Dec

30

Driving a motor car or motor bike is probably the best analogy I can think of for trading.

Start, Stop, traffic lights, dogs and cats on the road, cows, give way signs, t intersections, signs saying "kangaroos for next 50 kilometres ahead–and that is just in the first few 100 metres of leaving home– and then when you hit the express way, and consider yourself in the clear, there may be road works, or fog, and unsighted hazards ahead.

It's very rare you can enter an express way…of start to finish, or finish a journey uninterrupted.

It is our jobs as traders to close down all risks as they appear, in whatever form, to cause minimal bumps and bruises to ourselves. Problematic situations will appear when you expect OR when you least expect them, and when you do get uninterrupted runs, you appreciate them, since it is what you have planned for, but see less often than one may hope for.

Be flexible, bend like the tree, always give way when on the road, and when you hear the sirens move top the left and beware of trouble ahead.

Peter Tep writes: 

"Be like water" - Bruce Lee

Nice post Craig. I liken trading to Bruce's Jeet June Do methodology– using all the skills we have to move forward and strike the opponent down.

What worked yesterday may not work tomorrow. Especially with the presence of HFT, SMSF, central bank presence.

Chris Tucker adds: 

If one were to "always give way when on the road" in NYC, one would never get anywhere. Cabbies will eat you alive if you let them, they will try to force their way in front of you and then look at you as if you are a criminal when you fail to yield.

Yes, always giving way is a much less stressful way to navigate, but there is no victory in it!

Jeff Sasmor writes: 

Depends on how aggressive you want to be and what sort of car you are driving. If you are driving a beat up car and honk and go, they give way. I speak from personal experience on both sides of that transaction.

Jim Lackey adds:

Look where you want to go. Do not look where you don't want to end up. In a slide, if you look at the wall, you'll run right into it. If you look ahead down the race track it's amazing, you'll auto steer and correct your way out of the spin. In a crash, hold on, and do your best not to get hurt and head for the pits for repairs.

Last night during the 200 MI trip from the hill outside of Birmingham, AL, the transmission cooler lines on my BMX van broke. It must have been a sight as trans fluid was all over the engine trans and back of van in a cloud of smoke. Good thing we didn't have a fire. You know what I did? I eased it back to the pits. I exited, dumped some fluid into the trans and made it home. This AM all fixed.

I froze my tail off shooting weapons for 12 hours in the Bama country with my Sisters family. They have more weapons than anyone I know. My son did the walk balk with the AK-47 and I burst out laughing as another teenager was taking some hot brass as they ejected from the chamber. I told the kid to move. Good fun safe day. I can still hit a 300 meter tager with a .22 rifle 2nd shot after 20 years of no practice. Okay, it wasn't 300, but simulated as a 4" target X meters away…bing…

My nephew made the comment, all these weapons are so easy to use it's ridiculous. Yeah, that is how and why there are 10 year olds in the militia in Africa. The only reason I shot at all was the current news flow. I really have no interest in firearms. After shooting the 150MM main gun and killing tanks at 4,000 meters on the move, with F-15's as cover and the Apache on my 6 and MLRS destroying 1k by 1k boxes at a time… real war is reprehensible. All the arm chair warriors really need to tone it down a bit. The only comment I agree in the past 4 weeks of talk was Professor Stefan with his Bellini. If you want to put on the show of defense, that is the smartest idea I have ever read. Those shot guns are world class and perhaps I'd buy it from him. I own no weapons.

I am still thawing out after 13 hours outdoors then the 3 hour drive home then the work this am. My water heaters theromcouple died.. Lowes and HD are useless! Ugh, Ace hardware has all the parts they are amazing, but after inspection my buy American just bit me… Standard brands, made here in TN, has a special thermocouple. I asked the local heater man if he'd be kind enough to drop one off in my mailbox. He said sure, but the clerks said they have to charge me 69 bucks for the Sunday trip. I can wait a day. The part is 14.99. I can do it myself. It's already apart.

I am a man. The ladies must have hot water now. Ill sacrifice my McDonalds budget for Jan and have my man stop by. Perhaps he will find another problem as well.

Back to Carz racing and trading… it's not the one big edge that makes a champion…it's the 10,000 little things all done perfect that adds up to a big edge. The biggest edge of all is the drift over 100 years. After two crashes and a dozen panics the past 12 years, I find it hard to believe that buying every panic with prudence over the next decade will not produce a fine profit. 


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