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Niederhoffer on making errors

As a squash player, I was gifted. I had all the right things going for me. I practiced. I was very good with the racket, and I had tremendous anticipation. But I tended to play an errorless game by hitting a slice on my backhand, which took a lot of power off the ball. That wasn’t a disaster, but it was definitely a weakness in my game. My opponents always used to say that on a good day they could beat me, because they could hit more spectacular shots than me. But they never did. I went for about 10 years without losing a game, except to [the great Pakistani squash player] Sharif Kahn. He made about six, seven errors a game—but he also made eight or nine winners. I would make about zero errors per game but only one or two winners. He had the edge on me about 10-4, and I regret that I was never willing to accept the risky shots and confrontations, never willing to play a more error-full game.

In my market career, I took too many risks. In my squash career, I didn’t take enough.

I wish I had applied my squash methods to my speculating. I’d be a very wealthy man if I had.

Trading Recipe!

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*The recipe for success in trading are as follows:

  • *Identify a signal
  • *Take immediate action
  • Feel good no matter what the result, as long as the trade is consistent with your technical bias based on sound probabilities

On the other hand, experiencing hesitation or self-doubt, just at the moment of action, is the recipe for failure!

An Hour With Arnold Palmer

“It is deceptively simple, endlessly complicated, a child can play it well, and a grown man can never master it. Any single round of it is full of unexpected triumphs and perfect shots that end in disaster. It is almost a science, yet it is a puzzle without an answer. It is gratifying and tantalizing, precise and unpredictable. It requires complete concentration and total relaxation. It satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time, rewarding and maddening and it is without doubt, the greatest game mankind has ever invented.” – Arnold Palmer

What a wonderful quote about the game of golf. Although to a lesser extent, the same things can be said about trading as anyone who trades every day in the trenches will tell you.

I was reminded about this perspective this weekend when watching an hour interview Charlie Rose recently conducted with Mr. Palmer. Many people don’t know this, but it was an biography of Arnold Palmer that I read as a child which originally sparked my interest in taking up the game. So, all of these years of both frustration and incredible enjoyment, I owe directly to Mr. Palmer.

Now in the twilight of his years, I found this recent interview really enjoyable particularly after the 30 minute mark. If you have an opportunity to watch this, I thinkhis advice about developing a system is so very important especially for new traders and investors as well as what the discussion after that about what it takes to win. Much like the quote above, the perspectives are priceless. Even if you don’t play golf or even hate the game, don’t miss this interview!

Click Below Link and Enjoy

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11823

17 Points for Traders

  1. Patient with winners, and impatient with losers
  2. Making money more important than being right
  3. View TA as a picture of where traders are lining up to buy and sell
  4. Before they enter every trade they will know their profit target and/or stop exit
  5. Approach trade no.5 with the same conviction as the previous 4 losing trades
  6. Use naked charts 
  7. Comfortable making decisions with incomplete information
  8. Do not think of markets as expensive or cheap
  9. Aggressive with trade size when doing well and modest when not
  10. Realize the market will be open tomorrow
  11. Judge their trading success on anything but money (more…)

17 Maxims for Life

1  Accept the fact that some days you’re the pigeon, and some days you’re the statue!
2  Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.
3  Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
4  Drive carefully… It’s not only cars that can be recalled by their Maker.
5  If you can’t be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.
6  If you lend someone  Rs 1000 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
7 It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
8  Never buy a car you can’t push.
9  Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won’t have a leg to stand on.
10  Since it’s the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late. (more…)

The Woman Who Made It on Wall Street

Sallie

Women are the foot soldiers of the business world, but they are rarely the generals. So it’s worth asking why no female has been as successful in scaling Wall Street as Sallie Krawcheck, Bank of America’s (BAC) wealth management chief. While other women struggle to avoid the “glass cliff,” she barely walks into a bank before she is groomed as a future CEO.

Krawcheck is best known for the kind of media adoration you can’t buy—for instance, that famous cover story from Fortune magazine, “In Search of the Last Honest Analyst.” But her rise began well before—and was speedy. In six years Krawcheck went from junior banker at Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette to chief executive of research firm Alliance Bernstein. She clocked just two years at Citigroup (C) before becoming CFO in 2004. Nine months after a falling-out with Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit in 2008, she was back in the game with a better deal: Bank of America wooed Krawcheck, just 45, to run its mammoth brokerage. And within six weeks on the job, she was named as a possible successor for its departing CEO. But as successful as she has been in winning over the media, interviews with former colleagues show Krawcheck has been just as effective in winning over her peers, too. Her rise has not been flawless and is still not assured after her troubled turn as Citi CFO. But it is very real.

Read More …Click here

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