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Russell Sands on What Causes the Market to Move.

Russell Sands was one of the original “turtles” trained by the famous commodity trader Richard Dennis. Dennis believed that commodity traders could be trained, as opposed to a colleague who believed great trading was an innate ablility. To settle a bet, Dennis placed ads in trade magazines and interviewed hundreds of candidates, eventually choosing 32 trainees. The new traders were named turtles, after the turtles Dennis saw being raised on a farm in Singapore.

   By the way, if that story line sounds familiar, you may have seen the movie Trading Places, starring Eddie Murphy and Dan Akroyd. And for my only movie review on this site, I give it two thumbs up. Very funny. (more…)

So – you want to be a trader?

Trader-ASR

• In 1973 Larry Williams published a book titled “How I Made One Million Dollars Last Year Trading Commodities” detailing his trading success that year. The next year he lost the million dollars.

• Michael Marcus started with $30,000, borrowed another $20,000 from his mother and then proceeded to lose 84% of their combined capital (imagine trying explain that to your Mom) before becoming a successful trader.

• In 1987 several commodity funds managed by Richard Dennis lost 50% of their capital and were forced to stop trading.

It is the most competitive field out there, not only we have to fight each other (yes – this is what we do), but we have to oppose enormous computing power of heartless machines turning trades in nanoseconds. 

Here is a simple test if you cut to be a trader – if you can stay emotions free when you finish it – try stock betting…just don’t bet your house on it – that was a job of banksters. (Just remember – 99% of you will be better of sticking with just a test and not moving to real trading)

 Step 1. Go to your bank on a windy day.
Step 2. Withdraw a minimum of  Rs10,0000 in cash.
Step 3. Walk outside and with both hands starting throwing your money up into the air.
Step 4. After all of the money has blown away, go home and sit down in your favorite chair and calmly say, “Gosh that was foolish. I wish I hadn’t done that.”
Step 5. Get on with your life.