Warren Miller's 1983 classic, "Ski Time"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsA7_UnBXeA&feature=player_detailpage Featuring former 4-time world champion freestyle/mogul skier, Joey Cordeau. (who also happens to be my brother-in-law)

To the right, REFLEX Ski Poles did an ad campaign featuring Joey. This one hangs here at the house.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is a long-time resident of Sun Valley, Idaho. When he asked around for ski lessons and only wanted to be taught by the best skier on the mountain, everyone sent him to Joey. Arnold now has a ski run on Baldy named after him, "Arnold's Run."

If you want to learn to ski the bumps and never settle for second best, here is his website which includes educational videos:

http://www.weekendwarriorsguide.com/

March 29 - Tuesday

I struggled to find a trade I wanted to take, even though there were periods of movement.

For the past two weeks or so, I have been using a chart of the front month Mini S + P Futures as my way to track the market; instead of the SPY or the SPX. It gives me the same picture of the overall market's behavior and it allows me to follow a moving market nearly around the clock, though admittedly, volume and movement are quite muted in off-hours. Ever since I was in High School, I have been an early riser, up most days around 4:00 am. This is a perfect fit for me because that is the time some volume comes into the ES, allowing me to practice learning a new market. I'm also considering it a "hedge" against my learning curve... if I run out of cash to support myself while I try to learn the stock market, I can still trade the mini futures before whatever job I might have to take. I refuse to ever quit doing this, no matter how many years it takes.

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Two ES trades, a small winner and a small loss, basically offsetting one-another. My trade for the short that I closed for a loss just hung in space and didn't really move so I took it off; time=risk. A couple candles later, it broke down and would have given me a chance at two points. I have to adapt to a slower pace trading after-hours.

Visitor

Our little Maine Coon kitten came to visit me in my office, and I snapped a photo. Not pictured is the little ball; the object of her attention.

March 28

I took last week off from blogging. My results were typical for me... lots of winners coupled with two trades where I didn't use a stop and I closed out for relatively large losses (one over $400 and the other at $1,400). The two losers easily offset my gains and I was down for the week. Had I averaged for better price on both of them by doubling down, I would have made them winners the next day.

I didn't do it, rather I just cut them loose and took the loss. This is part of a program I am attempting to follow: accepting losses, and taking responsibility for not triggering a stoploss by accepting the losses when they are substantial.

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Yesterday was pure drollery, so I accepted an offer to meet my sister for a late lunch; 2:30pm. While away, I missed the big drop in the last hour. No matter, I finished with two small but clean winners in TNA.

March 18

TNA dropped to and retreated from $73.20 support seven times throughout the day so on the eighth, I decided the breakdown was probable and paper-traded short there. Nope, it bounced again. I held for the breakdown that I KNEW was coming before the close. Price came down to same support again at 3:45pm candle... "Vindication!" says I. Opportunity to escape, breaking-even and lucky, right there, but hope is a nasty thing in trading. The traders slapped me again while I hoped for the breakdown by sending it soaring into the close. I am short over the weekend; dumb-ass.

Conventional T/A wisdom states that the more times S/R holds, the stronger it is (Read: higher probablilty of maintaining itself). Often I find myself over-thinking, or better stated, complicating things. It is a tremendous challenge trying to find the balance between following simple T/A principles or making decisions by "gaming" the premise that the market has a goal of fooling the most people it can. Today, simple T/A won. I was too clever by half.

The Bankrobber's TNA trade and mine; a contrast

At the same time that I was covering my TNA trade, the Bankrobber was going short. And I really mean "the same time" because his entry price and my exit price are the same and at the same point on the chart. His chart and mine are posted here.
There is something very significant about this from a technical standpoint; or better described, from a trader behavioral standpoint.
Understanding this divergence, at least from a technical perpective, is something that will increase the odds of my success.

