This is the most inspirational speech I have ever heard. I know many of you want to be full time traders but somehow miss the courage to try it.
Yes, trading is hard at the beginning, some of you don`t have what it takes to be a great professional trader, but…the question I ask you is, “Do you want to be asking yourself this question for the rest of your life and wonder how it would have been?…”
Listen to this magnificent speech from Steve Jobs. It can be a life changer for you:
Just be yourself when you trade the markets… it will eventually lead you to success: Imagine, you are in the school yard again – set to impress that girl or guy you liked. You go up to them, pretending to be something you’re not. You may fool them the first or second time. But in the long term, can you keep up the act? Can you keep living being someone you’re not? It’s the same in the stock markets. Each one of us has different financial situations and goals. You cannot take the same level of risks that I take, and I wouldn’t take the same risks you would take. If you cannot be true to yourself in the markets you will find it harder to find your niche.
Just be yourself when you trade. Don’t pretend to be some high flyer risk taker if you can’t afford to risk that amount. The principle also works conversely. If you are a risk taker in real life, but are a chicken at trading – you will eventually get bored of trading. Of course, that assumes that you can afford to take that risk and that you have a trading plan complete with stop losses. Part of being true to yourself trading the stock markets is not to let the markets take control of you and your time. You must make a choice which trading time frame (intraday, end of day trading, long term trading) makes you comfortable, and stick to it. Some people may trade all three types – it’s their choice – it’s your choice. It depends if you are a multi-tasker or not. Just be yourself in the stock markets to stay true to yourself and your trading.
Two articles are doing the rounds. The first is a letter from Bridgewater hedge fund titan Ray Dalio, who has long believed the world is in a great deleveraging. He doubles down today and says the next ‘big’ Fed move will be more QE.
Here’s the crux:
the ability of central banks to ease is limited, at a time when the risks are more on the downside than the upside and most people have a dangerous long bias. Said differently, the risks of the world being at or near the end of its long-term debt cycle are significant.
That is what we are most focused on. We believe that is more important than the cyclical influences that the Fed is apparently paying more attention to.
While we don’t know if we have just passed the key turning point, we think that it should now be apparent that the risks of deflationary contractions are increasing relative to the risks of inflationary expansion because of these secular forces. These long-term debt cycle forces are clearly having big effects on China, oil producers, and emerging countries which are overly indebted in dollars and holding a huge amount of dollar assets-at the same time as the world is holding large leveraged long positions.
While, in our opinion, the Fed has over-emphasized the importance of the “cyclical” (i.e., the short-term debt/business cycle) and underweighted the importance of the “secular” (i.e., the long-term debt/supercycle), they will react to what happens. Our risk is that they could be so committed to their highly advertised tightening path that it will be difficult for them to change to a significantly easier path if that should be required.
Next is NYSE floor veteran Art Cashin at UBS. Some of his comments are mute because he talks about the potential for China to cut rates and that’s already taken place. He says to watch high yield closely and Jackson Hole.
Vice-Chair Stanley Fischer will be speaking later this week at the Jackson Hole conference. I think he will be addressing the problem of inflation and that it’s not growing in the pace they want it. That will give the world a hint that the Fed is not quite ready to raise interest rates.
1. The most important single factor in shaping security markets is public psychology.
2. To make money in the stock market you either have to be ahead of the crowd or very sure they are going in the same direction for some time to come.
3. Accepting losses is the most important single investment device to insure safety of capital.
4. The difference between the investor who year in and year out procures for himself a final net profit, and the one who is usually in the red, is not entirely a question of superior selection of stocks or superior timing. Rather, it is also a case of knowing how to capitalize successes and curtail failures.
5. One useful fact to remember is that the most important indications are made in the early stages of a broad market move. Nine times out of ten the leaders of an advance are the stocks that make new highs ahead of the averages. (more…)
