Magpie Trader
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Philosophical psychology and Phillips Dog
The quotes below are by a trader, 'Phillips Dog', who gives his words of wisdom most days on spreadtrade2win.
"The more success you achieve, the greater your self-efficacy, and the more likely you'll be able to trade in a greater variety of market conditions and persist until you achieve enduring profitability."
he also says:
"When you are dogged by a ruff trade, relax and learn to be flatulent. It won't move the market but it will move everyone else."
As all the pictures of him are a dog in front of his trading screens, I'm not entirely sure that it's not the dog who actually trades?! Anyway....
Yesterday was a humbling experience for me as it's been nearly 5 months since I've overtraded and gone on what I 'thought was going to happen' or 'pushing the envelope of possibilities' and not waited for a signal and not followed my strategy and plan. It cost me dearly. The day before had been one of my most profitable days in 2 years of currency trading (ironically the others occurred in that fateful first few weeks where I was the best trader in the world and my seat was soon to be parted from my flying pants).
Trading is 70% psychological and I know this (I've read the books!) and have been following this knowledge, re reading my Mark Douglas books and improving since I read them about 6 months ago, this was one of the main reasons I started this blog.
To give you the reader (if you've made it this far) some personal history, I've been blessed with picking new things up quite quickly, but.... when I was teaching myself to swim as a youngster (the woman who tried to teach me was a dragon and I didn't go back), I got over confident in my abilities after a few days, got cramp and almost drowned.
When I learned to ride a bike, once I was away and stable I went too fast, lost control and ploughed straight into a wall - I still have the scar 28 years later.
My second day on the ski slopes of Austria, on a school trip, I was imbued with the spirit of Franz klammer (the slightly older generation will know who he is) and proceeded to go into a 'tuck' at the top of a big run. After some exhilerating moments, to my surprise, the run ran out half way down with a weave left then right into a path along the side of the mountain. Not having any real stopping capabilities the weave left was handled with an attempted 'snowplough', but the weave right was very tight - unfortunately beyond the path were enormous fir trees growing up the side of the mountain and below the path. Looking back i'm not sure if it was such a good thing, but I stayed conscious as my momentum was abruptly halted by the trunk of a large fir about 30 ft up the trunk and about 20 ft over the side of the path, from here I proceeded gravitationally through branches and snow until the ground came up to hit me at an angle that continued my run down the mountain until another trunk got in the way. That was only a hair line fracture and some bruising.
When I started Shodokan (Tomiki) Aikido (a defensive martial art with lots of rolls and throws) I got a bit over confident with how far I could roll soon after starting, landed badly and tore the the top two abdominal muscles just under the ribs - very sore and lasts for about 6 weeks.
Even I'm beginning to notice a pattern. To say the least i have a trait that makes me run before I can walk - the trait then goes on to scare the crap out of me or injure me before I reign myself in and look upon it with a calmer attitude, then improve in a (semi) orderly manner. It's not just the situations above that this pattern has presented itself, it's pretty much with everything i've done from about the age of 4, I'm 33 now and I'm trying to change it. I believe though it is a good trait to have, but unless it's controlled it's going to have painful consequences.
As you may imagine my trading career has followed a similar line with many 'off the path, 30ft up a tree trunk' moments. However, I love trading, love learning and love spending time with my family and friends and having the time for Aikido and outdoor persuits - so, the goal of trading for a living provides for all the main loves of my life. Having been through all the pain that occurred in the first half of my trading career and having battled with my 'personality trait' all this time meant that revisiting it all again last night provided the impetus to write what you're reading now. I've known about this trait for years, become more aware of it in the last few years but really only started analysing it since learning to trade and reading Mark Douglas. After reading Mark Douglas I've talked about it with friends, but this is the first time I've written about and looked at it objectively with a view to really use it's assets but reign in it's failures. Maybe I'm just growing up?! - then again losing money has has always been something I don't like...
There's loads of strategies out there, you can learn from any number of free strategies with some basic trading knowledge in about an hour - use it mechanically and you'd make money. However, trading is an art form that presents an almost infinite number of possibilities at any moment of the day, not just in a trade as price can only go up or down, but what you're going to to if it goes up, then down, then up again - it's this that requires your personal psychology and patience to be like a thoroughbred race horse - learn to objectively observe what your perception of reality is at any given moment and to work and improve on it everyday. If it sounds esoteric to you and you're making money trading, then good luck to you, more than likely you're losing though. However, it's only you that can make your chosen strategy come to life.
