The Tao of Publias

[Publias]

Originally posted by darkhorse
How can you profess to care deeply about the quality of your performance, yet not to care about results? Is the quality of performance not ultimately measured by the quality of results? What exactly is in our hands vs out of our hands as traders? What do we take responsibility for and what do we declare not our faults? If we must err on the side of taking on too much responsibility or too little, on which side of the line is it better to fall? I dare say there are answers to those questions, albeit broad ones. I do not suggest our emotions should swing wildly with our equity curves. (I would suggest equity curves should not swing wildly in the first place, but that's a different kettle of fish.) I agree that the ego and other irrelevant concerns should be purged, as being overly concerned with the ego is not logical.

Darkhorse,

First off you do not anger me... I think I replied in a very civil and calm tone, I have nothing to prove to you Dark... Sure I said you are arrogant, but you clearly know this already...

I really cannot understand why this is so hard for you to grasp... I have an edge, I know this edge works because it has been battle tested over time... I know that if I continue to keep taking this set-up overtime I will make money... simple as that...

I do not attach any emotions to the micro distribution of how that money should come... I focus soley on myself... Clarity, Courage, Committment... Clarity to see it, courage to act on it, and committment to manage it correctly... I ONLY ATTACH RESPONSIBILITY AND CARING TO THIS... I focus on the process and not the reward... My emotions intraday whether up 6k or down 3k are the same!

I dont understand what is so hard about this???

Publias

 

[Publias]

Dark,

Performance and micro monetary performance are often in discord... We play a game of chance NOT certainty... I can recognize my set-up 10 times in one day, do everything "right" and due to chance be down 5 large... I simply cannot control this...

In the same vein I can be up 5k at the end of the day and play horrifficly...

For you to sit here and say bottom line is all that matters on a micro level is absurd...

What you reap is what you sow, how long until you repeat those errors again and she comes back to bite you??? NOT LONG!

Process not reward... I really can't see why I have to keep repeating that Dark... You are bright guy, just think about it...

Human condition would lead us to believe that we actually played well for being up 5k, but that is distorted because you are not seeing the big picture...

I say wins and losses are the same, because I know the edge overtime is profitable... I can put on 3 losers in the morning, but were they "losers" if 4 weeks from now the same 100set-ups yielded a 1.5R gain each??? Nah they were not losers at all, they were just a microscopic portion of a larger macroscopic process...
Our minds and ego create win/loss, I simply see the folly in it, and rather than identify it as something negative or positive, I see it as opportunity... I transcended the duality of the two, and embrace them both as equals... just one more step in a much larger process..

 

[darkhorse]

Originally posted by Publias


I really cannot understand why this is so hard for you to grasp... I have an edge, I know this edge works because it has been battle tested over time... I know that if I continue to keep taking this set-up overtime I will make money... simple as that...

Nothing is so hard about that at all....I share the approach you just outlined and all successful traders essentially grasp and practice what you just said...but the substance of what you just outlined versus the larger macro implications of prior assertions on this thread are materially different. Or I am smoking banana peels. Or both.

Perhaps your views have gone through a process of evolution as you have thought them out and what I previously disagreed with was discarded. Perhaps the points I disagreed with you made by accident with a broad brush. Perhaps the points I disagreed with were wholly wrong interpretations on my part and you never previously said what I thought you were saying at all. Perhaps I am peewee herman. Who knows. Who cares? On these final, much more precise points you have made, we can fully agree and I think always have agreed upon.

 

[Publias]

Originally posted by rs7


Not me!

RS7

If you played shitty on a microscopic level and chance gave you 5k, you really lost probably more than 5k in the larger picture if you allow yourself to make those same mistakes over the next few months...

More clear now what I meant buddy???

 

[darkhorse]

Originally posted by Publias


If you played shitty on a microscopic level and chance gave you 5k, you really lost probably more than 5k in the larger picture if you allow yourself to make those same mistakes over the next few months...

More clear now what I meant buddy???

But... I would rather recognize I played crappy and still make money anyway, than have to pay for my mistakes. Free lessons are better than expensive ones if the student has the good sense to always absorb whatever lessons are available. All things being equal, since I strive to learn and improve with every single trade regardless of outcome, I would prefer to have cash in my lap rather than losses on the books.

Look at this way- would you rather play crappy and have your team win the game, or play great and have your team lose the game? What if it's a playoff game? What if it's game seven of the championship?

More to be considered.

 

[Publias]

Originally posted by darkhorse



Nothing is so hard about that at all....I share the approach you just outlined and all successful traders essentially grasp and practice what you just said...but the substance of what you just outlined versus the larger macro implications of prior assertions on this thread are materially different. Or I am smoking banana peels. Or both.

Perhaps your views have gone through a process of evolution as you have thought them out and what I previously disagreed with was discarded. Perhaps the points I disagreed with you made by accident with a broad brush. Perhaps the points I disagreed with were wholly wrong interpretations on my part and you never previously said what I thought you were saying at all. Perhaps I am peewee herman. Who knows. Who cares? On these final, much more precise points you have made, we can fully agree and I think always have agreed upon.

