Riley's One Liners for Ultimate Success in Trading and with a few other things too...

[Pat494]

Probably the most profitable area of your life is listening carefully to those criticising you and if valid do something about it. But you have gotta be man enough not to get wounded or cross, nay they deserve thanks.

 

[Fugazsy]

wherever you go there you are.

 

[Pat Riley]

If scaling out of a profitable position makes sense, then scaling out of a losing one makes even more sense.

 

[Fugazsy]

Every bar is a signal bar for both directions and the market can begin
a trend up or down on the next bar. Be open to all possibilities and
when the surprise happens, don't question or deny it. Just read it and
trade it.

 

[Pat494]

Don't ask what you can do for the markets, but what they can do for you.

JFK (almost)

 

[Pat494]

I have a dream - of pots of gold.

Martin Luther King ( almost )

 

[Fugazsy]

Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself?
LAO-TZU

 

[Pat494]

Always travel with a couple of aspirins in case she has a headache.

 

[Pat494]

When facing up to a mighty enemy always give way to those behind and let them through.

 

[Pat494]

When out in the bush, always keep an eye open for a climbable tree.

 

[Fugazsy]

when swimming in shark infested waters always swim between fat people. lol
paul hogan

 

[Pat Riley]

If scaling out of a profitable position makes sense, then scaling out of a losing one makes even more sense.

Which got me thinkin onto another area which doesn't seem to get too much attention. I've mentioned elsewhere (I think) that having a target level makes no sense as it turns the trade effectively into a binary - it either hits the target or it doesn't and if it doesn't you're left havin ta deal with what ta do with it. Plus a fixed target is always goin ta be arbitrary even if you think it isn't. The other side of the coin is that exactly the same logic (?) applies ta stops. If you use stops, it turns the trade into a binary for the same reason, it either gets hit or it doesn't. And while it doesn't but it's in negative territory you're left havin ta deal with what to do with it. The use of a target and/or a stop gives a false sense of security of having constructed a trade and the tendency, I suspect, is ta sit back and think all ya have ta do is watch it work, or not.

While havin a protective stop makes sense if your net exposed, ya need to be constantly managing your position, taking bits off or puttin more on if it's doin well and takin bits off it's not. Ya should never, ever get to your protective stop still holding your original size, ever. You won't do yourself any harm assessing your trade's progress bar by bar. How ya feel about at any given time should be reflected in how you manage it out.

Not exactly a one-liner now was it? But I felt it needed sayin.

 

[Pat Riley]

If you're not sure how long it's been in the fridge, offer it ta someone else.

 

[Pat Riley]

There have been 10,000 misquotes of Edison's attempts to fabricate a light bulb, and each one got us no closer to understanding the nature of failure.

 

[Pat Riley]

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he is a psychotic loner and secretly plots to ambush and kill them when they come back to look for him.

 

[Atilla]

There have been 10,000 misquotes of Edison's attempts to fabricate a light bulb, and each one got us no closer to understanding the nature of failure.

Failure = Getting it Wrong = Not getting what you want = Life

 

[Pat Riley]

Me point with the Edison quote thing was that it's a bit like traders who don't know when to quit. He obviously (or apocryphally) went on and on and on seeing each of the 9,999 'successes' in finding another way NOT to make a light bulb rather than realising he wasn't cut out for it and he was a bloody failure. Mrs. Edison presumably wasn't the type to point out his failings. But this is what ya need, someone to tell ya you're not going ta make a go of this; try doing something totally different that ya have an outside chance of not being so completely hopeless at.

If you want to see 10,000 failures as 'successes' that's up to you, but the only time you'll do that is in the privacy of your own deluded head. If anyone else has a stake in you, you're employed or you a partner or partners, they'll let you know a bit before you hit the 10,000th failure that it's bye byes time.

I'll credit Edison with one thing though, the ability to pinch somebody else's work and claim it as his own. He was a right roarin success at that he was.

And before anyone says, if he hadn't carried on we wouldn't have had electric light bulbs, would we not as hell. Somebody else would have come up with it. Somebody else probably did and Thomas the Tank nicked it I shouldn't wonder. Or somebody else would have come up with something even better.