Insight

I have often lamented on this blog and in private, my tunnel vision for reversal plays. Call it fading the trend, call it mean-reversion trading. And I have written of my frustration that doing so exposes me to nasty losses when I am wrong.

About an hour ago, I felt a shift in momentum in TNA and decided that a short was a solid play for my first practice trade of the day- I entered 10:49 am at $74.45. I exited 10:52 at $74.26 for a winner of 19 cents. Following my cover, while I had stepped away from the computer, the markets tumbled deeply on more headlines from Japan. In the 10 minutes that followed my exit, TNA dropped an additional $3.58 per share. I turned a tremendous opportunity into a tiny morsel.

Since the inception of this blog, honesty has been a cornerstone as I document my journey from regular guy doing a blue collar job to trading the markets for a career. To my knowledge, I was the first to post screen shots of my trading results directly from my trading platform so that my successes and my failures were verifiably disclosed. And so this post is simply another in the trend.
At the heart of my inability to progress is an emotional need to be right. Protecting my ego is more important than achieving my goal of trading for a living, more important than being financially successful enough to rescue my wife from a job and boss who chip away at her self-worth every workday. It is more important than financially helping a beloved family member near retirement from having to suffer 70-80 hour work weeks with no end in sight. And personally, my opportunity to trade for a living has an expiration date because there is a point where the money from the sale of my business will run out and I will have to find a job to support my household. So, I can say that my fear is more compelling than my own personal financial ruin.

This is the cost of protecting a fragile ego; one that can't bear the feeling of being wrong.

And there you have it, the reason I know that I cannot trade real money now, even though my technical skills are sufficient to do so. It is the reason I average for better price by adding to losing trades instead of stopping out. And without a firm stop loss in place, I have to protect myself by taking winners quickly before the chance of reversal and potentially a losing trade. This reinforces the dysfunction because with my small winners, I get to feel terrific about myself for having a 90-95% win rate in my simulated trading. Hooray for me!... if I play this all "correctly," I will have the honor and distinction of being one of the best paper-traders on the blogosphere! (sarcasm intended) And, I will never earn a dime and never get any closer to real trading.

I believe I can beat this internal demon because I am aware it exists and I am not afraid to admit it. But it is going to take a lot of work to break down a wall that has taken a lifetime to build. I have to figure out why being wrong is so corrosive to my inner self. My entire future comes down to this very thing. And beating it will mean that I will be a much better person for it, and I am not refering to money and trading. Inner strength is its own reward.

So here's a question: How honest are you with yourself in pursuit of your goals? Do you REALLY know what lies between you and success, as you define it?

Today's post by Mike Bellafiore at SMB Trading blog brings it home. I have included his last paragraph below, and emphasized in red the part that really hit home and prompted this post in the first place.

Follow the Trend?
March 15th, 2011

...The angriest I have ever gotten at a trader was the one who constantly fought the trend- he faded everything. Great trading skills, very bright, loved the markets, but just had to fade everything. A few thoughts on fading. 1) If you learn which stocks not to fade you can do very well fading stocks as an intraday trader. 2) It is easiest to learn by just following the trend and building your skills trading.3) There are some personalities that are better suited to fading everything. 4) Do you fade because you would rather show you are smarter than everyone in the market and not more interested in making money? If this is the case I have a few phone numbers for you. 5) Fading is the best strategy in a range bound market. We are in a trending market and have been since August of 07 so any study will show this system works best during the past four years. This will not always be true.

March 15

A good day for me with regard to entries, some exits still too soon.

March 14

Today's results:

After exiting my overnight trade idea that didn't work out, the rest of the day went quite well in terms of entries. Exits are still far too hasty.

The orange marks are the papertrades I thought would work out but wasn't committed enough to click the mouse (I know, it seems odd that I would not click the mouse for a papertrade). All practice is good practice, though, and I continue to have a better feel on range days and get eaten alive on trend days. Makes sense, given my taste for reversal plays.