Good luck!
Magpie
"The more success you achieve, the greater your self-efficacy, and the more likely you'll be able to trade in a greater variety of market conditions and persist until you achieve enduring profitability."
he also says:
"When you are dogged by a ruff trade, relax and learn to be flatulent. It won't move the market but it will move everyone else."
As all the pictures of him are a dog in front of his trading screens, I'm not entirely sure that it's not the dog who actually trades?! Anyway....
Yesterday was a humbling experience for me as it's been nearly 5 months since I've overtraded and gone on what I 'thought was going to happen' or 'pushing the envelope of possibilities' and not waited for a signal and not followed my strategy and plan. It cost me dearly. The day before had been one of my most profitable days in 2 years of currency trading (ironically the others occurred in that fateful first few weeks where I was the best trader in the world and my seat was soon to be parted from my flying pants).
Trading is 70% psychological and I know this (I've read the books!) and have been following this knowledge, re reading my Mark Douglas books and improving since I read them about 6 months ago, this was one of the main reasons I started this blog.
To give you the reader (if you've made it this far) some personal history, I've been blessed with picking new things up quite quickly, but.... when I was teaching myself to swim as a youngster (the woman who tried to teach me was a dragon and I didn't go back), I got over confident in my abilities after a few days, got cramp and almost drowned.
When I learned to ride a bike, once I was away and stable I went too fast, lost control and ploughed straight into a wall - I still have the scar 28 years later.
My second day on the ski slopes of Austria, on a school trip, I was imbued with the spirit of Franz klammer (the slightly older generation will know who he is) and proceeded to go into a 'tuck' at the top of a big run. After some exhilerating moments, to my surprise, the run ran out half way down with a weave left then right into a path along the side of the mountain. Not having any real stopping capabilities the weave left was handled with an attempted 'snowplough', but the weave right was very tight - unfortunately beyond the path were enormous fir trees growing up the side of the mountain and below the path. Looking back i'm not sure if it was such a good thing, but I stayed conscious as my momentum was abruptly halted by the trunk of a large fir about 30 ft up the trunk and about 20 ft over the side of the path, from here I proceeded gravitationally through branches and snow until the ground came up to hit me at an angle that continued my run down the mountain until another trunk got in the way. That was only a hair line fracture and some bruising.
When I started Shodokan (Tomiki) Aikido (a defensive martial art with lots of rolls and throws) I got a bit over confident with how far I could roll soon after starting, landed badly and tore the the top two abdominal muscles just under the ribs - very sore and lasts for about 6 weeks.
Even I'm beginning to notice a pattern. To say the least i have a trait that makes me run before I can walk - the trait then goes on to scare the crap out of me or injure me before I reign myself in and look upon it with a calmer attitude, then improve in a (semi) orderly manner. It's not just the situations above that this pattern has presented itself, it's pretty much with everything i've done from about the age of 4, I'm 33 now and I'm trying to change it. I believe though it is a good trait to have, but unless it's controlled it's going to have painful consequences.
As you may imagine my trading career has followed a similar line with many 'off the path, 30ft up a tree trunk' moments. However, I love trading, love learning and love spending time with my family and friends and having the time for Aikido and outdoor persuits - so, the goal of trading for a living provides for all the main loves of my life. Having been through all the pain that occurred in the first half of my trading career and having battled with my 'personality trait' all this time meant that revisiting it all again last night provided the impetus to write what you're reading now. I've known about this trait for years, become more aware of it in the last few years but really only started analysing it since learning to trade and reading Mark Douglas. After reading Mark Douglas I've talked about it with friends, but this is the first time I've written about and looked at it objectively with a view to really use it's assets but reign in it's failures. Maybe I'm just growing up?! - then again losing money has has always been something I don't like...
There's loads of strategies out there, you can learn from any number of free strategies with some basic trading knowledge in about an hour - use it mechanically and you'd make money. However, trading is an art form that presents an almost infinite number of possibilities at any moment of the day, not just in a trade as price can only go up or down, but what you're going to to if it goes up, then down, then up again - it's this that requires your personal psychology and patience to be like a thoroughbred race horse - learn to objectively observe what your perception of reality is at any given moment and to work and improve on it everyday. If it sounds esoteric to you and you're making money trading, then good luck to you, more than likely you're losing though. However, it's only you that can make your chosen strategy come to life.
Good luck!
Magpie
// posted by Magpie @ 12:44 pm 
