The Answer To Everything (inc. trading)
I’m busy trialling a new twitter-based direction for Long&Wrong that includes regularly published FX charts (Those of you that have requested to follow @LongAndWrong, please don’t take it personally that I haven’t responded, I am currently just experimenting with this idea). With my attention elsewhere it would be tempting for you to think that I won’t be making significant posts here, and you’d be right. But I love a challenge, so here is a single sentence by which you can solve all of your life’s problems (!)…
The cure for anything is salt water – sweat, tears or the sea - Isak Dinesen
So there you have it, any problem solved. But as this blog is meant to be about trading, let’s think about it in that specific context.
By now we have worked out for ourselves that trading is not a get-rich-quick scheme. If you aren’t prepared to put in a lot of effort, a lot of hours and a lot of sweat then you will be donating to the market for as long as your account can stand it.
We have also worked out that, unless you are an algorithm or an emotionally-retarded Brit, psychology plays a huge role in whether you succeed. You will have to handle the emotions that come with winning and losing large sums of money. Everyone has to find their own coping strategy (throwing the mouse, drinking scotch, viewing photography of dubious merit, punching walls, kicking cats, meditation or even bursting into tears) but whatever it is it must allow you to wipe the mental slate clean and come back afresh to the PC and start making good decisions again.
But here is where that quote is at its most brilliant. There are, I think, barriers to becoming a succesful trader that won’t be solved by spending another 90 hour week looking at charts or by attaining zen-like calm irrespective of profit or loss. You have to sort your life out and you do that by staring at the sea on a Sunday afternoon, because it is a place that makes you happy and provides that all important sense of perspective. And when it doesn’t matter quite as much and when you can even smile occasionally, random events seem to go your way just that little bit more often, edges suddenly become that little bit sharper and expectancy just that bit more positive.
Beach near L&W-Towers, SW England.
You’ll miss this nonsense when I am Twittering in fewer than 140 characters…”Be happy, trade better #psychobollocks”!
kicking cats, LW????!!!!!
Bursting into tears usually helps…to get my account topped up.
Jules
January 13, 2011 at 8:45 am
Better to be cruel to animals than manipulative
Of course I wouldn’t really kick a cat, I don’t ever want a cat close enough to be able to.
long&wrong
January 13, 2011 at 5:18 pm
I think I meet more than half of the coping strategy you mentioned..
no worries about the twitter
I think there is a way you can hang it on your blog as a widget
Black
January 13, 2011 at 1:54 pm
If you kick cats, don’t tell Jules!
I’ve played with the Twitter-widget for WordPress and it seems OK, a possible idea, thanks.
long&wrong
January 13, 2011 at 5:20 pm
Twitting, twatting, widgets, kicking cats, mouse abuse, referencing dead obscure Danish writers with strange nom de plumes….hmmm. Interesting mix! You are most certainly not Solfest.
Sandy
January 13, 2011 at 2:31 pm
I am actually Solfest’s minimum-wage button presser, and I have the “MUT” scars to prove it.
long&wrong
January 13, 2011 at 5:46 pm
LW you will be happy to know that I too am moving to a new format.
Although, as I find the twitterish 140 characters to be a tad windy I will be using the newest new thing, Twit.
Twit only allows 1 character.
So today’s trading is brought to you by the letter B.
solfest
January 13, 2011 at 4:09 pm
M
long&wrong
January 13, 2011 at 5:20 pm
O
long&wrong
January 13, 2011 at 10:00 pm
O!
long&wrong
January 13, 2011 at 10:01 pm
What’s really impressive about that “moo” is the length of time between the first two letters…but I digress!
So it’s the “emotional-retarded” part that I’m missing
Heading down to my local beach this Sunday afternoon!
Market Monkey
January 14, 2011 at 10:52 pm
Don’t criticize the delay, it won’t let you make the same comment twice so I deleted it the first time when I got stuck at “MO”!
long&wrong
January 15, 2011 at 7:41 pm
http://www.ama.ab.ca/road_report/camera/2-26b.htm
What’s a beach?
solfest
January 14, 2011 at 10:57 pm
So that’s why you are a climate-change denier.
I’ve saved the link so that in January 2020 I will be able to watch women in bikinis
long&wrong
January 15, 2011 at 7:39 pm
Ah yes, the many curing properties of salt water.
Attitude Trader
January 16, 2011 at 3:29 pm
The secret to profitable trading… deviate from the plan and receive a SWF
?
long&wrong
January 18, 2011 at 4:36 pm