Overnight Mean Reversion Play, didn't work out..

Ok, so Friday EOD mean reversion play didn't work out. Sold at breakeven when MOMO stalled and a reversal appeared to be next.
Too much headline risk these days...

Week of March 6-11

I really struggled Friday (yesterday). The second as well as the two final winners were bad decisions that worked out from sheer luck. The first winner was a good trade entry but out much too early. The fourth winner was a good trade all around; tiemly entry and getting out just as momentum stalled.

I am long over the weekend in TNA, going long at $76.22 in the final two minutes after a deep sell-off left it far from the moving averages. This is a pure mean-reversion trade. We'll see how it goes...

Week of March 6-11

Wed & Thursday. I went all-in short of NEM at the close on Wednesday after it ran up like crazy through the final hour and into the close. At one point near EOD, the stochastics were over 99 in overbought territory !! (100 being the highest) With that much froth, I knew it had a huge probability of reversal at the open. It didn't hurt that the markets were big gap-down at the open on Thursday.

Week of March 6-11

I've been blogger lazy about posting my progress (or lack thereof ).

Here's Monday & Tuesday. Most notable is the huge rip I took on Monday when I fell back to my old crutch, averaging better price by adding to a losing trade. I was angry and just exited with the loss. With an average price of $81.39, I would have had a nice gain by 10:30 am the next day. But, that's beside the point. The trade was a bad one once I chose not to stop it out and reverse.

Saw it, Liked it, Reposting it here...

It is no secret to regular visitors here that I am big fan of the education provided by the blog at SMB Training. [ www.smbtraining.com/blog/ ]. I saw the announcement there over the weekend of Corey Rosenblum's live presentation on Market Structure for the SMB University. I finally had a chance to watch the one-hour five minute video this morning and would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who is in the learning stages of trading as I am. I cannot wait to see it again; more than likely tonight. I foresee reviewing it many times over the coming weeks if SMB makes it available; repetition being a foundation of learning.
I am someone who loves the minutia, the detail of how things work. I am most comfortable doing something when I fully understand it. What Corey presents is one step forward to understanding how a market operates; the dynamics of supply and demand and the resulting movement in price. If you are wired the same as me, you will lap this up like the sweetest cream.

Here is the link:

http://www.smbtraining.com/blog/smb-university-corey-rosenbloom-on-market-structure#comments

Kudos to the folks at SMB for their continued committment to excellence in trader education.

Saw it, Liked it, Reprinting it... More on Multiple Timeframes

Here is an essay from Austin Passamonte on Multiple Timeframe Watching taken from http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.
The original link is here: http://www.tradingmarkets.com/eminis/trading-lessons/why-i-keep-my-eyes-on-multiple-time-frames-783285.html and would be worth the effort becuase the orginal contains the charts that didn't post below.
I highly recommend Austin's other essays at Trading Markets.

Why I Keep My Eyes on Multiple Time Frames
By Austin Passamonte TradingMarkets.com November 08, 2010 08:40 AM
Tags: eminis, market direction, intraday swing, Swing Trade Intraday, price action, Austin Passamonte, directional forecast, Emini trade
Just about everything that has to do with trading is a variable unless or until defined specifically. The terms "trend" and "reversal" and "reversion to mean" are no different than any others.

