Nice trading quote

[Ferru123]

On one level, the markets are random. On another, you get certain patterns time and again. If you didn't, none of us would be able to trade profitably, if you think about it...

Jeff

[payuppal]

If you think more about it....

he is saying that the profitable traders are simply randomly selected...

[Ferru123]

But that is clearly a ridiculous notion.

It's theoretically possible that what separates (say) Peter from a newbie who loses constantly is just luck. But I bet if you were to do some statistical analysis of Peter's trades over the last 10 years, you'd find that the odds of that were about a trillion to one!

Ditto the top performers in the financial markets.

Jeff

If you think more about it....

he is saying that the profitable traders are simply randomly selected...

[payuppal]

I didn't say it was true, I said it was what he was saying...

[Ferru123]

'Fear is the dream killer, the silent voice that pushes us to lose our passion in a vain attempt to seek safety.'

Seth Godin

[Ferru123]

"What a distressing contrast between the radiant intelligence of a child and the feeble mentality of the average adult."

Sigmund Freud

[Ferru123]

'A trader's mind operates constantly from early morning until the exhausted trader collapses in bed at night. The rut of an energy drain can go on unabated for years, like a constantly fast-idling car engine that sometimes races but never has the key turned off. The vast majority of thinking is detrimental to personal peace and profits in the market. Thoughts of the past are a waste. Most thoughts of the future are the same.'

Bill Williams

[Euler]

"...we are explanation-seeking animals who tend to think that everything has an identifiable cause and grab the most apparent one as the explanation. Yet there may not be a visible because; to the contrary, frequently there is nothing, not even a spectrum of possible explanations. But silent evidence masks this fact.....we are too brainwashed by notions of causality and we think that it is smarter to say because than to accept randomness." -Nassim Taleb, The Black Swan

[Ferru123]

'Suppose two traders, A and B, who are alike in most respects except the amount of money they have. Suppose A has 10% less money but he initiates a trade first. He gets in earlier than B. By the time B puts the trade on, the two traders have exactly the same equity. The best course of action has to be the same for both of these traders now. Mind you, these traders have very different entry prices. What this means is that once an initiation is made, it does not matter at all for subsequent decisions what the entry price was. It does not matter. Once you have made an initiation, what your initiation price was has no relevance. The trader must literally trade as though he doesn't know what his initiation price is.'

William Eckhardt (Trend following trader)

[Ferru123]

'If our desire for protection from pain supersedes our desire to face what is true, we are doomed to live lives that attempt to limit or ignore change. And that's sure to hurt. Lots'.

David Harp and Nina Smiley, The Three Minute Meditator (2007)