It has to come from within you
In our proprietary trading business, we had many good traders, several excellent traders, and one extraordinary trader.
A great deal of what I have learned about electronic trading came from training this extraordinary trader and watching his progression from neophyte to world-class trader. Over time, he became one of the largest and most consistently successful traders in the market that he traded.
Unlike many traders who do not want anyone to know what they are doing, this trader was happy to tell anyone who would listen what he did and why he did it. He even suggested that we place new traders on either side of him so that the new traders could see what he was doing, as he did it, and learn to trade from his example.
At his suggestion, we placed new traders on either side of him using the same trading software and looking at the same charts. Additionally, this extraordinary trader would shout out what he was doing as he was doing it for the benefit of the entire trading room. In time, he brought his nephew and his best friend to sit on either side of him. He was committed, as we were, to the success of the traders he was training.
However, the traders on either side of him, even his nephew and best friend, could barely hold their own trading after watching him trade for months. They had a master trader telling them exactly what to do, in real time, while this master trader was making real money and they were barely able to break even.
How could this be?
Everyone wants to be able to watch what a successful trader does so they can see what they should do. How could these new traders be given what everyone else would judge to be the opportunity of a lifetime and not be able to make anything of it?
After much thought, I believe that the reason that sitting next to a world-class trader, who shouted out the trades he was doing, did not work because successful trading must come from within the trader. Certainly, you can learn from other traders, but you must find your own path to success.
In a way, having the obviously-successful trader telling the new traders what to do thwarted their progress because they only learned to rely on the great trader and never developed the great trader within them.
There is no easy way to learn to trade, but one thing is clear, in order to be successful at trading the skill must come from within you.
Wishing you success in your trading, Jeff
Copyright © 2008 by Jeff Quinto All rights reserved
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2 Responses to “It has to come from within you”
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It is hard to think one could not be successful after sitting beside the world-class trader. In many other fields of work, it is this apprenticeship that is the foundation upon which to learn the trade. So…it is difficult to fathom one not being successful sitting next to the master.
However, I suppose trading is so much different from other skills, it could very well require the development through self discovery, and not from this apprenticeship structure. After only two weeks of “planned trading”, only time will tell if I have the ability to develop this trader from within. But at the very least, “To thine own self be true.”
Just read that Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons recently died. What does that have to do with trading? Well, he happened to be a habitant of Lake Geneva, as is Jeff. Additionally, the following quote by him perhaps relates to finding the trader within. Is it a persona we create, or a real manifestation of our true being. I for one don’t know…
“There is no winning or losing, but rather the value is in the experience of imagining yourself as a character in whatever genre you’re involved in, whether it’s a fantasy game, the Wild West, secret agents or whatever else. You get to sort of vicariously experience those things.”
mj
I never met him, but he was a local celebrity and lived, if I am not mistaken, in a huge house on the other side of the lake from me. His NYT obituary said that he believed in the power of imagination and liked the radio because the “pictures were better”.
Jeff