Momentum & Change
A body in motion tends to stay in motion. That's the underlying fundamental premise of trend following. Price going one direction tends to continue that direction until greater force comes in to change direction again. Now the definition of "trend" is subjective and dependent. Upon what time frame are we referring to as the trend? Obviously that answer will differ when looking at a 5-minute chart, a 60-minute chart and a daily chart of the same symbol.
There are basically two kinds of price turn = trend change patterns overall. One is a sharp v-turn, and one is a deliberate 1-2-3 transition. The sharp v-turn is usually expressed as a gap & go move or an abrupt rally or plunge from what seems to be a trend direction sustained. The deliberate or methodical 1-2-3 turn is a classic high low - lower high - lower low progression. In other words, we watch price action roll over or upwards and continue on. That's about it for choices of directional trend change: deliberate or abrupt.
Here's the point where most aspiring traders get themselves in trouble: it's tough to setup one lone chart with any kind of price measuring tools (indicators) that can identify both patterns equally well. The easy answer may seem to be ignoring chart tools while relying on price behavior alone. Anyone who strips their chart naked and tries to follow "pure price" with nothing else invariably run into sideways chopper periods that carve naked traders to shreds as they try to get on the correct side of price when no side exists.
If that weren't an irrefutable fact, every price-only trader out there would be obscenely rich and every other trade would likewise strip their charts naked tomorrow. One of the biggest lies in trading heaped upon newer traders is the concept of using naked charts and nothing else for price direction forecast. Pure hogwash... coming from someone who uses both and knows the unspoken ins & outs of each approach.

Forest And Trees
So the answer to this problem of directional forecast or bias is neither indicator paralysis or indicator avoidance. Each has equal strength and weakness alike. One answer I have found is to setup a trend or filter chart that leans toward what patterns you wish to see that matter most for your style of trading. Think of that trend "bias" or "filter" chart as the overall view of a forest. You have a wide enough view to see all of the trees in a zone. At a glance you assess the collective trees in general size, condition and health, species of value for timber versus firewood or pulp, etc. All that information can be gathered from stepping back and looking at a collective forest of trees.
Setting up a smaller time-frame chart in harmony with the trend bias or filter is akin to walking inside that forest and examining each tree. A closer look shows every timber species like sugar maple, black cherry and walnut trees with straight trunks and solid girth. Around them you see off-species such as hornbeam, locust and hickory, only good for firewood or pulp. Inside the forest you are looking specifically for the valued timber trees while working around the off-species trees.
Exact-same concept when trading. We are looking at a longer-term filter chart to assess the overall condition of our "forest" aka the intended market to trade. That shows us current trend bias, where and when the last direction change happened, what stage of the existing direction we are in (early or later) and where next points of price attraction may exist. Then we shift our gaze over to a shorter-term chart for exact dissection of price bars and patterns that tell us where specific actions for trade entry, management and exit decisions are prudent.

All Relative
Anyone's choice of filter chart = trade chart is a relative compromise. Whether it is a daily chart and hourly chart for swing trading stocks, options or commodities (including FX), whether it is a 60-minute and 5-minute chart for intraday swing trades or even a 5-minute and 500 tick chart for short-term profit trades is irrelevant. The concept remains identical in all examples given. Selecting one time-frame chart to assess a wider scope of view for establishing "trend" direction and then working inside a smaller time-frame to surgically breakdown price behavior in harmony with the trend bias direction is what counts. Exactly which setting charts is 100% wholly dependent on each trader, the chosen market or symbol they select and what their desired trade approach is, i.e. size of intended profit versus risk in dollar value terms.
In my case, I want to work strategic pullbacks or breakouts in harmony with trend bias until the true underlying direction has truly changed. I would much rather miss an early, abrupt price turn than get faked out of the strong directional trend on a deep pullback blip. I personally want to enter inside those deep pullbacks that soon resume directional trend. So my solution to the compromise which suits my personal trading best is a slow, soft trend-following filter chart setup.
Someone who more values price turn and reversal patterns would instead setup their filter chart view with more sensitive parameters. They are willing to get faked out on the false turns which are merely deep pullbacks in exchange for hitting the true turns earlier. This is merely systematic trading 101. No one can see everything in the market all of the time. We can set that delusional fallacy aside. Anyone can adjust their charts to see prevailing trend or potential price turns with greater emphasis. But not both. Pick your preference and set filter sensitivity accordingly. Manage the other side of your choice with prudent stop-loss management.