That's the thing about failure, it frees up yer time to do something else. I think doin a lot of different things until you find something you succeed at is a whole lot better than carrying on obsessed with trying to do the one thing with no evidence of any success on the horizon, but with the hope that of the off chance that by accident, you'll make a success of it.

In spite of the ten billion aphorisms associated with the try, try again contingent, has it been your own personal experience that trying and tryin and tryin again eventually carries the day? Or have you found the things that have been successes in your life have come about in an instant as if by pure luck?

 

[Atilla]

Me point with the Edison quote thing was that it's a bit like traders who don't know when to quit. He obviously (or apocryphally) went on and on and on seeing each of the 9,999 'successes' in finding another way NOT to make a light bulb rather than realising he wasn't cut out for it and he was a bloody failure. Mrs. Edison presumably wasn't the type to point out his failings. But this is what ya need, someone to tell ya you're not going ta make a go of this; try doing something totally different that ya have an outside chance of not being so completely hopeless at.

If you want to see 10,000 failures as 'successes' that's up to you, but the only time you'll do that is in the privacy of your own deluded head. If anyone else has a stake in you, you're employed or you a partner or partners, they'll let you know a bit before you hit the 10,000th failure that it's bye byes time.

I'll credit Edison with one thing though, the ability to pinch somebody else's work and claim it as his own. He was a right roarin success at that he was.

And before anyone says, if he hadn't carried on we wouldn't have had electric light bulbs, would we not as hell. Somebody else would have come up with it. Somebody else probably did and Thomas the Tank nicked it I shouldn't wonder. Or somebody else would have come up with something even better.

That's the thing about failure, it frees up yer time to do something else. I think doin a lot of different things until you find something you succeed at is a whole lot better than carrying on obsessed with trying to do the one thing with no evidence of any success on the horizon, but with the hope that of the off chance that by accident, you'll make a success of it.

In spite of the ten billion aphorisms associated with the try, try again contingent, has it been your own personal experience that trying and tryin and tryin again eventually carries the day? Or have you found the things that have been successes in your life have come about in an instant as if by pure luck?

There is natural talent. For example; eye, hand coordination. Some can learn to catch a soft ball thrown at them from a very young age. Some can not at twice the age.

The same applies to applied intelligence, creativity and memory storage and recall. Different skills sets and functions of the brain.

Marvelous species that man is; some good with head, some with hands and some with feet. Maradona comes to mind.

Then there are those who are good with their heart and others complete with the poop-holes. Talent and aptitude... What a mystery it all is. :whistling

Real treasure trove that humanity is.

 

[alexaherself]

If you can't see an exit, don't go in.

Ooh, this one concerns me, and gives me pause for thought, Pat.

What about trades where a breakout of resistance (say) may turn into the start of a decent trend? This is the kind of trade I regularly go into without a specific exit in mind (trailing my stop-loss often).

Is that "going into a trade without seeing an exit" or is trailing one's stop-loss manually under the swing-lows "seeing an exit" in the sense that one knows that eventually either it will be hit, or one will "close in congestion" or whenever else one decides that one's reason for being in the trade is no longer valid?

It strikes me that with many trend-following methods, overall, the bulk of the profits inevitably come from a pretty small proportion of the trades, and these may be exactly the kind of trades one has actually gone into without really "seeing an exit" when one enters?

 

[MajorMagnuM]

ooh, this one concerns me, and gives me pause for thought, pat.

What about trades where a breakout of resistance (say) may turn into the start of a decent trend? This is the kind of trade i regularly go into without a specific exit in mind (trailing my stop-loss often).

Is that "going into a trade without seeing an exit" or is trailing one's stop-loss manually under the swing-lows "seeing an exit" in the sense that one knows that eventually either it will be hit, or one will "close in congestion" or whenever else one decides that one's reason for being in the trade is no longer valid?

It strikes me that with many trend-following methods, overall, the bulk of the profits inevitably come from a pretty small proportion of the trades, and these may be exactly the kind of trades one has actually gone into without really "seeing an exit" when one enters?

is there never a minimum exit you have in mind?