[walterw]

I think as time goes by and experience is there you dont fall in love with market, but the temptation is there... and we must be aware of this temptations, specially on winning positions... thanks Janice for another great thread... cheers Walter.

[thetradingdoctor]

Thank you! There are so many analogies between trading and our lives outside the market, and this is just one of them. This topic is related to fear of loss and fear of success. From a behavioral neurofinance point of view, we are dealing with a core tenant of Kahneman and Twersky's nobel winning economic thesis on Prospect Theory.

Why do we cling to what is not working? Why are we risk averse in the realm of profits and risk taking in the realm of losses? In other words, why do we hold loser and let winners run?

Thanks!

Doctor Janice

[thetradingdoctor]

One of my colleagues who is a trader and ocean surfer just sent this to me. Talk about the course of true love, the trials and tribulations, the waves of adoration and despair as we try to find balance,equilibrium and perfect symmetry. Wow!

http://www.charthub.com/images/2007/08/06/Jim_ES.png


Perfect Symmetry from Friday to Monday's mirror reverse image down and
up form such a terrifyingly beautiful form of symmetry and aesthetic
beauty. Some of the most terrifying forms of nature, Hurricane
Katrina, huge storm swell waves, atomic bombs, tornadoes create
nature's most terrifyingly beautiful and perfect forms. Large and
powerful forces are at work here. It is only possible to ride big
waves with respect and with fear firmly in control, but with an
aggressive stance or be crushed and tossed in the maelstrom. This kind
of 20 plus big wave up and big up close has not occurred for over six
years and after such a big down for over 7 years since prior historic
highs and only 2 times in the last 10 years

[PYenner]

Doc, I am struggling to get this one.

At first it seemed obscure.
Academic what if, maybe, who cares stuff.
A bit Freudian and cartoon-like, too two dimensional, like most philosophy.

Kids spend large chunks of both waking and sleeping hours with active fantasy mixed up with reality, enjoying it and learning from it but still "on another planet". You could categorize that as addiction, obsession-compulsion, selective exclusion of reality. It is also very much about learning, test driving our growing image of reality.

During the great depression, booze and the movies were two "useless" things that thrived against the odds. People needed to escape harsh realities, be lifted out of a hopeless mire into a childs dream world escape. You could categorize that as addiction, obsession-compulsion, selective exclusion of reality. Hope must survive, not just the body.

But I would not say that the intellect is disapproving, however rat brained and counter-productive in an obvious way, in a less obvious way the intellect is studing and judging. Perhaps it is rat on a long leash stuff, perhaps it is blowing a raspberry at a dismal reality. A protest over everything we have learned and been told leading us only to dismay.

You seem right on the individual points but I cant string it together.
I end up with a pile of feathers not a bird that flies.

Reality is never entirely real to us, our internal model of reality is a dream inside our heads, we are fonder of the dream than of the physical reality which can be far nastier than anything we care to imagine.

There are large chunks of market reality that I also need to shut out, unpleasant stuff. Now I go chasing a mistress for the pleasant stuff, not for the nasty stuff. The nasty stuff is no mistress of mine. She is only my mistress when we dance in step, not when she steps on my toes.

But bottom line is, I am unlikely to ever want to fertilize a forex chart!
There aint no procreation motivation, uh uh no way.
Keep Freud out of this. Analogy fails. Zero carnal content.

To me the promise of the market resembles the promise of the silver screen, to lift you out of the mire, deliver you from some of life's harsher realities.
So, yes and no, agree and disagree.

Hope is what draws me, hope of deliverance.

[thetradingdoctor]

Pyenner,

This has to be among the most profound and introspective of any post I have read on this thread. It is truly remarkable that you have the ability to pour your thoughts out in such an articulate manner.

The money in life goes to those who, even for a minute or an hour, lift us out of some reality that we perceive to be painful, intolerable, unbearable, pedestrian, quietly desperate. Think of the TV stars who get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars per one hour episode. Think of the movie actors who get paid millions for one film, the rappers and musicians who inhabit megamansions and drip with bling. Think of the athlete superstars making many millions a year. These and others give us deliverance, transport us to another place and time and another reality. Over eight million people now are living in secondlife.com ( and 40,000 are there right now which means that the others may have found a new and improved virtual community) where they can be anyone they want to be and do anything they want to do. Children play at fantasy and it is fantasy that draws us to it because it is just that. Pornography is fantasy and is a multibillion dollar a year business.



