Hi All,
Pardon the interruption. This post will break up the great technical analysis and trading strategy posts that have been happening lately.
Well, I did it! I've read the "Dump It Here" thread cover to cover! All 3,185 posts (and counting)! It only took me two weeks to do so (May 28, 2020 - June 10, 2020). Now there's two weekends plus a lot of nights I'll never get back
. I've only now had time to post this follow up after reading the thread.
Reading the entire thread generated a lot of thoughts, including a few analogies, and I hope you'll indulge me as I share them with the group. The analogies are mine; you may, or may not, relate to them. I apologize in advance that this post may be a bit long.
I thought "Dump It Here" was an excellent thread, and I really appreciate Skate putting the thread together, and to all the contributors to the thread. It's nice that it still has legs after all this time (Dec 17, 2018 - present), and I hope it continues well into the future. The reality is if it weren't for Skate, this thread would not exist, nor will it likely continue to grow should he tire of updating it.
I've bookmarked over 100 posts in the thread, and at some point I'd like to go through all my bookmarks and collate the information in those posts into a single document for faster reference.
Some of the concepts in the thread are a bit repetitive, especially the earlier posts. This isn't a criticism at all, and in fact is likely consciously intentional. As repetition is often conducive to learning, the repetition may help drive home some important points. But it does make the thread longer to get through. It does take a commitment of time and patience to read (not skim) every post.
After I finished the thread, the first feeling I felt was "incomplete". Not that I expected a single thread to be a "complete" trading education, but that is nevertheless how I felt. I felt like it gets me 80% "there", but the "magic" 20% is missing. Don't get hung up on those percentages, they are just to illustrate a point. But after reading the thread, I felt like I learned so much, yet have so much more to go.
Which leads me to my first analogy. And these analogies really did pop into my head one night. I'm not making them up just for this post.
Analogy #1:
Let's say you have an 8 year old child (i.e. a "newbie") who would like to bake her (or his) first cake. So, as the parent (i.e. the "guru") you lay 5 ingredients out on the counter, a couple of utensils, and say "have at it, bake a cake". Now, your child has eaten many delicious cakes before (witnessed the end results of a good trading system). Perhaps she has even watched you bake a cake many times. But seeing you prepare, or eating the finished product, doesn't mean she can create it without a detailed recipe. You haven't included the two secret ingredients for the cake that make it delicious, you haven't said what temperature to use or how long to bake it, etc, etc. What are the chances that your child will bake a successful cake? Nil.
So, my first feeling after reading the thread was a lot like that child would feel. A feeling of "incomplete", as though I haven't been given all the information.
However, then I thought "what if my analogy is incorrect"? Don't get me wrong, it's correct for how I
feel (felt), but is it correct about my expectation of this thread, or indeed of ASF in general?
A definition of "analogy" is "a form of reasoning in which one thing is inferred to be similar to another thing in a certain respect, on the basis of the known similarity between the things in other respects." (dictionary.com). If your analogy is not in fact similar to another thing, then it is just a story, but does not serve to support your inference to that other thing.
So, as I thought about this further, I thought of another (perhaps more accurate?) analogy.
Analogy #2:
Instead, say I'd just graduated high school, and had a burning desire to be a professional chef, specifically a pastry chef or pâtissier. So I'm still a "newbie", but with a higher intellect than an 8 year old child. And let's say I went to a very fancy restaurant, and tasted the BEST CAKE EVER (brilliant trading system). Man, this was the BEST cake I've ever had; I could eat it every day. I have this BURNING DESIRE to learn how to make that ONE PERFECT CAKE. So, I explain to my waiter, then the maitre d, that I'm an aspiring pastry chef, and with persistence convince them to let me meet their pastry chef after the restaurant closes. I beg Jacques the pastry chef to give me the cake recipe. Does he? Of course, he says no. Why? Well, it's his intellectual property, and the restaurant's. Also, he knows I might stop coming to the restaurant if I had the recipe. Finally, he knows I could one day be a competitor, having "stolen" his recipe.
But Jacques isn't completely heartless, and recommends me to Pierre's Culinary College, where I study for three years to become a culinary chef, specialising as a pastry chef. During that time, I bake hundreds of cakes. I make a ton of mistakes, burn many a cake, others taste horrible, but eventually I learn to be an pretty good pastry chef.