I am glad our views are now in accord... If you go back through my prior posts on this thread you will see the same recurring theme in all of them... process not reward, approach her in selfless manner, stay detached from things you cannot change, etc etc etc

Problem is that everything I have posted on this thread have been poems with the exception of the Poe and Hemingway quotes... You have to read them as if it were Frost, Whitman, or Elliot... The Tao Ching is just one long poem describing an experience... Ultimately the purpose is to tease you out of thought and make you feel something, the same way as Poe so greatly does... It is not logic or a tet book...


Anyway Dark,
PEACE and good trading,
Publias

 

[Publias]

Originally posted by darkhorse



But... I would rather recognize I played crappy and still make money anyway, than have to pay for my mistakes. Free lessons are better than expensive ones if the student has the good sense to always absorb whatever lessons are available. All things being equal, since I strive to learn and improve with every single trade regardless of outcome, I would prefer to have cash in my lap rather than losses on the books.

Look at this way- would you rather play crappy and have your team win the game, or play great and have your team lose the game? What if it's a playoff game? What if it's game seven of the championship?

More to be considered.

I am one of those sad cases that has to get kicked in the teeth to truly learn a lesson... So for me I would rather get spanked both emotionaly and financialy... If you go back and read "the momentary lapse of reason' post, I actually sent the money out of my account and donated it to my cousin...

Not for anything Dark but (for me) basketball is poor analogy, for this game has no end in sight AND there is no team... Just you and the market on a journey with no end in sight, game just goes on and on

 

[Pabst]

Originally posted by darkhorse



But... I would rather recognize I played crappy and still make money anyway, than have to pay for my mistakes. Free lessons are better than expensive ones if the student has the good sense to always absorb whatever lessons are available. All things being equal, since I strive to learn and improve with every single trade regardless of outcome, I would prefer to have cash in my lap rather than losses on the books.

Look at this way- would you rather play crappy and have your team win the game, or play great and have your team lose the game? What if it's a playoff game? What if it's game seven of the championship?

More to be considered.

Maybe if I only had one last day to trade I would just as soon it be a winner no matter how I played. But this isn't game seven. It's always spring training. For years I had crap habits and made money. But those habits catch up with you. Living beings are easily conditioned. If it works, no matter how faulty, we stick by it. Dark, if you're able to learn without losing you're a far more advanced creature then me.

 

[FasterPussycat]

>>"Logic without desire has no drive. Desire without logic has no direction. Talent without motivation will never be fully tapped. Intelligence without common sense is more dangerous than helpful."


dark, on a side note, would you explain how intelligence and common sense differ? what is "common sense" (as you define it)? can one be intelligent and yet devoid of this common sense? how is this possible? i ask because i have heard (as we all have) the hackneyed phrase "he is so smart that he has no common sense", and it always struck me as being nonsensical. common sense seems to me to be an element of intelligence. what do you think?

 

[Pabst]

Originally posted by Publias


Have you ever had a string of winners that caused a sensation of complacency or worst yet euphoria??? You start to get a little cocky or overconfident... start pressing a little harder... maybe risking more than you usually do on a trade... maybe blow a stop or two... Now on a rational level we know that every edge or system applied to the market will have a random distribution of wins and losses on a micro-level, but what exactly IS it that causes us to indulge these nasty emotions???

Ever blow a stop ??? Play moves right by your stop and yet you freeze and do nothing... On a rational level we know that we will have losses, we are traders and that is the game right... yet sometimes for some reason we just can't seem to accept a loss... we start to indulge hope, as if the market owes us something or is here to accomodate us...

Did you ever get in a play in one direction, market does not accomodate it but sets up in the opposite direction instead... You close the play but simply can't see the other side... In hindsight you know that it was an ecellent set-up in the opposite direction and that the play should have been spun, yet while the play is setting up on "the hard right edge" we can't see it...

Ever indulge in revenge trading??? Down on a day, had some bad breaks due not to anything you did, but maybe just chance... Now on a rational level we know there will be days like this, but that something inside of us compels us to try and trade out of it... you start to have what I like to call "cognitive illusions", seeing set-ups that are simply not there...

Ever cut a winner too short ... You get into a position and it starts to move in your favor and you know on a rational level that you must hold on and ride it for what its worth, yet that something inside of us, spawns that nasty emotion fear, and suddenly we get so attached to the position and to the fear of it snapping back and taking away your gains that you go and do what you know you shouldn't and grab the gain prematurely... After the play you sit back and can see more clearly now,because that thing is no longer attached to the play and you see it go another 3 or 4 R's in your favor...


PEACE and good trading my friend,
Publias

I may have to print this quote and keep it on my screen. When my girlfriend, who know's zilch about trading read it, her reply was, "he's talking about all the things that YOU do". I would like to know how "cognitive illusions", that is I presume set-ups that seem right, but ones that are somehow born out of frustration can be avoided. I think Publias is close to uncovering one of the great mysteries (at least to me ) of the trading thought process. Please my young brilliant serge, explain!!