Calling all "Senior Members T2W" Experienced traders! Help Newbies?

[SOCRATES]

Part 3A ~ Continued from post No 64 of this thread.
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Dave JB,

We were discussing teaching.

To continue with what I was saying so far, it is not just good enough in this profession to have hazy ideas.
To have hazy ideas is a luxury that poets can afford, not traders. Therefore it is the duty of the tutor to deliver the correct ideas that are perfectly clear. This clarity presents a problem. The problem is that what we are dealing with is an intangible concept, overlaying a discipline whose primary nature is mechanical.
Markets are not random. Markets contain structures. These structures are specific to individual instruments because each instrument has a dedicated professional following of its own. Therefore all instuments possess a certain similiarity, but they differ in character for this reason. The element of intangibility arises because there is no one you can ask as to why a particular move is developing, it is a matter of acceptance. Most ordinary people cannot accept this. They try to force. Forcing does not work.
Force fitting does not work either. This is why certain indicators work and then suddenly they don't work.
What does work is a Mark 1 eyeball properly paying attention.

But this Mark 1 eyeball is not accustomed to observing what it percieves to be random and perverse in the extreme. This is because in ordinary life there is nothing to compare with the development of price action and development in an active market. Ordinary people are not in the habit of having to "accept" or of, as
DBP says "being available". They want to force. Yes, TO FORCE.

The reason for this human condition is that in ordinary life all is repairable except death.Ordinary people take it for granted that any blunder can be put right in some way or other. This may be the case in ordinary life ~ but not in the markets !

When they first encounter the relentless mercilessness of price action and price development, they may be intrigued, perhaps bemused and fascinated. When they encounter the same again this time they start to get "ideas". These ideas have no basis in fact, because they are prevented from fathoming the mechanism that causes these changes. When they look and encounter not the same but similar (through their untrained vision) they start to develop opinions. When they look and encounter not the similar but something different, they develop convictions. All of this is very dangerous indeed. It is dangerous because they do not realise they are prevented from understanding what drives all this.It is as if they are looking at the face of an ornate clock, but know nothing of the mechanism that drives it or sounds the chimes. They would argue, from their perspective(which is an incorrect one for the purpose of trading) that it would not be necessary to understand the mechanism behind the clock face, as they are in a hurry to tell the time. This is OK in ordinary life (you don't buy a car and take it all to bits and put it together again now do you? Although I have a friend with whom I shared a red porsche 356 who used to do just that, and then rang me late at night howling with dispair ~ of course we sold the car !) What I mean is that in ordinary life it is not neccessary to do this, in order to understand properly how something works, how it is expected to work and if it does not work, why not ?

But it is necessary for a trader to know how markets work, really work, and not the way they might hope, wish, percieive, believe or assume that they work. It is necessary because the profession demands it of the trader, otherwise we would all be flipping coins in the air and guessing.

Must go, sorry. To be continued. Part 4A followed in post No 107.

 

[nicos]

Socrates post 77 above.
"As you are a flyer, you now know very well what is meant by "holding the attitude".
This does not come to a pilot overnight, many flying hours are required before the
pilot has the ability to relax within a framework that requires intensive multitasking.
This has a very interesting parallel in the profession of trading and dealing."

Being a pilot, flying instructor myself, I couldn't resist adding to this.

Trading is like flying in bad weather. You need to be proficient in instrument flying. This only comes with experience and and there isn't really that much to teach. You must learn to ignore your sensations and senses, except what you see on the instrument panel. Many have killed themselves and others, soon after they gained their basic instrument qualification, not least one of the Kennedy brothers (was it Robert?).

You aim to get to your destination, alive. To do that you need to plan the flight. I f you don’t you are not in control. You need to get the weather and have alternates. You can do it on the basic instrument panel and a radio. You can do it better with additional facilities e.g. extra radio, HSI, ILS, GPS autopilot but you have to introduce them gradually (otherwise they add to your workload) and be prepared to do without them when they fail. As you become more experienced, you need less planning and you do it almost automatically.