Now, with that experience behind me, I one day return to that restaurant, and again order that cake. It is just as delicious as always - the best cake I've ever had. But now, with my newfound experience, I have newfound discernment. I can taste the vanilla, a hint of coconut, definitely poppyseed, etc, etc. Now, I still don't have the recipe, but I am now MUCH more capable of going home, trying different things, and coming up with a recipe that is pretty darn close, if not even better, than the best cake I've ever tasted. I took those very good ideas embodied in the end result of that fantastic cake, and created my own recipe and made them my own. I can now bake a cake every bit as good as that cake from the restaurant.
This is the analogy I choose to believe, rather than the first one, as it puts me in a better mindset of what I believe I can learn from the "Dump It Here" thread, and indeed from ASF in general.
Another feeling I had after reading the "Dump It Here" thread was "jealousy". Why does Skate get mentorship from Captain Black, and I can't? Why does Skate get technical analysis help from Tech/a, but not me? Why does Skate get the "ducati-secret-VIX-formula-that-if-only-I-had-it-would-make-ALL-my-financial-dreams-come-true" secret formula? Of course, I have no idea of the history or relationship between Skate and those individuals, so who am I to say why Skate, and not me? But I was still jealous
Which led me to my final analogy.
Analogy #3:
When you attend university, you start as an undergraduate. As an undergraduate, you attend classes in a group, sometimes in a classroom, sometimes in a large auditorium with hundreds of fellow students. You have a lot of homework (self-study), and frequent assessments (backtesting, paper trading, small positions to start). In fact, the majority of work as an undergraduate is (guided) self-study; you spend more time reading, doing homework, and perhaps labs with fellow students, than you do in class. You never, as a general rule, get individual mentorship, unless you pay for a tutor (purchase a system?). Although if you're that rare, persistent student who has a genuine passion to learn, stay after class, and "pester" the professor, you may get a bit of one-on-one tutorship (depending on the professor).
Fast forward to getting your PhD. A PhD candidate has a personal advisor, who helps him or her decide on his subject, and provides one-on-one mentorship throughout the research and preparation of his thesis (trading system), when it is finally defended to a panel of critical professors (the market) who decide its merit or not. (Apologies if this is not 100% correct, it is just to illustrate the analogy, I don't have a PhD.)
The point is, undergraduates haven't
earned one-on-one mentorship. It's only when they've proven themselves through two degrees that they get that one-on-one mentorship to earn that most difficult and highest of degrees (and of course medical degrees).
This is just an analogy; it may or may not apply to what I can expect from ASF. Time will tell. To be honest, I don't know exactly what one needs to do to earn a mentor from ASF. Perhaps over time, and with persistence, a "virtual friendship", or at least "virtual respect", forms? Peter2 said in a post (not sure if here or in another thread) something along the lines that he was sick of wannabe investors, who beg for help, are given help, never to be heard from again (nor with a word of thanks) (a paraphrase from my recollection of Peter2's words). See "
Help Vampire" below.
I did a title search on ASF for "mentor", and came across this thread:
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/threads/mentor-for-newbie.35447/, and particularly this post:
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/posts/1071322/.
This quote by Garpal Gumnut resonated with me: "It's a lonely interest, trading or investing."
These last two analogies work for me, and I believe put me in the right mindset for what I can expect from ASF, and what I need to do in my trading journey and education. I am still an "undergraduate", having merely read my first assignment ("Dump It Here"). I have a long, long road ahead of me in my self-education. I suspect it's a self-education that never ends, for as long as one keeps investing or trading.
It would be nice if I can at least get "What next?" advice from ASF but, again, time will tell. But I do believe that "if it's meant to be, it's up to me". There are no shortcuts on ASF that will instantly teach me what I need to be a successful investor or trader. Not even "Dump It Here"
. But I do hope ASF will be an online community of like minded individuals, with many variations in skill set and experience. It's probably the typical "pyramid": the handful of gurus at the top that have a wealth of knowledge, experience, and success as investors and traders; the middle that are solid investors and traders, committed to investing and/or trading but still learning, still perfecting, still making mistakes; and the larger bottom of newbies or wannabes, that may or may not advance up the pyramid into the other two sections.
I do hope that ASF will be of benefit to me on my journey of self-education, and perhaps in the (distant?) future I can contribute back to the ASF community.
Finally, I'll do my best not to be a "Help Vampire" (this term is geared toward programmers but applies to ASF):
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/help_vampire (very short)
https://communitymgt.fandom.com/wiki/Help_Vampire (short) and
http://slash7.com/2006/12/22/vampires/ (longer but a bit funnier).
@Skate, thanks again for creating this thread and keeping it alive. I do have more questions, but I'll save those for further posts.