Wave On Wave
I have always viewed the live market from two charts' perspective. For better or worse, that has always made sense to me. If you agree to the fact that price action for any market or symbol is a stair-step process higher or lower in general, why not measure which way the escalator is going and look for steps in that direction? Then it's just a matter of timing your footfall in harmony with the revolving belt heading up or down.

Pretty much the same concept in trading. Your trend - filter chart view of which way currently holds momentum. In the example above, EUR/USD rolled over in mid-January 2010 and dropped from roughly 4450 to the 4050 levels or -400 pips in pure trend fashion inside four trading sessions. That view was pretty clear in a longer-term chart such as 120-minute or 240-minute chart settings, two popular choices of FX traders.

Within that trend-down move were a couple of pullbacks against the trend. Examples of the first one are visible in 5-minute charts that follow. Traders watching just that timeframe alone would not see the overall trend itself... they would see a tape that's rising off lows, staging higher-lows and higher-highs, etc. Within the 5-minute chart alone, the view is short-term and obviously subject to sideways noise. Those who attempt the long-term failed folly of scalping FX for pips will find themselves churned to pieces in sideways noise on their way to going broke.
Traders who hunt for modest to moderate price swings for profitable trades cannot see enough information in the 5-minute chart alone here. But using a higher time-frame chart like the 240-minute as a filter to establish "trend" and trading in that direction alone (short side) is working with overall price momentum. Trading with momentum is swimming with the current: overall path of least resistance for most distance covered.
That chart selection needs to balance the compromise between "seeing" the overall trend through normal pullbacks before resumption and "seeing" true directional change. In other words, which is a true price turn headed the opposite way versus normal pullback and continuation?

Summation
One lone chart does not give clear scope to the overall market direction to anyone in any case with any exceptions. Traders who opt to use a single chart for trading likewise accept the fact that they must find ways to filter through inevitable noise of pullbacks against trend versus following trend. That in itself is a topic enough for small books, let alone brief discussions here. Suffice it to say that trading with a longer-term chart for the bigger picture relative to a shorter-term chart that shows inside view for precision is a great approach to staying on the correct side of pending price action more often than not. Bodies in motion tend to stay in motion... staying with that motion is the essence of small losses and large gains in this chosen profession of yours.
Austin Passamonte is a full-time professional trader who specializes in all commodity markets. Mr. Passamonte's trading approach uses proprietary chart patterns found on an intraday basis. Austin trades privately in the Finger Lakes region of New York.
Click here to visit www.coiledmarkets.com

March 4th

Here are my results from yesterday. I spent much of the day studying price and not practice trading. I got in some papertrades in the last hour after I got my "bookwork" done. As is often the case, I had some nice entries but turned those opportunites in to mere scalps. I'm still infatuated with win percentage rather than nice gains. I have a lot of work ahead of me yet.

the Bankrobber's DVA Trade

I was digging into the Bankrobber's Davita short yesterday while watching the market and as I often do, trying to see when and why he makes the decisions he makes. As is typical, he waited until after the turn to get short and he covered at $83.01. So, why did a guy who has an uncanny ability to sense changes in direction choose to exit nearly twenty five minutes before the end of trend and leave 57 cents on the table?

The chart on the right is his post. The chart on the left shows a Fibonacci overlay (in blue) of the full trend he was playing, with the bold green and bold red lines highlighting his entry and exit respectively. What you see is what I've seen many times when I apply Fib lines to Scott's trades: His moves will often coincide with Fib levels, in this case he exited on the 23.6% line. You'll also note that price retraces to this same level later at 12:19pm, further emphasizing the importance of this level and his choice to exit.

Scott has stated explicitly that he does not use Fib lines in his approach. What this chart and many of his other charts I've studied shows is that he "senses" Fib buying/selling activity by traders at these levels and acts according to his best interest.