 

[SOCRATES]

Soc,
you won't get all learners to advance at the same pace - with respect don't you think the whole educational establishment has devoted rather a lot of effort to that over the years? Each individual responds differently to different stimuli and styles of teaching - and I assure you that failing in any endeavour carries pain, trading is not very different to Physics at all, one reason why the Institute of Physics includes a special interest group on the Physics of investing!

There is a huge amount of research on how people think and learn, experiments on advancing the learning process take place on extremely large scales - you appear to have discovered what works for you and to now assume that this is 'the' way to learn, that's plain wrong. I'm sorry if that's not entirely accurate, but it's certainly the way it comes across. Your route to profit has served you very well, I'm genuinely pleased for you, but others WILL do it differently.

My objections are based primarily on your response to what was a relatively small amount of pig headedness from a very few of the 20,000 people on here. Many people post here, some more expert than others, weathering far more opposition - 'your' thread was a lecture, effectively, and should have been delivered as such in my view - the facility to run a private thread exists here, this could have been done for your thread so that those you considered offenders could be ejected.

Part of that noise was from people querying why they should accept what you said as true - if you post under a nickname, and nobody has a clue who you are, then it's a sensible precaution to try to ascertain why they should listen to you rather than any of the charlatans so regularly encountered. Now I do think that there's a polite way to do that, and I'd agree that some here go into 'auto-rottweiler' mode as a matter of course, which is unfortunate and can be quite upsetting. These were valid concerns, any sensible reader should satisfy themselves they aren't listening to a lunatic or conman, and if you post in this anonymous manner you do have to understand that there will be a certain amount of opposition.

Paul's right by the way - one of the things about Einstein that I found interesting was that his Nobel prize wasn't for anything in the E=MC^2 line, or Special or General relativity, but for earlier work on the Photoelectric effect... he was famous (at least in Physics circles) well before he did all that bending of spacetime.

Dave

Dave, hear me out and be patient. How the educational establishment educates people is a different matter altogether. Trading is not found on any curriculum in any university you can name. The reason is obvious. And the reason for this escapes even the most intelligent and well educated of the population.

I have not finished your reply, in fact, I haven't seriously started yet. This is only the preamble. When I unfold this all for your benefit and for the benefit of the membership and to my satisfaction you will finally understand, which is , WITH RESPECT SIR, NOT YET SIR !

 

[kevin546]

Socrates

Re Post 83

Is not part of the process to trading the development of a trading plan around price action, (acceptance and plus or minus development) with the balance of probabilities favouring your own side from your own parameters and time frame. To have an established trading plan of your own requires the hard work and commitment to formulate all the different components and there interaction within the trading plan, the in depth study and analysis, the test and practising, the ongoing evaluation all to produce a manageable end product. This requires graft, an obsession like commitment to establish yourself as a successful trader with an open mind to new ideas through the never ending evaluation.

 

[SOCRATES]

Socrates

Re Post 83

Is not part of the process to trading the development of a trading plan around price action, (acceptance and plus or minus development) with the balance of probabilities favouring your own side from your own parameters and time frame. To have an established trading plan of your own requires the hard work and commitment to formulate all the different components and there interaction within the trading plan, the in depth study and analysis, the test and practising, the ongoing evaluation all to produce a manageable end product. This requires graft, an obsession like commitment to establish yourself as a successful trader with an open mind to new ideas through the never ending evaluation.

Yes it is. You are perfectly correct. But all of this has to be done in structure, not scattergun.
For this reason this topic is not easy to learn, to gather all the threads that make up the rope,and what is more there is a sequence in which the threads must be added in order to make up a reliable rope. Fortunately, many experienced traders have recorded their experiences, which for us is a bonus as we do not have to reinvent the wheel, but follow what it is they have encountered and recognise dangers which they point out which are sometimes blatant and sometimes not, and foolish for us to ignore. I will be coming to all this in due course.

 

[DaveJB]

Okay,
but with I am sure equal respect, I was not talking about teaching specific courses, but about how the brain learns... and when you go from inefficient to proficient in trading you are in fact learning.
However, if you are going to continue I won't keep arguing the point, do carry on <g>
Dave

 

[SOCRATES]

Being a pilot, flying instructor myself, I couldn't resist adding to this.

