This is a common fallacy! Not at all! Trading is not easy money. If it was easy money, then too many people would be making money by trading. It seems, and it is attractive as if easy money. In reality it is simply easy losing. The vast majority of traders lose their money. A tiny minority much less than 2%, probably less than 0.5% make money in a systematic way, after many years of unsuccessful attempts. Obviously this means that it is very difficult to find and conduct in a systematic way a winning tactic. And trading, when it is scientifically correct is not simple either. It is rather complicated. It may become easy and seem simple to successful traders, only after long successful practice. Once it has been found and you can conduct it, it may seem to this trader an easy method. But do not kid yourself. Even a neurosurgeon after sufficient practice may consider his practice easy after all. And you may think that if a successful trader will give you written the "recipe" it will be easy for you to make the same money! This is another fallacy too. The "truth" that a trader has found, and is convincing to his subconscious, may indeed correspond to a reality of the markets, but it is not an easy transferable "truth". People that are obese can easily find recipes-diets of how to loose weight. But Alas! It is by far not the difficult part of losing weight. The same with the trading. The not adequate appropriation of the self, the ego, the subconscious is most often the fatal reason of failure. So even if the trader has been already conducting a trading protocol even of a seemingly high performance rate, it is not a "get rich, quick scheme" because of the preliminary learning time. Once a trader, has not only found and practiced his successful
trading method, and has also improved it so a point that nothing more can be
improved, and if his benchmarking among all the other traders, and relative to
the reality of the market is high, then he may indeed get very rich, starting
from almost no money, in a really small time interval. But if we to include all
the previous learning time, then neither he got rich quickly, neither it was
easy, neither it was simple.
There are 3 contexts of laws required in trading . The appropriate LAWS OF THINKING for trading, the appropriate LAWS OF FEELINGS for trading , and the appropriate LAWS OF ACTIONS for trading.
The Successful trading is based according to these three laws on
1) POWER OF COLLECTIVE SCIENTIFIC THINKING: A GREAT AND SIMPLE SCIENTIFIC PERCEPTION OF THE FUNCTION OF THE ECONOMY THROUGH SOME GLOBAL STATISTICAL LAW. E.g. The law of Universal attraction in economy: that big money attracts more big money in the capital markets, and this by the balance of demand and supply makes securities indexes of the companies , that are indeed the big money, to have mainly stable ascending trend, whenever one can observe such one. Valid statistical deductions can be obtained with simple statistical hypotheses tests about the existence or not of a trend, with sample size half the period of a dominating cycle). (STABLE GREAT SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT-FORM OR BELIEF FACTOR IN TRADING. )
2) POWER OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY: A LINK WITH THE POSITIVE COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY.(E.g. that the growth of security indexes also represent the optimism of the growth and success of real business of the involved companies. And we bet or trade only on the ascension of the index, whenever an ascending trend is observable). (STABLE GREAT POSITIVE COLLECTIVE EMOTIONAL OR PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTOR IN TRADING. )
3) POWER OF INDIVIDUALS SIMPLE , CONSISTENT AND EASY TO CONDUCT PRACTICE. (e.g. a trading system with about 80% success rate that utilizes essentially only one indicator in 3 time frames, simple risk management rules of stop loss, take profit, trailing and escalation, and time spent not more than 20 minutes per day. In this way there are not many opportunities of human errors in the conduction of the trading practice. Failed trades are attributed to the randomness and are not to blame the trader). (STABLE SIMPLE AND EASY PRACTICAL FACTOR IN TRADING)
We may make the metaphor that successful trading is the ability to have successful resonance with the activities of top minority of those who determine the markets.
In trading there are 3 components in the feelings that must be dealt with. 1) The feeling of MONEY itself, 2) The feeling of the UTILITY of the money 3) The feeling of the RISK of the money each time. What is called usually money management in trading is essentially RISK MANAGEMENT.
VALID STATISTICS AND PREDICTABILITY
We must make here some remarks about the robust application of statistical predictions in the capital markets.
1) The theory that the efficient markets and in particular that they follow a pure random walk is easy to refute with better statistical experiments and hypotheses tests. The random walk would fit to a market where the sizes of the economic organizations are uniformly random. But the reality is that they follow a Pareto or power distribution, therefore this is inherited in the distribution of the volumes of transactions and also in the emerging trends or drifts.
2) The statistical models of time series are more robust , when they apply to the entity MARKET as a whole and are better as non-parametric , and not when they apply to single stocks and are linear or parametric. The reasons is that a time series as a stochastic process , requires data of a sample of paths, and for a single stock is available only a single path. While for all the market the path of each stock or security is considered one path from the sample of all paths of all the stocks.
