Where do you fit within your market analogy ?

[spinola]

I would not be trading if I did not want to make money on the trade, would I?

I don't know would you ? And if the focus is on making money whilst trading , how does that internal dialogue usually play out whilst experiencing external environment ? Is it necessary to be thinking of money or making it and are these thoughts to be repeated every time ?

 

[William King]

I consider market as a place which will not let you to safe your self from loss if you fails to make profit

 

[LiamH]

I don't subscribe to a particular analogy but for me to make money someone else must lose it at that time - This is the nature of the market. I just jump on board once I see that a move is on it's way... Following the herd if you will. Bit of a sheep and I like it that way - Less stressful.

 

[Splitlink]

I don't know would you ? And if the focus is on making money whilst trading , how does that internal dialogue usually play out whilst experiencing external environment ? Is it necessary to be thinking of money or making it and are these thoughts to be repeated every time ?

Well, to spell it out. Yes, I am thinking of making money when I open a trade. I can't conceive of thinking anything else.

When I feel philosophic about personal interest I will try to do something else, other than trade.

I do not think that it is necessary for me to actually think "I am trading because I want to make some money on this trade". I think that I can take that for granted.

The point, as I see it, regarding our exchange of posts, concerns the "I" word. Trading is not philanthropic. A philanthropic organisation, or charity, may be trading but it is doing so with the object of making money for itself.

 

[bbmac]

I read a great analogy that like an earlier poster described the market as an ocean, and a trader as a surfer. It went on to eulogise that the ocean is big and vast, - and dangerous, but it means us no harm, it is not even aware of our existance and our entry to it makes little or no impact on it. The surfer sits and waits, and waits, and waits, and only then does he enter when conditions are right and rides the perfect wave...it's a good analogy.

Personally I want to be 'in tune' with market not 'beat' it, it's bigger than me, so it might beat me back !

G/L

 

[DionysusToast]

If all traders are surfers, then who exactly is the sea ?

 

[spinola]

Is it Billy Ocean ?

 

[LiamH]

If all traders are surfers, then who exactly is the sea ?

I guess the only way that analogy works is if you only class small time retail traders as sufers because they don't move the markets - Those who do would then be the ocean..

 

[MrGecko]

My Analogy of the Market
by MrGecko

I imagine the markets as a backing singer on Chris de Burgh's album "Spanish Train and Other Stories" (A&M, 1975). While lasting only 43 minutes (only?!), this second album by de Burgh propelled the singer songwriter from the realm of schmoozy-woozy love jobs (de Burgh has a lot to answer for; namely, Michael Bolton) to a recognised individual on the contemporary music scene of the mid to late seventies.

The album included many tracks that de Burgh would become noted for. The record takes it's name from the opening track, which details a game of poker being played between God and the Devil, in which the Devil cheats and beats God (3J vs 2A + 28). Listeners are then led on a merry tail of debauchery ("Patricia the Stripper"), onto a song inspired by the hit TV show at the time Mork & Mindy ("A Spaceman came travelling"- a most un-christmassy christmas song), through the doldrums that one find in the middle of Chris de Burgh albums, to finish on a low note ("just another poor boy").

That is my analogy of the markets.

The End.

 

[HowardCohodas]

Perhaps the analogy is incomplete.

The financial market is a place where those with diverse interests can come together to achieve their respective goals by buying and selling standardized trading instruments and their derivatives. Just viewing the market such that all buyers have goals identical to other buyers and all sellers have goals identical to other sellers lets the richness and complexity of the market go unrecognized and good trading opportunities unexploited.

Investing, trading, hedging, balancing, etc are sufficiently diverse that neither buyers nor sellers predominate for long.

This view in not complete either, but, I believe it permits a more nuanced approach to achieving our respective goals as retail traders.

 

[redart]

If all traders are surfers, then who exactly is the sea ?

Big Investment banks and hedgefunds and stuff??

 

[bbmac]

If all traders are surfers, then who exactly is the sea ?

I guess the analogy works so far as you see yourself as disparate from the market, ie there is you and the collection of other traders-the market. In a sense you 'the trader/surfer' trying to ride the waves created by the ocean/market because their impact alone is not big enough to create such a wave (s.)

Edit: Sorry I just read posts above and some one already said this - Lol
G/L

 

[Splitlink]

I think that all this has to be put into perspective.

My daughter may think of the market as an ocean with surfers bobbing up and down. There is a difference between me and her, though. She's an artist and, for, that, you have to be imaginative.

 

[scose-no-doubt]

Do you make an analogy for going to the shop to buy bread, or would you need one if you decided get into the bread retail or wholesale business?
The big boys/price setters and most participants or those with the most money have a more complicated pricing method than most of us outside of the industry are used to and the financial markets are extremely elastic and very sensitive to information making them volatile and susceptible to rapid change. All of this makes them more risky and complicated than retailing bread. There's your only diff imo. No analogy needed.
But you guys say you make money and I'm b/e at best most of the time. Funny that I still wont change my opinion

 

[trader_dante]

My Analogy of the Market
by MrGecko

I imagine the markets as a backing singer on Chris de Burgh's album "Spanish Train and Other Stories" (A&M, 1975). While lasting only 43 minutes (only?!), this second album by de Burgh propelled the singer songwriter from the realm of schmoozy-woozy love jobs (de Burgh has a lot to answer for; namely, Michael Bolton) to a recognised individual on the contemporary music scene of the mid to late seventies.

The album included many tracks that de Burgh would become noted for. The record takes it's name from the opening track, which details a game of poker being played between God and the Devil, in which the Devil cheats and beats God (3J vs 2A + 28). Listeners are then led on a merry tail of debauchery ("Patricia the Stripper"), onto a song inspired by the hit TV show at the time Mork & Mindy ("A Spaceman came travelling"- a most un-christmassy christmas song), through the doldrums that one find in the middle of Chris de Burgh albums, to finish on a low note ("just another poor boy").

That is my analogy of the markets.

The End.

Someones been reading Brett Easton Ellis' classic

 

[Dommo]

Although it's probably trite, one of the most useful analogies I can think of is brownian motion/gas particles. It's extremely difficult to predict (with precision) the paths of individual particles. It is easier and more reliable to make aggregate statements eg

- on average, particles do not move indefinitely in one direction
- on average, particles move faster/further when the gas is heated

If you can make useful aggregate statements about a market, then subject to other things, the short term paths of individual assets or trades become less important. That is, if you employ a statistical viewpoint in trading - and I'm sure that not everyone will.

Asset paths do not, of course, obey strict brownian motion.

 

[MrGecko]

Someones been reading Brett Easton Ellis' classic

Does he end up making a packet, losing the lot and topping himself?

 

[trader_dante]

Does he end up making a packet, losing the lot and topping himself?

No, he ends up making a packet, losing the plot and topping quite a few others.

 

[Splitlink]

Someones been reading Brett Easton Ellis' classic

I have read that one, if it was American Psycho. Only a psycho could write a story like that. I've not touched one of his, since.

 

[robster970]

I have read that one, if it was American Psycho. Only a psycho could write a story like that. I've not touched one of his, since.

It is simultaneously and outstanding and completely gruesome book. It's how I imagine Arabian but without the psychopathic murdering bit (bon viveur, hedonist, etc)