Trading is like flying in bad weather. You need to be proficient in instrument flying. This only comes with experience and and there isn't really that much to teach. You must learn to ignore your sensations and senses, except what you see on the instrument panel. Many have killed themselves and others, soon after they gained their basic instrument qualification, not least one of the Kennedy brothers (was it Robert?).

You aim to get to your destination, alive. To do that you need to plan the flight. I f you don’t you are not in control. You need to get the weather and have alternates. You can do it on the basic instrument panel and a radio. You can do it better with additional facilities e.g. extra radio, HSI, ILS, GPS autopilot but you have to introduce them gradually (otherwise they add to your workload) and be prepared to do without them when they fail. As you become more experienced, you need less planning and you do it almost automatically.

Spot on, Nicos. But you see, you need flying hours do you not ? It may sound like sense in the classroom but it is not until you are forced to carry out drills that they jump up at you and have meanning ~ until they become automatic. Fine. The difference in trading is that emotion gets in the way. This emotion disables reason. The cause of the emotion may come from various sources and have different reasons. The most common stimulus is impatience followed by guilt at not doing anything, perhaps greed,or a mixture thereof, depending upon the circumstances in which the trader "perceives" he finds himself at the time. In flying aircraft the stimulus is different. Here the pilot is forced to act as a by product to preserve life, i.e., not to prang the kite ! It is more clear cut and easier to identify, whereas in trading the disabling via emotion is insidious, the effect of boredom and frustration may be impulsiveness, the effect of greed and impatience similar, and so on. All these hidden triggers in trading are very dangerous. For the newbies it can be like having a loaded weapon with the safety catch off at the wrong time, in the wrong environment, under the wrong circumstances, for the wrong reasons, in the wrong frame of mind. But all these things are documented by traders that have preceded us, whose experience it is foolish to ignore. I will come to this in more detail later.

 

[SOCRATES]

Okay,
but with I am sure equal respect, I was not talking about teaching specific courses, but about how the brain learns... and when you go from inefficient to proficient in trading you are in fact learning.
However, if you are going to continue I won't keep arguing the point, do carry on <g>
Dave

Yes Dave, later this afternoon, I never trade on Friday afternoons, I keep them free.

 

[Gardan]

SOCRATES: Just trying to understand,is this journey to take us outside the box?

Thanks

 

[SOCRATES]

SOCRATES: Just trying to understand,is this journey to take us outside the box?

Thanks

Yes, when you learn what not to do, you will arrive at what you must do.
I am going to show you what must not be done.
When you are able to do that, then it is safe for you to leave your box,
WITH PRECAUTIONS,
but not before.

 

[axthree]

Tradesmart: Thanks for all above i will check em out.
You look far to middle class to be riding round on a "Broom"
Re: Bramble I kind'er like him too!

axtree: Without a parachute????

On the one occasion when something happened which may have reqired its use I was too low to use it.
I haven't worn a parachute since my last military flight, descending on those things is FAR to dangerous

 

[axthree]

Being a pilot, flying instructor myself, I couldn't resist adding to this.

Trading is like flying in bad weather. You need to be proficient in instrument flying. This only comes with experience and and there isn't really that much to teach. You must learn to ignore your sensations and senses, except what you see on the instrument panel. Many have killed themselves and others, soon after they gained their basic instrument qualification, not least one of the Kennedy brothers (was it Robert?).

You aim to get to your destination, alive. To do that you need to plan the flight. I f you don’t you are not in control. You need to get the weather and have alternates. You can do it on the basic instrument panel and a radio. You can do it better with additional facilities e.g. extra radio, HSI, ILS, GPS autopilot but you have to introduce them gradually (otherwise they add to your workload) and be prepared to do without them when they fail. As you become more experienced, you need less planning and you do it almost automatically.

