What are your trading objectives?

[craft]

Whilst I can understand how the burning of one's bridges can serve to motivate one into concerted effort (i.e. failure is no longer an option!) , you've always struck me as someone whom is sufficiently driven by your personal passion for the business and analytical aspects of trading.
Could it be that you were simply seeking to test yourself by increasing the level of challenge?

Sounds better than the reality – should just go with your version.

But the truth is I didn’t just burn my bridges – I blew them up.

F you, stuff this job blah blah blah.... type stuff.

When it came to work I was always arrogantly of the opinion that you can’t fly like an Eagle when you work with Turkeys.

I didn't enjoy being an employee when I didn’t have respect for my superiors and in my opinion many of them didn’t deserve respect.

To me the market is the ultimate meritocracy and I never doubted when burning my bridges that I would be successful. Actually as motivations go this is probably my most powerful. If I can’t make it in the market I’m truly a loser – Its the most even playing field a person with my upbringing is going to get.

Materially - Failure no longer an option – is not really the case in Aus. Even our dole probably puts you in the top 10% globally.

Mentally though – Failure was not an option – because what I would have thought about myself if I failed in the fairest playing field I could identify. I never doubted I would succeed – even when at times the evidence clearly pointed the other way.

If you exchange money for the ‘means to make money’ then SC **** you money sums up where I was at when I burnt the bridges.

I only have a sample of one (in real life) of people that I know who make a living from the market. But when I look at Pav’s(and others) objectives and safety nets and my own experience I wonder if they have got the mongrel/belief to ever go full time. But like I say I’m a sample of one and probably quite unbalanced so I don’t want to question others objectives based on my experience but just throwing out some things to get people to really examine their own objectives and if they are committed enough to get through the hard times, do the work and make the sacrifices. Money, freedom, helping others are a bit wishy washy motherhood objectives to really carry you through a crisis and unless you are demanding very low returns from the market or have ample spare capital you are probably going to uncover yourself some serious grief along the journey.

Anyrate the 'objectives' topic (and motivations in general) is endlessly fascinating for me – I just don’t have many answers and what I do have seem to change as life progresses and family comes along etc.

To me why you do something is more important then how you do it - If the why is strong enough you will work out the how.

 

[peter2]

Another great post craft.
I think your term "mongrel" is the right word. 90% fail at trading because 90% don't have enough mongrel in them. The all too familiar goals and objectives that have been listed in this thread don't provide the level of motivation that is required. The dogged determination, persistence and tenacity has to come from within. Our personal objectives should be selected to motivate the mongrel in all of us.

 

[waza1960]

I only have a sample of one (in real life) of people that I know who make a living from the market. But when I look at Pav’s(and others) objectives and safety nets and my own experience I wonder if they have got the mongrel/belief to ever go full time. But like I say I’m a sample of one and probably quite unbalanced so I don’t want to question others objectives based on my experience but just throwing out some things to get people to really examine their own objectives and if they are committed enough to get through the hard times, do the work and make the sacrifices. Money, freedom, helping others are a bit wishy washy motherhood objectives to really carry you through a crisis and unless you are demanding very low returns from the market or have ample spare capital you are probably going to uncover yourself some serious grief along the journey.

I can really identify with what your saying here craft from another somewhat "unbalanced" individual.
I also put myself in a position where I have no alternative but to be successful at trading.

This means putting all my spare money and time into trading.
I have no safety net , no super, no other savings........
Years ago when I attended a few weekend courses the presenter would invariably come up with the old chestnut
how only 5% of traders would be successful. I was always confident that I would be in that 5% not because of arrogance or that I was smarter than everyone else but because I could see that the other traders weren't really motivated.
I have only worked for a wage for about 8yrs of my working life the rest of the time I had my own business so perhaps it was easier for me to make the leap not being used to the security of a salary earner.

I think a thread on " How you are achieving your Trading objectives " would be just as interesting if not more so.
Or perhaps we would discuss that here?

 

[waza1960]

So my Trading Objective is :
To be the Best Full Time Trader I can be

To me this means .............
Achieve increasingly profitable and consistent returns.(anybody can trade well in a short period).
To know as much as possible about trading (not because it makes me more profitable but I enjoy the learning process).

The money, success , possible recognition & freedom ( I'm already free doing what I love) are not Objectives they
will simply be the result of my primary Objective.

 

[Julia]

Another great post craft.
I think your term "mongrel" is the right word. 90% fail at trading because 90% don't have enough mongrel in them. The all too familiar goals and objectives that have been listed in this thread don't provide the level of motivation that is required. The dogged determination, persistence and tenacity has to come from within. Our personal objectives should be selected to motivate the mongrel in all of us.