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Let me be clear, I do not believe there is anything magical about Fibonacci levels and I don't go for the mystical horsesh*t that some heap upon Fibonacci. The levels exist solely because of self-fulfilling prophecy. But, they do exist and he knows them when he "sees" them.

Chart Added To Last Post

Blogger finally allowed my chart to post after about 15 tries over two days. Kept getting "Internal Error" message.

Digging for the Answers

I spent hours last night thinking about yesterday's bad entry in TNA. What I remember of the moments after I pulled the trigger is that I expected to see a drop in TNA but the stock hung there for quite some time (moments seem like hours when a trade is first put on). Wrong choice, as history proved, but my ruminating since has not been about why I did not exit with a stop loss. Rather, it was why I felt in those few minutes after the trade that I had chosen badly. Something was there that I did not see... I know this because I, in fact, am not clairvoyant.

Early this morning I decided to dig for the answers in the charts. In addition to seeing a near-doji on the five-minute of the SPY which should have been a tip-off, I went to the one-minute chart of TNA and there was a more detailed answer!
I have posted the one-minute on the left and the five-minute chart on the right, then highlighted the area in question with an orange box. Also there are the horizontal green lines indicating price and the slanted green line indicating the direction of the trade (green for "GO," indicating entry). -
My entry was just after the candle shifted to 10:31 am. On the five minute chart, there is nothing that would pass for a normal indicator of reversal, so I went short. The truth, however, is revealed in the one-minute chart- price reversed quickly for two minutes then started to drop in the next minute (10:33am) after the moving averages acted as resistance. I felt here that my trade idea was working because the 10:34 candle showed a continued drop of price, but only for a matter of seconds. The answer, the truth is in the 10:34 candle and the 10:35 candle which came next. TWO DOJIS !!!! There was my reversal indicator that I sensed but did not heed. Like I said, I am not clairvoyant- I foolishly relied only on the visual cue provided by the five-minute chart and did not rely on what really happened; what I REALLY saw as I watched the price move. I felt it, I saw it happen, but I didn't trust my judgement because I did not see the "picture" of it in a five-minute chart.
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Trading using multiple time-frames is a well-known tactic among successful traders. When I first started practice trading, I loved the three-minute chart while watching the five-minute primarily. I would see dojis on the three that were not on the five, much as the one-minute revealed what I noted above. I dropped the three-minute after 4 months or so because I was focusing on it too much and I knew that most day-traders used the five primarily. About two months ago, I felt comfortable again putting up a small three-minute chart and have been glancing at it every once in a while.

(FYI:It did not reveal the doji's that the one-minute chart research showed in this case)
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As I mentioned in the paragraph above, successful traders use multiple timeframes, though they often are longer timeframes... 15 minute (as Scott Farnham uses) and beyond; sixty-minute, daily, monthly, yearly, etc.
They use them at SMB Trading and they certainly put forth a top-notch training program. Brian Shannon wrote a highly-regarded book a couple years ago entitled, "Technical Analysis Using Multiple Timeframes." I was a devout reader of his blog for a long time before he converted it to a subscription site.
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To finish my post, I believe that one of the biggest reasons Scott Franham and those like him have the success they do is because they focus in on price and see exactly what is going on in timeframes shorter than the charts they use. I truly think that Scott is "charting" in his mind the stock he is trading. He is seeing those doji's and the shift in momentum without having to rely on a chart. He certainly advocates focus as a "truth" in day-trading. He has written that he doesn't know why he is able to do what he does, calling it "tacit knowledge." I postulate that among other advantages, he charts price in his mind by paying careful attention on a second by second time scale. And then uses charts to see doji's, etc., over longer timeframes like the 15 minute.
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Perfection in trading is not possible, in my opinion. But i continue to believe that the best risk management is a timely entry. My research will help in this regard. Onward and upward...

March 1 & 2

Wednesday the 1st was one where I practice traded the market briefly then decided to shut off the computer and take much of the day for mental recovery . My brain was fried. I had lunch with Mrs Bluecollar then went over to the Maine Coast and walked the beach for two hours. The seven mile beach in the Old Orchard area provides plenty of calming for even the most tightly wound minds.