3) The less ambitious the statistical application the more valid the result. E.g. applying a statistical hypothesis test, or analysis of variance to test if there is an up or a down trend (drift) or none, is a more valid statistical deduction , than applying a linear model of a time series and requiring prediction of the next step price.
4) Multivariate statistics, like factor analysis, discriminant analysis , logistic regression, cluster analysis , goal programming etc are possible to utilize for a more detailed theory of predictability and of portfolio analysis, and sector analysis of the market and not only H. Markowitz theory.
5) In applying of the above applications of statistics, the researcher must have at first a very good "feeling" of the data, and should verify rather with statistics the result rather than discover it.
6) The "Pareto rule of complexity-results" also holds here. In other words with less than 20% of the complexity of the calculations is derived more than 80% of the deduction. The rest of the 20% requires more than 80% more complexity in the calculations.
THE TOP 6 FACTORS OF ATTENTION IN MANUAL TRADING
1) NEVER USE ALL YOUR FUNDS FOR TRADING. DIVIDE THEM TO TRADING AND NON-TRADING FUNDS BY THE RATIO f=R/a^2 RULE (see below for this ratio or in posts 3,13,33). THE DIVISION OF FUNDS AT EACH PERIOD IS ADJUSTED TO CONFORM WITH THIS PERCENTAGE RATIO. NEVER WITHDRAW PER PERIOD FROM THE NON-TRADING FUNDS MORE THAN HALF OF THE AVERAGE PROFITS OF THE TRADING FUNDS PER PERIOD. This division and adjustment of the funds has been applied for many years in buy and hold investments by professor Michael LeBoeuf.
2) THE ONLY CERTAINTY, WHILE TRADING IS ALSO OUR FIRST PRIORITY: WE MAY DETERMINE THAT OUR LOSSES AT EACH POSITION WILL NOT BE LARGER THAN A SPECIFIED PERCENTAGE DEFINED BY THE KELLY CRITERION (see below or posts 3, 13, 33)
3) FOCUS ON MACROSCOPIC INSTRUMENTS LIKE STOCK INDEXES WITH PERMANENT STRONG LONG TERM TREND, even if you want to trade at short time scales. (e.g. of the American Economy which is young and strong and indexes like Dow Jones, SnP500, Nasdaq etc)
4) FOR VERY LOW RISK AT OPENING POSITIONS ON THE PREVIOUS INDEXES WITH PERMANENT STRONG TREND, OPEN AT TERMINAL SPIKES AGAINST THE TREND. This is the Bill Williams technique.
5) THE ASSESSMENT OF THE PATTERNS OF THE MARKET REQUIRES THAT IT IS DONE IN MANY SUCCESSIVE TIME FRAMES CHARTS. This is a basic recommendation by Alexander Elder, which, by now, it is a common knowledge to traders
6) BE FLEXIBLE IN FORECASTING THE MARKET AND DO NOT HESITATE TO FOLLOW PROMPTLY ANY UNEXPECTED CHANGES OF THE TREND OF THE MARKET.
There are 3 contexts of laws required in trading . The appropriate LAWS OF THINKING for trading, the appropriate LAWS OF FEELINGS for trading , and the appropriate LAWS OF ACTIONS for trading.
The Successful trading is based according to these three laws on
1) POWER OF COLLECTIVE SCIENTIFIC THINKING: A GREAT AND SIMPLE SCIENTIFIC PERCEPTION OF THE FUNCTION OF THE ECONOMY THROUGH SOME GLOBAL STATISTICAL LAW. E.g. The law of Universal attraction in economy: that big money attracts more big money in the capital markets, and this by the balance of demand and supply makes securities indexes of the companies , that are indeed the big money, to have mainly stable ascending trend, whenever one can observe such one. Valid statistical deductions can be obtained with simple statistical hypotheses tests about the existence or not of a trend, with sample size half the period of a dominating cycle). (STABLE GREAT SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT-FORM OR BELIEF FACTOR IN TRADING. )
2) POWER OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY: A LINK WITH THE POSITIVE COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY.(E.g. that the growth of security indexes also represent the optimism of the growth and success of real business of the involved companies. And we bet or trade only on the ascension of the index, whenever an ascending trend is observable). (STABLE GREAT POSITIVE COLLECTIVE EMOTIONAL OR PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTOR IN TRADING. )
3) POWER OF INDIVIDUALS SIMPLE , CONSISTENT AND EASY TO CONDUCT PRACTICE. (e.g. a trading system with about 80% success rate that utilizes essentially only one indicator in 3 time frames, simple risk management rules of stop loss, take profit, trailing and escalation, and time spent not more than 20 minutes per day. In this way there are not many opportunities of human errors in the conduction of the trading practice. Failed trades are attributed to the randomness and are not to blame the trader). (STABLE SIMPLE AND EASY PRACTICAL FACTOR IN TRADING)
We may make the metaphor that successful trading is the ability to have successful resonance with the activities of top minority of those who determine the markets.