That might be right for you. Craft has decided what's right for him.
It doesn't mean all other people are similarly inclined. Plenty of people can achieve their goals without being mongrels. Can in fact do it quite calmly and methodically.

 

[CanOz]

I know where I am going. I WILL get there. There is not even a doubt. I already am 'getting there.'

Because I choose not to walk out on my job means nothing. Look at all the morons who quit their job to become full time traders and ultimately ended up going back to work (because they leave prematurely).

There are a lot of heroes on this forum. Big swinging dicks who are king of the world. I wonder if it makes people feel cool questioning whether others have what it takes. Maybe they should shut up, focus on their own trading and leave others to do the same.

Different people have different paths mapped out. Trading isn't their life. They are smart enough, disciplined enough, committed enough and will incorporate trading into their life in a way that best suits and works for them!

Don't know where this came from Pav....i don't think anyone was questioning you or anyone else about if they have what it takes. Just some different view points expressed.

I fall into the same boat as Craft and Waza. Although i didn't burn any bridges...yet. I was primarily salary so i don't have Waza's entrepreneurial attitude completely either.

I sort of forced myself into this so that i would have no choice but to succeed. That works for me, generally.

What we often lose site of, me included at times, is that people are all different. What motivates us is different to us all. None of us are the same. Tech and you both continue to work or run business's and yet you can still hammer up a good record trading the way you trade. That's great, i respect that. Some of us need the to do this full time and have some pressure to succeed to keep us focused.

Some are doing this with a fundamental approach, some with a technical, some with intuition...What ever works, is whatever works.

I think we all have a few things in common, the desire to draw an income from the market, to be good at what we do and maybe even (i suspect more than some would admit) achieve a level of respect from our peers.

Anyway, its a great topic, lets enjoy it!

 

[nulla nulla]

That might be right for you. Craft has decided what's right for him.
It doesn't mean all other people are similarly inclined. Plenty of people can achieve their goals without being mongrels. Can in fact do it quite calmly and methodically.

+1. Being a "mongrel" is not a key criteria to successful trading. Being emotionaly detached, recognising entry points, setting realistic targets, exiting when you hit your targets and being able to do it regularly is a far better approach.

 

[Gringotts Bank]

+1. Being a "mongrel" is not a key criteria to successful trading. Being emotionally detached, recognising entry points, setting realistic targets, exiting when you hit your targets and being able to do it regularly is a far better approach.

I think that's what he meant when he used the word 'mongrel' - emotional toughness. And I'd have to agree.

 

[pavilion103]

I think that's what he meant when he used the word 'mongrel' - emotional toughness. And I'd have to agree.

+1 agree with that too. Definitely need emotional fortitude.

 

[barney]

Pav above has "apologised" to Craft pre my post which is good, but just to clarify my reading of some of the thread (which is a good thread) ....

Nulla Nulla (agree totally with the gist of your comments a couple of posts back) and Julia (lady of integrity) have both misconstrued Craft's statements as you "need to be a mongrel"...... are way off the mark in regards to what Craft was saying

Its not about being a mongrel; its about having the mongrel in you (belief/desire/motivation etc. etc.) ...... to achieve what you know you can ...... BIG difference in meaning and interpretation .... Just wanted to clear that up cause it is sometimes frustrating to have your point of view distorted by the lack of verbal clarity that a Forum often highlights ..... cheers all


Edit ..... GB highlighted what I said in one sentence before I posted ..... maybe I'm becoming verbose lol ...

 

[So_Cynical]

Emotional fortitude, Mongrel, Tenacity, Emotional detachment...different personality types need and benefit form these different traits and quality's.

Personally i think that's its a good thing to be emotional about money, you should be pissed off when you lose it and you should be happy when you make it, i can recognize a bit of Mongrel in me when im making decisions, some emotions, fear, greed, Apprehension and Tenacity.

I don't think we can take conscious risks without a bit of Mongrel.

 

[Gringotts Bank]

Personally i think that's its a good thing to be emotional about money, you should be pissed off when you lose it and you should be happy when you make it

Research doesn't support this:

Fear and Greed in Financial Markets: A Clinical Study of Day-Traders
MIT Sloan School of Management, Working Paper No. 4534-05
Abstract:
We investigate several possible links between psychological factors and trading performance in a sample of 80 anonymous day-traders. Using daily emotional-state surveys over a five-week period as well as personality inventory surveys, we construct measures of personality traits and emotional states for each subject and correlate these measures with daily normalized profits-and-losses records. We find that subjects whose emotional reaction to monetary gains and losses was more intense on both the positive and negative side exhibited significantly worse trading performance. Psychological traits derived from a standardized personality inventory survey do not reveal any specific "trader personality profile", raising the possibility that trading skills may not necessarily be innate, and that different personality types may be able to perform trading functions equally well after proper instruction and practice.


however...

