12 more observations on life and the markets
Note:
In honor of the completion of my new book manuscript and in appreciation
of the response to my initial posting on A
Dozen Observations on Life and Markets, here are a dozen new observations:
- Trading is the most
difficult of sports: nowhere else does one begin a career by opposing the
world’s most accomplished professionals. - Extreme trading size
produces extreme emotional outcomes, leaving traders with certain trauma or
addiction. - A universal trade setup:
Hope, then despair. - Fidelity to purpose: the
mark of good trades and great traders. - Mentors cannot achieve
more for you than they have accomplished for themselves. - Date markets before
deciding to marry them. - Addiction: when the desire
to trade exceeds the desire to make money. - Good traders master a
market; great traders master markets. - Success is the point at
which talent meets opportunity. - Work without talent is
drudgery; talent without work is self-betrayal. - Psychology can never
substitute for skill. - Trading is the only sport
in which the rules governing the players change constantly – and without
notice.
Brett N. Steenbarger, Ph.D.
is Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at
SUNY
Upstate
Medical
University
in
Syracuse
,
NY
and author of The
Psychology of Trading (Wiley, 2003). As Director of Trader
Development for Kingstree Trading, LLC in
Chicago
, he has mentored numerous professional traders and coordinated a training
program for traders. An active trader of the stock indexes, Brett utilizes
statistically-based pattern recognition for intraday trading. Brett does not
offer commercial services to traders, but maintains an archive of articles and a
trading blog at www.brettsteenbarger.com
and a blog of market analytics at www.traderfeed.blogspot.com.
His book on trader development, Enhancing Trader Performance, is
scheduled for publication in Fall, 2006 (Wiley).