundamentals may eventually hold the day but in the interim, psychology holds the moment.

And finally the most important rule of all:

THE RULE THAT SUMS UP THE REST
R U L E  13

Do more of that which is working and do less of that which is not.

This is a simple rule in writing; this is a difficult rule to act upon. However, it synthesizes all the modest wisdom we've accumulated over thirty years of watching and trading in markets. Adding to a winning trade while cutting back on losing trades is the one true rule that holds--and it holds in life as well as in trading/investing.

If you would go to the golf course to play a tournament and find at the practice tee that you are hitting the ball with a slight "left-to-right" tendency that day, it would be best to take that notion out to the course rather than attempt to re-work your swing. Doing more of what is working works on the golf course, and it works in investing.

If you find that writing thank you notes, following the niceties of life that are extended to you, gets you more niceties in the future, you should write more thank you notes. If you find that being pleasant to those around you elicits more pleasantness, then be more pleasant.

And if you find that cutting losses while letting profits run--or even more directly, that cutting losses and adding to winning trades works best of all--then that is the course of action you must take when trading/investing. Here in our offices, as we trade for our own account, we constantly ask each other, "What's working today, and what's not?" Then we try to the very best of our ability "to do more of that which is working and less of that which is not." We've no set rule on how much more or how much less we are to do, we know only that we are to do "some" more of the former and "some" less of the latter. If our long positions are up, we look at which of those long positions is doing us the most good and we do more of that. If short positions are also up, we cut back on that which is doing us the most ill. Our process is simple.

We are certain that great--even vast--holes can and will be proven in our rules by doctoral candidates in business and economics, but we care not a whit, for they work. They've proven so through time and under pressure. We try our best to adhere to them.
This is what I have learned about the world of investing over three decades. I try each day to stand by my rules. I fail miserably at times, for I break them often, and when I do I lose money and mental capital, until such time as I return to my rules and try my very best to hold strongly to them. The losses incurred are the inevitable tithe I must make to the markets to atone for my trading sins. I accept them, and I move on, but only after vowing that "I'll never do that again."