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The Chart Angle Delusion

  
  Education
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“The lack of intrinsic meaning of angles on a bar chart has significance even for chart-oriented traders who do not employ angles. How sharply a trend slopes on a chart is often a psychological consideration in making a trade. If you fall prey to this influence, you’re letting the chart maker’s practical and aesthetic considerations impinge on your trading. Any trend can be made to look either gentle or steep by adjusting the price scale. ”

– William Eckhardt, New Market Wizards

If you use price action as a filter — and visually interpret charts as part of your process — how do you guard against the chart angle delusion?

One potential remedy is focusing on hard inputs that are independent of chart aesthetics. High and low point successions, moving average crosses, and volatility expansion / contraction (changes in average trading range) are three examples.

Another helpful practice is deliberately viewing more horizontally extended (flattened) charts in tandem with the main view (as such mutes the ‘exciting angle’ temptation)…

Personality Traits

  
  Education
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16780The research of Costa and McCrae suggests that personality traits fall into five broad categories, with each category displaying a number of facets. Their NEO-PI personality trait inventory labels these categories and facets as follows:

* Neuroticism – Anxiety, Angry Hostility, Depression, Self-Consciousness, Impulsiveness, and Vulnerability;

* Extraversion – Warmth, Gregariousness, Assertiveness, Activity, Excitement-Seeking, Positive Emotions;

* Openness – Fantasy, Aesthetics, Feelings, Actions, Ideas, Values;

* Agreeableness – Trust, Straightforwardness, Altruism, Compliance, Modesty, and Tender-Mindedness;

* Conscientiousness – Competence, Order, Dutifulness, Achievement Striving, Self-Discipline, and Deliberation.

Mastering the Art…

  
  Education
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“You have all these people trying to come up with formulas to beat the market. The market is not a science. The science may help increase the probabilities, but to excel you need to master the art of trading.”  
– Mark Minervini, Stock Market Wizards
“After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved, science and art tend to coalesce in aesthetics, plasticity, and form. The greatest scientists are artists as well.”

– Albert Einstein

To achieve trading greatness, one must first become an artist. To become a true artist, one must first master the art.
What does it mean to “master the art” of trading? What kind of nuances and subtleties are involved?  What range of experiences, processes, and deep situational knowledge is required?

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