Yesterday, March 2nd, I just couldn't sync up with the market. One early bad decision took me out of the game for the day... went short for a reversal in the wrong spot, held instead of stopping out, and tied up my capital (paper money)... blah, blah, blah. With so much at stake I still struggle with taking a stop-loss, even the simulated paper kind. This is beyond ridiculous...

-

Anyway, I'm still trying to sharpen my focus and refining my search for the few highest-probabality opportunites in a given day where I might be able to use my live account; maybe in a month or two if I can master the acceptance of stop losses.

I've also added a 14,3,3 full stochastic oscillator to measure the "energy" of the stock I'm watching and the SPY 5-minute chart. I don't find it distracting so I'm going to keep it for a while. I'd like to use it to help measure momentum then eventually ditch it once it has served its purpose.

Saw it, Liked it, Reprinting it here... Rage to Master - Part 2 by Adam Grimes

Adam Grimes of SMB Trading follows up his excellent post from last week with part II below.
http://www.smbtraining.com/blog/category/adam-grimess-blogs

Steps to Mastery

February 28th, 2011 Long before it was popular in books and on blogs, musicians suspected that the learning process actually involved a physical re-wiring of the brain. The cutting edge of neuroscience research verifies that this is, in fact, true. When you learn a skill, your brain (and, longer nerves, if the skill involves muscles) actually grows new connections. This process takes time, but there are some things we can do to help it out and speed it along. In fact, the training environments developed for musicians, athletes, chess players, etc a long time ago already included many factors that increase the speed of this process. Today, with new insights from neuroscience, we can do even better.

In my last post, I talked a little bit about the kind of commitment and emotional charge that I believe it takes to truly excel in any field. I wanted to write a follow-up post focusing on some of the things that I learned about skill development as a top-level classical musician. I think all of these apply in one way or another to trading, but I am going to leave it to you to connect the dots. (For one thing, I don’t have all the answer to this one, just some interesting questions.) I won’t explicitly draw the connections from these points to trading performance, or to the process of learning trading, but I hope that at least a few of these are good food for thought:

