Sorry to bore you friends, another article to ponder on.
A TURNKEY BUSINESS?
There are far too many traders who enter this profession looking for a
turnkey business.
An accountant can buy an existing practice. So can a doctor and, to
some extent, an attorney. An engineer can usually buy into an
existing firm.
Entrepreneurial-minded individuals can buy a franchise.
If you have enough money, you can get a high-profile big-name
franchise. A good one comes with training for you and for your hired
help. It comes fully equipped with everything you’re supposed to
need to run the business. Your advertising is laid out for you. You
have an employee manual and an operations manual. You are shown
how to set up your books, and trained in how to do it all on a
computer using the software provided by the franchiser. Unless you
are at the level of a functional idiot, you can pretty well be certain that
you are going to succeed.
However, trading is far from being a turnkey business. You simply
cannot go out and buy a mechanical trading system that is going to
guarantee you any viable degree of success. Oh, I know they are
advertised that way – so are some franchises in other areas of
business. But there are fakes and frauds the world over. Caveat
emptor!!
When you are a trader, no one gives you an employee manual.
No one offers you an operations manual.
There is no school to which traders can go to be trained specifically in this business.
No one can truly sit down with you to show you which futures markets
you should trade and in which time frame to trade them.
Trading is something that cannot be packaged. There are too many aspects of
trading that derive from the individual personality and mind set of the
trader him/herself.
Trading is not the only occupation that is that way.
Anything truly creative cannot be packaged as a business.
THE ART OF TRADING
People talk about trading as though it were scientific. With varying
degrees of success (failure??), they try to apply mathematics and
scientific theories to markets, and consequently to the trading of
futures. But if you allow trading to define itself, it is quickly seen that
it is an art form and not a science. Trading is more nearly compared
with art and music than it is with science.
Great traders are individuals, and almost always creative ones at that. Could anyone
package and franchise the ingredients that created a Salvador Dali,
or a Picasso? Would it have been possible to package and franchise
the make up of an Arthur Rubenstein, Elvis Presley, or Whitney
Houston? Trading is an art based on an artist’s perception of what is
happening in the markets. If it weren’t, there would be many more traders.
A TURNKEY BUSINESS?
There are far too many traders who enter this profession looking for a
turnkey business.
An accountant can buy an existing practice. So can a doctor and, to
some extent, an attorney. An engineer can usually buy into an
existing firm.
Entrepreneurial-minded individuals can buy a franchise.
If you have enough money, you can get a high-profile big-name
franchise. A good one comes with training for you and for your hired
help. It comes fully equipped with everything you’re supposed to
need to run the business. Your advertising is laid out for you. You
have an employee manual and an operations manual. You are shown
how to set up your books, and trained in how to do it all on a
computer using the software provided by the franchiser. Unless you
are at the level of a functional idiot, you can pretty well be certain that
you are going to succeed.
However, trading is far from being a turnkey business. You simply
cannot go out and buy a mechanical trading system that is going to
guarantee you any viable degree of success. Oh, I know they are
advertised that way – so are some franchises in other areas of
business. But there are fakes and frauds the world over. Caveat
emptor!!
When you are a trader, no one gives you an employee manual.
No one offers you an operations manual.
There is no school to which traders can go to be trained specifically in this business.
No one can truly sit down with you to show you which futures markets
you should trade and in which time frame to trade them.
Trading is something that cannot be packaged. There are too many aspects of
trading that derive from the individual personality and mind set of the
trader him/herself.
Trading is not the only occupation that is that way.
Anything truly creative cannot be packaged as a business.
THE ART OF TRADING
People talk about trading as though it were scientific. With varying
degrees of success (failure??), they try to apply mathematics and
scientific theories to markets, and consequently to the trading of
futures. But if you allow trading to define itself, it is quickly seen that
it is an art form and not a science. Trading is more nearly compared
with art and music than it is with science.
Great traders are individuals, and almost always creative ones at that. Could anyone
package and franchise the ingredients that created a Salvador Dali,
or a Picasso? Would it have been possible to package and franchise
the make up of an Arthur Rubenstein, Elvis Presley, or Whitney
Houston? Trading is an art based on an artist’s perception of what is
happening in the markets. If it weren’t, there would be many more traders.