In trading there are 3 components in the feelings that must be dealt with. 1) The feeling of MONEY itself, 2) The feeling of the UTILITY of the money 3) The feeling of the RISK of the money each time. What is called usually money management in trading is essentially RISK MANAGEMENT.
VALID STATISTICS AND PREDICTABILITY
We must make here some remarks about the robust application of statistical predictions in the capital markets.
1) The theory that the efficient markets and in particular that they follow a pure random walk is easy to refute with better statistical experiments and hypotheses tests. The random walk would fit to a market where the sizes of the economic organizations are uniformly random. But the reality is that they follow a Pareto or power distribution, therefore this is inherited in the distribution of the volumes of transactions and also in the emerging trends or drifts.
2) The statistical models of time series are more robust , when they apply to the entity MARKET as a whole and are better as non-parametric , and not when they apply to single stocks and are linear or parametric. The reasons is that a time series as a stochastic process , requires data of a sample of paths, and for a single stock is available only a single path. While for all the market the path of each stock or security is considered one path from the sample of all paths of all the stocks.
3) The less ambitious the statistical application the more valid the result. E.g. applying a statistical hypothesis test, or analysis of variance to test if there is an up or a down trend (drift) or none, is a more valid statistical deduction , than applying a linear model of a time series and requiring prediction of the next step price.
4) Multivariate statistics, like factor analysis, discriminant analysis , logistic regression, cluster analysis , goal programming etc are possible to utilize for a more detailed theory of predictability and of portfolio analysis, and sector analysis of the market and not only H. Markowitz theory.
5) In applying of the above applications of statistics, the researcher must have at first a very good "feeling" of the data, and should verify rather with statistics the result rather than discover it.
6) The "Pareto rule of complexity-results" also holds here. In other words with less than 20% of the complexity of the calculations is derived more than 80% of the deduction. The rest of the 20% requires more than 80% more complexity in the calculations.
THE TOP 6 FACTORS OF ATTENTION IN MANUAL TRADING
1) NEVER USE ALL YOUR FUNDS FOR TRADING. DIVIDE THEM TO TRADING AND NON-TRADING FUNDS BY THE RATIO f=R/a^2 RULE (see below for this ratio or in posts 3,13,33). THE DIVISION OF FUNDS AT EACH PERIOD IS ADJUSTED TO CONFORM WITH THIS PERCENTAGE RATIO. NEVER WITHDRAW PER PERIOD FROM THE NON-TRADING FUNDS MORE THAN HALF OF THE AVERAGE PROFITS OF THE TRADING FUNDS PER PERIOD. This division and adjustment of the funds has been applied for many years in buy and hold investments by professor Michael LeBoeuf.
2) THE ONLY CERTAINTY, WHILE TRADING IS ALSO OUR FIRST PRIORITY: WE MAY DETERMINE THAT OUR LOSSES AT EACH POSITION WILL NOT BE LARGER THAN A SPECIFIED PERCENTAGE DEFINED BY THE KELLY CRITERION (see below or posts 3, 13, 33)
3) FOCUS ON MACROSCOPIC INSTRUMENTS LIKE STOCK INDEXES WITH PERMANENT STRONG LONG TERM TREND, even if you want to trade at short time scales. (e.g. of the American Economy which is young and strong and indexes like Dow Jones, SnP500, Nasdaq etc)
4) FOR VERY LOW RISK AT OPENING POSITIONS ON THE PREVIOUS INDEXES WITH PERMANENT STRONG TREND, OPEN AT TERMINAL SPIKES AGAINST THE TREND. This is the Bill Williams technique.
5) THE ASSESSMENT OF THE PATTERNS OF THE MARKET REQUIRES THAT IT IS DONE IN MANY SUCCESSIVE TIME FRAMES CHARTS. This is a basic recommendation by Alexander Elder, which, by now, it is a common knowledge to traders
6) BE FLEXIBLE IN FORECASTING THE MARKET AND DO NOT HESITATE TO FOLLOW PROMPTLY ANY UNEXPECTED CHANGES OF THE TREND OF THE MARKET.
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