Nicos,
Much better than I could have put it. Must come from being a destructor

 

[Quercus]

Socrates et al.
It may come as a surprise to some that emotions/ego/personality come to bear in many aviation accidents, in fact more often than the passenger public would really like to know. It is for these reasons that flying and trading may have many similarities.
Early on in someone's flying career an experienced and well-balanced instructor may recognise the problems, and be able to correct the potentially fatal traits. Sometimes these personality traits are so strong that they do in fact lead to accidents many fatal. Of course the worst scenarion is the instructor who has these traits, and then subsequently imparts them on to the student! The phrase "here watch this" springs to mind. There are too many fatalities which are attributed to this macho/ego based behaviour to mention here but do a google and you'll see what I mean.
Perhaps the worst ones are driven by cultural belief systems, whereby the co-pilot is unable to tell the older Captain that they're going to fly into the ground, due to the fact that he is older and therefore must know better. These are largely Asian based beliefs and the related accidents occur within the Asian airlines. But don't underestimate the power of an experienced senior Captain in their ability to really "control" matters, in what has become a largely systems management role. Most of these accidents are generically called CFIT (Controlled Flight Into Terrain), and a huge amount of work has been carried out across the world to encourage crew integration through what is known as crew resource management, or CRM. This has had a great impact on the improvement of safety standards, and a subsequent reduction in accidents/incidents has occured - thankfully.
I could go on forever about this but the point I make is that emotions and egos come to play in so many parts of life that they can not, indeed must not be overlooked. They must be recognised, and managed in the most appropriate manner for the task at hand whether that be interaction in the markets or driving around the M25!
Hope this hasn't bored too many of you!
Cheers
Q

 

[kevin546]

Q

Not boring at all if there is one major obstacle to successful trading it is being able to deal with your own emotions. It does not matter how good a trading plan maybe if you cannot control your own emotions then you will not have the discipline to apply the rules you set yourself. I maybe on the wrong path but the only way I seem able to control my own emotions is to design a plan where I trade mechanically like a robot with each decision already accounted for so that there is no thinking involved but to react according to the rules of your own plan. Even with all the hard work I have put in I still find it difficult but when I let things slip by breaking a rule I always end up paying the price and gradually overtime my discipline has improved.

Socrates - keep going with the thread it is thought provoking.

Kevin

 

[Gardan]

Kevin546

Q

Socrates - keep going with the thread it is thought provoking.

Kevin

Kevin: What do you mean? Who's this SOCRATES chap?

I thought you where listening to me????

 

[kevin546]

Garden - I will consider it.

Socrates - are you willing to explain why you give Fri pm a miss, is it just because it is the end of the week or for some strategic reason.

Kevin

 

[SOCRATES]

Garden - I will consider it.

Socrates - are you willing to explain why you give Fri pm a miss, is it just because it is the end of the week or for some strategic reason.

Kevin

I give and have always given Friday PM a miss going back to my days on the floor.
I observerd that by 1200ish the major business of the day had been done.
Then I observed that the seniors sloped off if they had a good reason or excuse.
This left the juniors there as "caretakers", under middle seniority supervision,

But the thing that struck me and filled me with alarm was the fact that after noon,
in time for lunch, veryone stampeded and headed for the pub, the nearest favourite being the **** and Woolpack, and then, when everyone came back, well oiled, things were not the same, and, also, instead of people acting professionally and thinking of their business, they were already in weekend mood, thinking and discussing and dreaming of what it is they were going to do.

Of course there are exceptions. This is not a cast iron rule for Friday afternoons.
Sometimes really serious action develops quickly on such days, but in the main, over the
years, this abstention rule of mine, which no doubt some might consider strange, I find has served me well, generally speaking.

 

[SOCRATES]

My post above .........Oh, alright then !
No one is going to be offended by the name given to a male hen, starts with a c and ends with a k.
In case you still do not fathom it the second letter is an o and the third is a c.
Gracious me !

 

[SOCRATES]

Q

Socrates - keep going with the thread it is thought provoking.

Kevin

Yes Kevin, you are all going to find all of this very interesting indeed.

 

[boy]

A.K.A. Dick.