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Lots of traders say that they learn more from their losses than their gains. This has always seemed stupid to me. But I just read the following from the the disturbing book Goal-Free Living:

The best things I have ever done in my career came shortly after I decided that the best thing that could happen to me is that they would fire me. As long as you are sitting there saying to yourself, "Shoot, if I do this I might get a bad review," or "I might not get a promotion," or "Someone might fire me," you are never going to take the risk. Instead, go and do what you want because you think there is value in it ... some of [these big risks in my life] did not pay off, but I never got beat up. In some cases they turned out to be big wins.

For a long time I have taught that stupid losses carry no benefit. I am wondering what I think now. What do you think?

Continue reading "What's the best thing that could happen to you?" »

Posted by Rob at 09:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0) ..............................................................................................................................................

Rob, I just wanted to let you know, I've heeded your advice about good and bad trading days and so far things are in the positive (Friday's trades kicked ass, btw). It's funny, but part of the problem I've had is wrapping my head around the idea that not every day is a good day to trade, which leads me to believe that realistically, I might only have 2 or 3 days a week that are optimal trading days. That's great and everything, but I'm used to being someone's slave working 12+ hour days at all hours of the day and night. Working only 2 or 3 days a week and making ungodly sums of money is just...weird. That would likely explain my "trading frenzy" the past few weeks. Now, I'm just chilling out (saying NO to crack) and waiting for the right trade or day to trade then stopping when I get a positive trade or I reach my pip goal.

I have nothing to add. That was pure genius.

Continue reading "Say no to crack. Trade on active days." »

Posted by Rob at 09:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0) ..............................................................................................................................................

If you have a proven system that is working for you and your sticking to it, then if you have 1 or 2 bad trades from this system, how do you learn from your mistakes? I mean I know you should always try and learn from your mistakes, but your system's not going to win all the time even though you have to stick to it.

Here was my answer:

you might go back and ask:

1. did i trade on a day with no econ reports, or in a week when there was no econ reports? that would have told me to watch out 2. did i trade too many or too few lots? am i staying on track with my risk exposure? 3. was i tempted to enter again after the loss? how did i deal with that?

questions like that. make sense? maybe you don't alter your entry rules. but maybe you think more about the time of day you trade and your money management and your emotions.

Continue reading "Tested System After a Loss" »

Posted by Rob at 05:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) ..............................................................................................................................................

The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to raise its target for the federal funds rate by 2,500 basis points to 29 percent. We also sent $1.5 Trillion into the US money supply, so the increase won’t matter anyway.

Despite elevated milk prices and the fact that Bree on Desperate Housewives is on drinking binge, the expansion in economic activity in Turkmenistan appears solid. Core inflation has stayed relatively low in recent months, unless you happen to have bought any gasoline or ever turned on the heating in your house. Longer-term inflation expectations remain contained; at least that’s what our imaginary friend Aloysius Snuffleupagus says. Nevertheless, our ridiculous increases in the M3 money supply have the potential to add to inflation pressures.

The Committee is wondering where Alan went. If anyone sees him, will they let him know that we had a meeting today and he didn’t show up? We think that some further measured policy firming is likely to be needed to keep the risks to the attainment of both sustainable economic growth and price stability roughly in balance, but we’re not sure without Alan here. In any event, the Committee will respond to changes in economic prospects by continuing to print US Dollars in enormous quantities. In March, we’ll stop publishing information about the broad US money supply so we can keep from you the fact that we are creating huge pools of liquidity to prevent a recession, but all this is going to do is create massive inflation. And there is not a damned thing that you can do about it.

Except, of course, buy gold.

Continue reading "FOMC Statement | Jan 31, 2006" »

Posted by Rob at 01:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0) ..............................................................................................................................................