Emotions have been shown to positively influence decision making, so long as they are not out of control. This study investigates.

The Psychophysiology of Real-Time Financial Risk Processing
MIT Sloan School of Management Working Paper No. 4223-01; MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering Working Paper No. LFE-1039-01
Abstract:
A longstanding controversy in economics and finance is whether financial markets are governed by rational forces or by emotional responses. We study the importance of emotion in the decisionmaking process of professional securities traders by measuring their physiological characteristics, e.g., skin conductance, blood volume pulse, etc., during live trading sessions while simultaneously capturing real-time prices from which market events can be detected. In a sample of 10 traders, we find statistically significant differences in mean electrodermal responses during transient market events relative to no-event control periods, and statistically significant mean changes in cardiovascular variables during periods of heightened market volatility relative to normal-volatility control periods. We also observe significant differences in these physiological response across the 10 traders which may be systematically related to the traders' levels of experience.


Also, the Somatic Marker Hypothesis is a must read for any trader: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatic_marker_hypothesis

 

[Julia]

Pav above has "apologised" to Craft pre my post which is good, but just to clarify my reading of some of the thread (which is a good thread) ....

Nulla Nulla (agree totally with the gist of your comments a couple of posts back) and Julia (lady of integrity) have both misconstrued Craft's statements as you "need to be a mongrel"...... are way off the mark in regards to what Craft was saying

Its not about being a mongrel; its about having the mongrel in you (belief/desire/motivation etc. etc.) ...... to achieve what you know you can ...... BIG difference in meaning and interpretation .... Just wanted to clear that up cause it is sometimes frustrating to have your point of view distorted by the lack of verbal clarity that a Forum often highlights ..... cheers all


Edit ..... GB highlighted what I said in one sentence before I posted ..... maybe I'm becoming verbose lol ...

barney, accepting that the spirit of the above post is to be helpful, it might be useful for craft, as the initiator of the term 'mongrel' to define what this means to him.
The definition is usually applied to a mixed breed dog, the resulting animal usually being tougher than pure bred animals, and presumably that's the basis of the word being applied to human behaviour.

Perhaps males and females have different interpretations of attitudes. Despite having worked hard to achieve my goals and being immensely thankful to have been able to do so, I wouldn't at any stage have categorised my attitude as 'the mongrel in me'. Rather, it has been a patient and determined, well planned process, where the resilience probably learned in many unrelated emotional setbacks, has been carried over into the financial planning and perseverance.

Might be nothing more than an aversion to the terminology. However, I don't believe that to achieve personal goals it should ever be necessary to cheat or misrepresent, or in any other way trespass on the rights of any other individual.

 

[barney]

barney, accepting that the spirit of the above post is to be helpful, it might be useful for craft, as the initiator of the term 'mongrel' to define what this means to him

I was certainly trying to be helpful, thank you Julia.

I hope Craft does respond as I enjoy reading what he has to say.

Perhaps males and females have different interpretations of attitudes.

Possibly so, although in this instance, I just wanted to point out that Craft never said you have to be a mongrel. I would agree with you that being a mongrel is not a good quality. Having the mongrel in you is more a personal determination to succeed/not give in when the going gets rough ...... that quality does not need to be directed at another person/persons, rather it is an internal strength .... that is my interpretation anyway

Might be nothing more than an aversion to the terminology. However, I don't believe that to achieve personal goals it should ever be necessary to cheat or misrepresent, or in any other way trespass on the rights of any other individual.

I'm sure the majority would agree 100% that cheating or misrepresenting to gain an advantage is poor form, but having the mongrel in you (in my interpretation) does not have to include cheating etc.

A mongrel is and will tend to always be a mongrel, whereas, the kindest gentlest person in the world may get the mongrel in them to overcome a difficult circumstance.

As you say, probably just our different interpretations of the word so no big deal. Cheers.

 

[craft]

To try and make it a bit more explicit (or confuse you further with my crap communication)
I was talking about an inner mongrel – the bit of you that just keeps getting up and going again when you have no earthly right to do so and is cocky enough to still crack a smile in the process.

External Objectives are fine for the good times. Primeval objectives that your inner mongrel responds to is what gets you through the hard times.

If you can’t get what I’m talking about in a trading sense – think about it in terms of what would get you through if you lost the person you love the most at the worst possible time.

I don’t want to judge Pav or anybody – But I was trying to prompt people to be brutally honest with themselves and find their true primitive objectives.

