Originally posted by Don Bright
Please understand that "simple" is not "easy" ...
...but this is a game of probabilities, and the higher your batting average, the better you'll do in the long run.
....be open to many concepts.....
...but an open mind can pick up a lot from others....
Don
It's simple once you understand. The instrument panel on a jumbo jet is 'simple' to the pilot but not to you or me. Confidence stems from conviction and peace is born of understanding, which takes hard work to get. It's easy to rock a trader's world when he doesn't have a grip on it.
Proptraders and daytraders may need a high batting average, but the biggest and best traders in the world would argue that the batting average statistic is essentially irrelevant, or at least not relevant in the way you would
assume it to be. Since the sum of money won by just five of these guys is greater than the sum earnings of all prop and day traders who have ever existed anywhere, they may have a point worth considering. As Soros says, 'it doesn't matter how often you are right or wrong- it matters how much you lose when you are wrong, versus how much you make when you are right'. Maybe he's full of it, but he is a multi billionaire so hey who knows.
I am a guy just voicing my opinion with no financial gain from it whatsoever, just the enjoyment of sharing my thoughts and perhaps getting a little more self clarification in the process. You are a prop trader with a prop trading business to promote and run. Nothing wrong with that, just saying that 'be open to all concepts' means ALL concepts, including ones that may be hostile to your vested interests, like the possibility that strategies that once thrived in cash rich environments may very well die in cash poor ones, or that the viability of entire strategies comes and goes as the environment shifts and changes.
Do what you want, play how you want, just make sure you KNOW what you really want and that you're playing in the BEST way you know how to get it.