Dao of Trading
- Thread starter martys
- Start date
I'm trying to fuck like i trade, but as i'm a daytrader my wife is not so happy with that. She asked me to trade on the medium long term. But when i asked if we could hold than positions overnight she said: keep on daytrading, but not every day.
You should play for your wife the Who song "Squeezebox":
"Mama's got a squeezebox.
Daddy doesn't sleep at night!"
She goes in and out and in and out and in and out and in.
She's playin' all night.
And the music's all right.
Mama's got a squeezebox.
Daddy doesn't sleep at night!"
"Mama's got a squeezebox.
Daddy doesn't sleep at night!"
She goes in and out and in and out and in and out and in.
She's playin' all night.
And the music's all right.
Mama's got a squeezebox.
Daddy doesn't sleep at night!"
"He who is fearless in being bold will meet with his death;
He who is fearless in being timid will stay alive."
IMO Old Man's best trading advice. He would have done well scalping NQ.
He who is fearless in being timid will stay alive."
IMO Old Man's best trading advice. He would have done well scalping NQ.
I noticed some content is missing in the translation I used so I settle with S. Becker's translation for Chapter 4... don't want to spend too much time looking...
Here is the link to S. Becker's translation:
http://www.edepot.com/tao10.html
Chapter 4. The Infinite Way (Dao)
"The Way is infinite; its use is never exhausted.
It is bottomless, like the fountainhead of all things.
It smoothes its roughness; it unties its tangles.
It softens its light; it calms its turmoil.
Deep and still, ever present.
I do not know its source.
It seems to have existed before the Lord."
Dao is all pervasive so it must be present in our mental continuum. As taught in Buddhism, if we examine our consciousness, we can't find its beginning because it is not made up of components (not created) therefore it will not end (decomposed). The mind is the ground for the reality we grasp... all the concepts we fixate.
If you leave the mind alone... it is the nature of the mind to liberate itself from the conceptual entanglement like a snake unties itself when put into a knot. All the good qualities we seek are never apart from the unwanted. All the good qualities of the mind are innate and always present despite our own confusion.
The thing to do is to face up to the thing we tend to look away because we label it "bad" while the feeling is a mere projection of the mind. Resolve its nature and not to dwell on its content. Buddhists said "The nature of samsara is nirvana." We should not look for heaven outside of hell. The long story board begins with our own confusion and fixations of self and others.
All the emotional up's and down's follow the conceptual fixations. I can't say they are good or bad but I don't see them helping in my own trading.... more like energy and time wasted. I think the practical thing to do is to pay extra attention to whether the things we do or situation we are getting ourself into might introduce more fixations in our trading. Just avoid them outright by planning things out and do extra work to minimize our exposure. It's a work-around until we reach Enlightenment.
Here is the link to S. Becker's translation:
http://www.edepot.com/tao10.html
Chapter 4. The Infinite Way (Dao)
"The Way is infinite; its use is never exhausted.
It is bottomless, like the fountainhead of all things.
It smoothes its roughness; it unties its tangles.
It softens its light; it calms its turmoil.
Deep and still, ever present.
I do not know its source.
It seems to have existed before the Lord."
Dao is all pervasive so it must be present in our mental continuum. As taught in Buddhism, if we examine our consciousness, we can't find its beginning because it is not made up of components (not created) therefore it will not end (decomposed). The mind is the ground for the reality we grasp... all the concepts we fixate.
If you leave the mind alone... it is the nature of the mind to liberate itself from the conceptual entanglement like a snake unties itself when put into a knot. All the good qualities we seek are never apart from the unwanted. All the good qualities of the mind are innate and always present despite our own confusion.
The thing to do is to face up to the thing we tend to look away because we label it "bad" while the feeling is a mere projection of the mind. Resolve its nature and not to dwell on its content. Buddhists said "The nature of samsara is nirvana." We should not look for heaven outside of hell. The long story board begins with our own confusion and fixations of self and others.
All the emotional up's and down's follow the conceptual fixations. I can't say they are good or bad but I don't see them helping in my own trading.... more like energy and time wasted. I think the practical thing to do is to pay extra attention to whether the things we do or situation we are getting ourself into might introduce more fixations in our trading. Just avoid them outright by planning things out and do extra work to minimize our exposure. It's a work-around until we reach Enlightenment.
I think S. Becker's translation is continued to be a little better... Here the "straw dog" (a sacrificial animal image) is translated as sacrificial objects.
Chapter 5. Emptiness and the Center
"Nature is not humane.
It treats all things like sacrificial objects.
The wise are not humane.
They regard people like sacrificial objects.
How the universe is like a bellows!
While empty, it is never exhausted.
The more it is worked, the more it produces.
Much talk brings exhaustion.
It is better to keep to the center."
The wise has no agenda and therefore does not take side just like the heaven and earth. Precisely because the heaven and earth are just empty space, everything flourish within. Words and concepts always take size and shape and therefore bring upon their own exhaustion. It is better to not take side.
As soon as we expect and fixate, then we lay seed for positive and negative outcomes... pleasure and pain. Not being prepare for the better or the worse make us overreact. I don't think it is practical or even healthy to strive for emotion-less trading. Buddha is not a cold emotion-less being and that is not the final goal. It is our reactions to outcomes due to confusion (fixating things to be one way or another) and losing perspective - that need to be managed.