Play with the market long enough and it will eventually expose your inner weaknesses. These are the spots you have to pass to continue on.


Trying to expand it a bit further still.

Lets take what I consider an external objective that has been discussed in this thread and one I assume PAV has.

To help others.

You could achieve this

Mother Teresa style.

By distributing your surplus time and money as it becomes available. (ie no wealth accumulation)

By accumulating wealth and bequeathing it.

All three seem equal fulfilment of the objective to me. Which is the right path for each individual comes down not to the external objective (all three accomplish it) but to a more basic and self oriented internal objective – what truly drives and fulfils me?

 

[CanOz]

Play with the market long enough and it will eventually expose your inner weaknesses. These are the spots you have to pass to continue on.

This is very good, so true....

 

[pavilion103]

Craft, I think one thing that all people need is a strong sense of thriving on the intellectual gamesmanship of trading. I think this is where the 'mongrel' can often come in. It is a brutal desire to achieve and not letting any obstacles or setbacks deter you from achieving success in the markets.

I think someone is far more likely to achieve in the markets if they are a highly competitive person, who see the markets as a game and who thrive on succeeding at this game. Combine this with characteristics such as diligence, patience and emotional fortitude and the chance of success is very high!

 

[Julia]

Julia – You always misinterpret or recast my posts in a negative light.

Alternatively, you could believe that I simply have a different view for what motivates me. I got what you meant, craft. I was just explaining that personally I achieve my objectives differently. Not sure why that's something to object to .

In your case it’s probably safest if you just assume I mean the exact reverse of what you think I’m saying.

Is the sarcasm really necessary? I wasn't applying any criticism to your approach, nor was I misunderstanding it, just saying I don't have that somewhat aggressive approach.

To try and make it a bit more explicit (or confuse you further with my crap communication)
I was talking about an inner mongrel – the bit of you that just keeps getting up and going again when you have no earthly right to do so and is cocky enough to still crack a smile in the process.

I understand mongrel behaviour. Doesn't mean it's what works for everyone.
Some of us are instead flattened for a while, then gradually work out a modified approach, and the resilience more slowly returns.

External Objectives are fine for the good times. Primeval objectives that your inner mongrel responds to is what gets you through the hard times.

For you. We all function differently.

If you can’t get what I’m talking about in a trading sense – think about it in terms of what would get you through if you lost the person you love the most at the worst possible time.

I don't have to imagine it. It has happened several times. It provokes grief and sadness, prior to acceptance that it is what it is and there is always something worthwhile in life.

I suggested earlier that this discussion has become about different interpretations of different word choices.
You are convinced that everyone must have some sort of primeval drive to fight aggressively for what they want (and if that wording is not perfect, it's the best I can do), while others will take a more gradual, calmer approach.
I am not trying to be obstructive, just don't understand why you don't seem to accept that. Obviously my powers of communication must also be crap.

I don’t want to judge Pav or anybody – But I was trying to prompt people to be brutally honest with themselves and find their true primitive objectives.

Sounds to me as though Pav has worked out a fairly methodical route to get where he wants to be. If he's happy with that, I'd be disposed to just congratulate him, wish him the best, hoping he doesn't get too bogged down in the religious stuff, and not insist that he's being less than honest about his 'primitive objectives'.

I'm not in the least wanting to engage in any sort of non-constructive bickering with you, craft. I could equally suggest, referring back to your initial comment, that you seem to be intent on finding any disagreement I express a measure of personal attack on you. It's not at all. In this instance, you find value in pursuing objectives in what sounds like an aggressive, fighting, competitive way. I'm not especially competitive and have had enough aggression in my life to put me off such an attitude forever.

Hopefully we have now both tried to explain ourselves as best we can, so it might be good to let the issue go.
I wish you well.

 

[McLovin]

I don't really have any grand objectives. I just do what I do because I like to do it. I love being right, it gives me a kick. I love doing the research, taking a position and then having my thesis proven correct. Doubly so when every "expert" is on the other side of me. Don't get me wrong, I do like the money that comes from being proven correct. But I'm not sure money in itself creates a passion for something.

I understand the point that craft is making. There are times, for me at least, when I'm sure I'm correct and the market is wrong even though I might be 30%, 40%, 50% down on an investment. At that point it is very easy to start double guessing your own thinking. We are, afterall, humans, and it's in our nature to "follow the crowd". I'm sure every successful trader or investor has a way of dealing with that stress.

 

[Country Lad]

What's that got to do with trading objectives sorry?

What has most of the post in this thread to do with trading objectives. Some people will find any reason to start an off topic criticism of what others say. Main reason why I do not participate in these type of threads, someone will start an argument about 2 words in what I have said, regardless of what I have said.