This is the second post of my series on why the best traders hide under a dunce cap.
If you want to work hard on Wall Street and not get paid for it then boy do I have the perfect job for you!
Work on discovering all the details about the stock market. There may be no monetary benefit but the job security is guaranteed. In other words, no one would pay you since it is an impossible task to ever complete. You can never know everything there is to know about the stock market. But you sure can know a lot about a little. Sounds really stupid does it not?
The market provides millions of opportunities a day. So let’s face it, we will never be smart enough to figure out how to trade all of them. Just call me half smart for not taking advantage of all these opportunities! I am just thankful that I accepted my stupidity before I went broke. The sooner you accept the fact that you will never know everything there is to know about the market the sooner you will accept what the market is willing to teach you. Act stupid and the market just might feel sorry enough for you that it will offer to teach you a thing or two.
I look at trading as “taking turns.” Depending upon your age, you may or may not be able to relate to what I am about to say but when I was in elementary school I can remember one of the longest lines on the playground was the line to get on the seesaw. Only two could ride at a time and what fun it was, but you had to wait your turn. By waiting on one pattern it is like waiting your turn to get on the seesaw. Let someone else enjoy the ride until it is your turn. Let other traders make money in a market that you do not know how to trade! Let them have their turn. Your turn will come if you will just be patient and wait. Is taking turns stupid?
Successful, professional traders accept their limitations and then take advantage of what knowledge they do have. This knowledge is in the form of a pattern that can be taken advantage of as it repeats itself over and over again in the stock market. It does not matter what the pattern is as long as it is an historically tested pattern with a high probability of success. I know what you are thinking-that is stupid and boring. “You mean to tell me I just sit and wait on one pattern and trade this one pattern over and over again?” Yes you do-but only if you want to make money over and over again. “Sounds too simple to work” you say? You are welcome to your opinion and your assessment of me as a simpleton. I would rather be wealthy and stupid than smart and broke.
I leave you with a quote from Van Tharp in his just released book Super Trader where he admonishes traders to “give up complexity and move toward simplicity. The best traders are always those who practice simplicity” (17). I guess I will join Van Tharp, a professional trader, and wear my dunce cap.
