Adaptation

Quote from bandit:

Hey I enjoy my nice cushy life. Been trading my own money since 1992, The only boss I have is my wife, (and the 3 year old at times). What a life with no one to answer too.

Life is too good to screw it up like that.
Bandit
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Aren't you going to adapt in that sense too?
 
Ya know sometimes you have to stick with what you are good at. I have bought and invested in several businesses....some did good, some I lost it all. My one constant has allways been trading for myself.

I just think if it aint broke, I aint gunna fix it.
 
Just a brief history on my trading, I did not keep very good records until 1995, but I will give you brief synopsis

1992 to 1994, Ran a trade desk, and at the time traded penny stocks to the tune of 10 trades/ month. Lost money in 92 and 93, 94 made a little, not much to say

1995 began trading Nasdaq stocks that were up big on the day on big volume, buy the close, sell the open (AMTX, IOMG, SYQT, just a few from memory). Worked for about a year, had maybe 9 or 10 losing weeks in 1995. Did 1 to 2 trades everyday.

1996 Started really daytrading heavily. Only played bounces on big down stocks for the day. averaged 3 to 4 trades a day. Had 5 or 6 losing weeks in 1996

My last losing week was November 1997

From 1997 on Daytraded everyday, open to close. Trade any style anytime. But my backbone of trading has always been short term trading, 5, 10, 20, minutes. Sometimes seconds. But it works for me.

Hope this answers your question without a spreadsheet
Bandit
 
Good post. The absolute key is changing with the environment. Its quite sad that so few people respect it, but then again its very fortunate for those of us that do.
 
Anyone who didn't realize that adaptation is the key to survival/success in everything in life has only one destiny: extinction! This is true not only in trading but to everything in life.













Hey, you might want to check the discovery channel :D
 
I sure missed the message.

Only things I have noticed that came along were periferal to markets.

color TV

jet air travel.

like Xerox

mutual funds

PC's and financial software

books on methods of investing and trading

bunch of wars

Advent of IBD

political crime

terroism.

I am reading the thread and seeing lots of stuff that got to people in some way or other. I am not in a groove where much change in making money has come up for me as yet.

The seige of SEC citations I got, I can now see as an SEC learning process. It came along with the advent of PC's and software stuff for charting.
 
Quote from bandit:

Just a brief history on my trading, I did not keep very good records until 1995, but I will give you brief synopsis

1992 to 1994, Ran a trade desk, and at the time traded penny stocks to the tune of 10 trades/ month. Lost money in 92 and 93, 94 made a little, not much to say

1995 began trading Nasdaq stocks that were up big on the day on big volume, buy the close, sell the open (AMTX, IOMG, SYQT, just a few from memory). Worked for about a year, had maybe 9 or 10 losing weeks in 1995. Did 1 to 2 trades everyday.

1996 Started really daytrading heavily. Only played bounces on big down stocks for the day. averaged 3 to 4 trades a day. Had 5 or 6 losing weeks in 1996

My last losing week was November 1997

From 1997 on Daytraded everyday, open to close. Trade any style anytime. But my backbone of trading has always been short term trading, 5, 10, 20, minutes. Sometimes seconds. But it works for me.

Hope this answers your question without a spreadsheet
Bandit
More...


Thank you so much. I have a much better perspective now. doing some self checks because I couldn't get oriented.

I am definitely a chicken.
 
The one example that I can recall about not adapting when your strategy/trading style quits working is that I know some guys that were making a lot of $$ doing pairs trading a few years ago that are no longer making the big $$ because their system quit working. I don't do pairs, but from what I understand, the strategy used to work a lot better than it does now.
 
Suppose there were strategies that were good month over month and year over year for more than a decade, with only minor adjustments necessary. How infinitesimal are the odds that anybody but the developers would ever know anything about them?

Isn't the assumption that everything can be optimized out of the market just as inflexible as a trader with an unadaptive mentality?
 
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