A Trade A Day

Wow, does blogging takes a lot of time. It takes me 30 minutes to an hour just to write a short post, rewrite and post it the blog. For the really thoughtful post like trading traps, support and resistance, and trading marubozu, writing can take even longer. Sometimes two hours to get clear what I want to say and to rewrite it. Those posts are the most fun though and I think the most beneficial to my readers.

Now I’m just ranting a bit because instead of devoting my usual two hours at night, I’m hunched over my keyboard at 4 in the morning to complain about how much time it takes to blog. I’m starting to feel energized though so maybe this will be a good change.

Why not write during market hours? I’ve given this careful consideration, but I can’t accept the risk of missed or mismanaged trades. I have adsense, but that money wouldn’t even cover commissions.

Part of my trading regimen is massive research. I want to commit 4 hours each day to going through charts, and that doesn’t include writing in my own trading journal and reviewing open and closed trades.

Originally when I started the blog, I thought I would copy and paste what I wrote in my trading journal and I may begin to do some of that. I think the analysis would be helpful and it always interesting to see what other people are thinking.

Anyway, I’m interested to know from all my fellow bloggers out there: What’s your writing schedule like? How much time do you commit? Has it impacted your trading?

BTW, don’t even get me started on blog promotion…

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Here’s my social security fast action fix for you. Dump it.

Income redistribution. However you want to dress it up, makes me want to vomit.

Social Security doesn’t work for retirement anymore. I don’t know of anyone that is depending on social security as part of their retirement plan. And if I don’t know it than it doesn’t exist!(I’m being sarcastic).

I’m not completely heartless, there would need to be a cutoff. An age that would give people enough time to adjust their retirement plans accordingly. Some age that would be negotiated. Not because it makes sense mathematically of course, but because it’s politically expedient This certainly would not be fair to those of us paying taxes who would never see any benefits, but it’s not fair to pull the rug out from those who are too close to retirement to make changes.

I’d just be happy to see those social security taxes go bye bye. I’m never going to benefit from them. And if I’m not going to benefit it needs to be gotten rid of or changed. (There I go with the sarcasm again) I could definitely use the extra income. Maybe pump it back into the economy with a new theme or blog contest!

Social Security just has too many hands in the pot. Not just retirement benefits. Don’t get me started on disability payments. I know too many people who are milking the disability system. I live in an area that has been economically depressed for 50 years. Aside from the high taxes, I would imagine part of the problem is would-be employees who are too lazy to work. So businesses look elsewhere. They get a “kink” in their neck and it’s onto the disability gravy train. Where I live, I can’t throw a rock without hitting someone who is getting disability. They’re not disabled, they’re lazy. They still have enough energy to cash their check though.

Social Welfare/Insurance sounds nice and in theory it is. But It doesn’t work. The product of social welfare is an attitude of laziness and entitlement where people disregard hard work and planning.(not sarcasm this time).

My Grandfather, the one who loaned me my first trading stake was a janitor and farmer all his life. He was a product of the Great Depression. I won’t bore you with the stories, but he started out as an indebted farmer, living in a converted one-room-schoolhouse and became a millionaire.

How did he do it? He never had a sense of entitlement. He didn’t count on the government for anything. He worked really hard and was a meticulous planner. If I did hope, it would to be as industrious as he was.

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A CEO buddy of mine has an excellent saying. He’s always telling his employees “Hope is not a strategy”. I think he’s a pretty good CEO, but I guess I might wonder how well his company is doing if he’s constantly telling his employees to stop hoping.

In all seriousness, he’s got a point. How often do we go through life hoping something will happen. Hoping we find a wife/husband. Hoping we can pay our bills, hoping for a raise. You get the idea.

My life has no hope. At least as little as I will allow. My life is a project plan. I use goals and make plans. I’ve heard goals are good ideas with a timeframe. I can accept that, but I still focus on execution and use my goals to guide me.

My wife still has hope and I constantly try to get her to give it up. She’ll tell me…”I want to do X, or In 2 years I want to be here”. “Ok honey”, I say, “let’s sit down, map it out and detail the next 5 steps we need to do to make it happen and execute one of those steps right now!”

Usually, the conversation ends right there. I’m getting her to change her approach, but it’s slow going.

In the trading world, avoiding hope and fear have become cliche. The solution is the same. It all comes down to sticking to your method and execution. I’ve gotten more personal and career satisfaction from applying that same cliche to life.

Of course life likes to throw curveballs. It doesn’t always go as planned. It’s presumptious to assume that the secret to success is that easy, but you’ll get farther treating your life like a project with goals, timelines and todo lists than you will having hope.

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I am re-reading one of my all-time favorite trading books “Trader Vic - Methods of a Wall Street Master“. Vic talks about a trading idea he had as the result of keeping the books at Lehman Brothers. In turns out that several of the partners were building a sizable position in the stock of Superior Electric. Thinking that the partners at Lehman we’re the smart money, Vic recommended this stock “tip” to one of his friends. I’m sure you can imagine how the story goes. Vic’s buddy put $40k (This is 1966) in the stock and it tanks. Vic feels horrible and on page 8 Vic says something that I’ve forgotten up to this point:

“It’s one thing to manage someone’s money, even a friend’s, on a professional basis; if you lose, it’s just part of the professional agreement. It’s another thing to offer market advice when you think you’re doing people a favor - you usually hurt them more than you help them.”

Vic says point blank:

“Don’t do your friends a favor by offering them unsolicited advice on any market position.”

Lately, I’ve not posted many trading ideas. There are a couple reasons for this, but Trader Vic reminded me of this rule that I had long forgotten. I have to confess, I’m not good at sticking to it. The problem is I love to talk about markets and I love to share my opinions. I would argue that most traders/investors with a few years experience wouldn’t take a stock tip or idea at face value. What I see on a chart may be different than what you see. What may be a good idea to me, may be/is a crappy idea to you.

But I think the combination of stock tip and a less experienced trader is problematic. When I started out and I hit a losing streak, I traded other people’s setups. I had ideas coming from chat rooms and news letters. It was a distraction from what was truly the problem. The problem, in that case, was the perception that my method should be a consistent winner. I hadn’t defined “consistent” properly and didn’t understand that in a loser’s game you lose more than you win. And even if you understand that you lose more than you win, no one starts out thinking they may lose for weeks at a time.

So will I stop posting trading ideas? Probably. In my estimation, the only reasonable caveat is to illustrate a method or concept. What are you thoughts?

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I guess money does buy happiness…

Attention Tim Sykes haters.

If you’re thinking about trading commodities…

And finally, I thought this was an interesting take on the Fed as a Bank.

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