As a system trader, basically I view myself as the computer operator and the janitor. During the day while I am babysitting my system, I sometimes find myself fixating on an individual trade like some kind of horse race with my money in it. Only when I remember this is gonna take years off my life and all the works I put in and stuff I believe in, am I able to keep things in proper perspective. I think I have to manage my own expectation as best I can and then deal with whatever emotions arise in an honest manner rather than ignoring or suppressing the feelings. I try not to dwell so much on the content of these feelings as advised by the Buddhist teachings but in general kinda sizing them up for what they are worth...
Chapter 5. Emptiness and the Center
"Nature is not humane.
It treats all things like sacrificial objects.
The wise are not humane.
They regard people like sacrificial objects.
How the universe is like a bellows!
While empty, it is never exhausted.
The more it is worked, the more it produces.
Much talk brings exhaustion.
It is better to keep to the center."
The wise has no agenda and therefore does not take side just like the heaven and earth. Precisely because the heaven and earth are just empty space, everything flourish within. Words and concepts always take size and shape and therefore bring upon their own exhaustion. It is better to not take side.
As soon as we expect and fixate, then we lay seed for positive and negative outcomes... pleasure and pain. Not being prepare for the better or the worse make us overreact. I don't think it is practical or even healthy to strive for emotion-less trading. Buddha is not a cold emotion-less being and that is not the final goal. It is our reactions to outcomes due to confusion (fixating things to be one way or another) and losing perspective - that need to be managed.
As a system trader, basically I view myself as the computer operator and the janitor. During the day while I am babysitting my system, I sometimes find myself fixating on an individual trade like some kind of horse race with my money in it. Only when I remember this is gonna take years off my life and all the works I put in and stuff I believe in, am I able to keep things in proper perspective. I think I have to manage my own expectation as best I can and then deal with whatever emotions arise in an honest manner rather than ignoring or suppressing the feelings. I try not to dwell so much on the content of these feelings as advised by the Buddhist teachings but in general kinda sizing them up for what they are worth...
Chapter 6. The Mystical Female
"The spirit of the valley never dies.
It is called the mystical female.
The door of the mystical female
is the root of heaven and earth.
It seems to be continuously within us.
Use it, and it will never fail."
This chapter is particularly cryptic. I don't really understand it. It could be hinting at some esoteric meaning about the relationship between internal self and the external cosmology. All I can think of is that the "deathlessness" of the valley spirit is being re-labeled as the mystical female and the "door" of that is being equate to the root of heaven and earth. As one concept is being built on top of another one... Nevertheless it is the deathless of our minds... being the ground for the heaven and earth.
The heaven and earth are all mind... Yet the mind is being described as a continuum that "seems almost existed" in the literal text. In the same way, each trade is a series of actions we designated as winner or loser while all along we are just fixating and shaping our mental energies as this or that. Be aware of the fact that mental fixations often lead to cycle of pleasure and pain. Doing away the fixations might require spiritual integrity and insight difficult to access in a confused state. However at least we should avoid over-invest our emotions into the fixation... knowing it is always a trap when things start falling apart.
I happen to come across this excerpt from William Eckhardt interviewed by Jack Schwager in "The New Market Wizards" on page 115. He is talking about the thing I am trying to do in my own trading. I don't want to take it out of context so I include the bulk of it:
I think this is well said not only for system trading. Overinvest oneself on the individual trade level is a trap.
I have mirrored this thread on the other board for disccussion (where dbphoenix hangs out). The following is the crap I posted when the subject of unconscious is brought up:
I used to be a discretionary trader using technical setups and I do think there is some unconscious business I have to manage. There are times when past experience and memories and what's going on at the moment trigger some images and feeling that make you impulsive to put a trade on:
1) You have to catch yourself when it occurs. Maybe writing down the feelings can help. It is essential to short-circuit the impulse and go into step (2)
2) You have to figure out if the setup is part of your trading plan because if it is not, you can't trade it and I'll tell you why you can't. Every technical setup works sometimes and not others. The ONLY way you can fulfill the probabilistic potential of the setup is by taking the SAME setup MANY MANY times consistently. Taking it just ONE time occasionally is gambling (the outcome is a function of luck).
But if you are some macro-trader not basing solely on technical inputs, then that is beyond my experience.
I used to be a discretionary trader using technical setups and I do think there is some unconscious business I have to manage. There are times when past experience and memories and what's going on at the moment trigger some images and feeling that make you impulsive to put a trade on:
1) You have to catch yourself when it occurs. Maybe writing down the feelings can help. It is essential to short-circuit the impulse and go into step (2)
2) You have to figure out if the setup is part of your trading plan because if it is not, you can't trade it and I'll tell you why you can't. Every technical setup works sometimes and not others. The ONLY way you can fulfill the probabilistic potential of the setup is by taking the SAME setup MANY MANY times consistently. Taking it just ONE time occasionally is gambling (the outcome is a function of luck).
But if you are some macro-trader not basing solely on technical inputs, then that is beyond my experience.