At some level, we are all addicts. Everyone is addicted to something, even though they may not know it or may not tell you.The ego is soluble in alcohol, drugs and and addicting activities. We escape the pounding demands of our ego through substances and fantasies. Those who are addicted to trading escape through the flickering ticks.

Fantasy can become our reality. We are in a day and age when we can have fantasy anytime we want it and can play as long as we want. Sometimes ( usually) we pay to play, but it is worth it because it keeps the dream alive and we don't have to remember that which is so painful and that we chose to forget.

There is nothing good or bad about any of this. It simply is what it is. We each make our own reality and it is our personal choice. This is far from Freudian psychobabble. This is about how we each chose to spend our time.
This is about taking personal responsibility for living our lives in the way that makes us the most happy and fulfilled. Different strokes for different folks and there is nothing bad about any of it unless it does harm to another sentient being.

You want deliverance, Pyenner. From what do you want deliverance? Does hope float and reality bite? What does deliverance mean to you?

Thanks for the awesome post, Pyenner!

Talk to me as I need to hear you. I might be a little addicted to the way your brain works.

Thanks!

Doctor Janice

[PYenner]

Gee Doc,

I had been concerned that I might get my wrist slapped for spamming your threads. Practicing shrinkage without a licence. Particularly the James_gxs thread "coulda woulda shoulda". Apologies if I bounced off the walls with that one but it struck a chord.

Now I have the dubious distinction of attracting professional attention.
It was not a cry for help. My big crises were 30 years ago so I learned to dig my way out of them.

I would not have described it as articulate, I was struggling to string it together.

The mire was more a reference to the depression realities, my own mire is more like the humdrum realities. Forrest Gump on one level, it would be funny if it wasn't for real.

I did get a harsh eye-opener 10 or so years back, that poverty in old age could be a nighmare, not a risk to be taken lightly. That did prompt me to wake my ideas up and give money a higher priority. I do fear being helpless in a society that no longer cares, money is a security blanket against that, money is options, independence.

My current business was supposed to see me through 15 years to retirement.
The government cut the turnover in half, it meets survival needs but offers no security beyond that. Most businesses take maybe 4 years to get to payoff stage, I can't afford to lose another 4 years on top of the last "investment", because there is a big dream that has been on the back burner since my teens.

In that field they say that if you don't do it by age 25 you will never do it.
Senile confusion is the thing that can beat me, so there is something of a race against time and that is not a good thing with trading.

The market was a low entry cost business, so no 4 years to get to breakeven. Just learning curve. So yes, miracle answer, holy grail, yeah yeah okay.

There have been ups and downs, but there is reason for optimism provided the irrational moments get understood. Familiarity helps.

You may think thay our James_gxs has high ambitions, but mine were so improbable that I had to recognize that no-one would pay me to chase that dream. So my career was 2nd choice, from a list of only two. The Government sank that carreer 5 years down the road. There was no third ambition so the bulk of my working life was nothing about aspirations, just survival.

Used to be a sometimes computer geek and gamer.
Still gaming in my 50's and it is still escapist stuff but without the insights that you get from some movies.

One part of me would love to be computer gaming the market, just fun no serious consequences. So the addiction, obsession-compulsion, selective exclusion of reality equipment is all in fine working order and is being "helpful".

Can't fool you about addictive denial huh?

[PYenner]

Head in the stars, feet in the mud.
Want to leave the mud behind, before senility beats me.
The price of daring to dream an ambitious dream.

[PYenner]

Umm maybe it will save me some time on the dissection slab if I tell you what you don't want to hear.

I have probably been trading or demo trading 40-60 hrs/week for the last 6 months, plus about 20hrs/week of mundane business.

I got used to working 80hrs/week some years ago, brain fog sets in at around 100hrs/week and makes you useless at around 120hrs/week. Provided you alternate, paperwork and thinking in the morning, doing from then on, it is actually efficient. It worked anyway, so now I tend to expect it when needed.

Switching to a trading time window is one of the things I will be looking at with some reluctance.

Learning involves questioning and it is the more difficult questions that are last to get answered. So there is a tendency for the questioning to increasingly undermine the thinking that the trading relies on. That is also getting looked at, there is a spiral involved when I go off track, it is the early warning things that I need to pay more attention to.

It isn't just the siren song of the market, there has been another siren calling for much longer and that seems to be where my heart lies. So be it.

The choice of a golden bull for an avatar has less to do with the markets and more to do with recognition that while stubborness is no substitute for an adequate IQ, you just gotta go with what you have got.

On second thoughts, that lot might get me certified.
Bone headed Taurus.