•One of the keys to developing skills is consistency. It is not possible to develop a high level skill without repeated, consistent exposure… rehearsal, practice, or whatever you want to call it. Days off should be rare, but the work may be paced to allow for muscular growth if that’s a factor. (I don’t think it is in trading, but it certainly is in many fields.)
•Length of practice sessions is not incredibly important, as what is done at the beginning and end of the session is most valuable for longer-term retention. If you have 3 hours to work, it may make sense to break that up into 20 minute sessions with 2-4 minute breaks in between. Of course, this tests your conviction because many people will go on one of those short breaks, punch up a video game, and never come back.
•It is well known that your brain continues to work and process while you are not actually involved in the practice activity, if (and this is key) you have constant, repeated exposure. Progress actually seems to be made more in the “off times” than while you are actually working, but it is the hard work that causes the advance in skills. I can remember struggling for hours with a difficult passage to no avail, feeling that I had made no progress in the session, moving on to something else, taking a break, and coming back to find that I could play it flawlessly. It wasn’t magic—it was due to many hours of concentrated work.
•Sleep is important. This is an extension of the previous point, but a lot of progress is made while we sleep. If you are dreaming about the activity, your brain is probably still practicing and developing the skill—this may well be part of the process by which those physical changes happen in the brain. If you aren’t dreaming about the activity, then you aren’t working hard enough. (No joke.) In addition, work done immediately before sleep seems to almost be “supercharged”. If you can study something or work on something and immediately fall asleep, the overnight progress is usually very impressive.
•Over the longer-term (months to years), progress is not linear, but is more of a step function. Again, musicians know this only too well—you will work for weeks and weeks, and sometimes even have the experience that you are actually getting worse at what you’re doing. (Let me tell you, that is awesome, especially if you’re putting in solid 6-8 hour days.) Then, in a sudden burst, you will wake up one morning and have made massive progress seemingly overnight, or perhaps you will make incredible progress in a few days. What has happened is that the hard work finally paid dividends, but it can come after many weeks or months of no progress. Your growth will not be a line or curve… more like a series of plateaus and steps. Most people get lost here because they lose faith on the plateaus, or they think they magically got better because “they are just that good.” No, you didn’t, and you aren’t.
•Great learners are captivated by the process of getting better. The goal may be motivating, but the struggle and work itself is rewarding in its own right.
•Most people experience that as they move closer to mastery, they are more fascinated by a focus on simple fundamentals. As a musician, this might mean focus on simple building blocks of technique long-ago mastered, or on simple pieces that are well below the artist’s ability level. As a trader, maybe it means losing the indicators, charting by hand, and focusing on simple fundamentals of trading. Beginners tend to be entranced by flash and glamour. Experts often bring a profound focus to simple fundamentals of their art.
•Emotional state really matters. (See this recent Newsweek article that mirrors many of these points.) Perhaps this is why that “rage to master” is so important. Being emotionally involved in the process actually makes you learn faster. Good coaches can help, as can being in the right environment, but, in the end, I think a lot of this must come from the individual. If you can make it fun, make it play, skills will come faster.
•Visualization is a powerful tool. It’s interesting because I hear this now being touted as a new advance, but I remember my teachers talking about their teachers talking about learning pieces without actually touching the instrument—so musicians, at least, were doing this before 1900. (One of my teachers learned both books of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier as a child without ever touching the keyboard, performing the entire 5+ hours of music from memory the first time he sat down to play them. This type of seemingly super human feat is not that uncommon, actually.) Visualization is most powerful when it augments and extends work being done physically as well, and, in my experience, may be more useful for a master to hone and develop skills than for a beginner to build those skills.
•High level skills are assimilated beyond the level of conscious thought. For instance, playing rapid passagework often involves such accurate timing that the critical ear can perceive imperfections of just a few milliseconds. This is far beyond the conscious mind’s ability to manage—there is no way, for instance, that the brain can micromanage the muscular coordination required to produce a perfect scale in a Mozart concerto. However, years of practice build a technical ability that allows many of the details to be managed by the performer’s subconscious. It we do it right, it looks very easy… so easy that you lose sight of the complexity and believe you could do it (you can’t, not without years of work).
•Chunking is an important component of mastery. (I’m sure there is a more elegant term for this somewhere.) Just as good readers do not read the sounds of each letter, but see words and whole phrases as units, good musicians don’t see notes—they see phrases and passages. I can zoom down to the level of individual notes if I want (or if I want you, the listener to focus on them), but in general I am focusing on a higher perspective. Masters in all fields use this skill. A competent chessplayer can glance at 4 games in progress and easily reproduce, from memory, the board positions for each one, but if you give him one board with randomly arranged pieces, he probably will not be able to do it. How? Because he doesn’t see individual pieces, he sees them as meaningful units that arise in the course of a game. He doesn’t see, say, 14 individual pieces in a middle game, he sees 3 or 4 units that he recognizes. If the pieces are randomly arranged, he has no edge and can’t do any better than you or me. (I know I said I wouldn’t make direct trading tie-ins, but I believe this one is really important.)
So there you have it… a long list in fairly random order…. I could have gone on and on, but this post is probably too long already! I am sure how some of these tie into trading, not so sure about others. Maybe we’ll get some good discussion going in the comments, so check back in and/or please feel free to contribute

Feb 23, 24, 25 (Last Wed, Thurs, Fri)

IB only lets me go back 7 days so I can't post all of last week, only these three days...

Feb 28 & March 1st (Yest & Today)

Results from yesterday and today.