On one of my walks, I got a bolt from the blue- just as seminars tried to infuse too much theory without much practical experience, were not chatrooms(yahoo conference chat) doing the opposite; giving too much practical knowledge without making the right conceptual foundation. I had read in an article on dieting that people run after proteins and carbohydrates but the fact remains that fats are also required in the right proportion. So though practical experience maybe more important, making a conceptual base is also important.
I was a part of Mr Ashwani Gujral’s chatroom for nine months from April-December’2005. Though he did share his system with us in the beginning in one of his “Saturday sessions”, he gave an interesting handout in December which I wish he had given in the beginning to enable us to enjoy the chatroom experience more and facilitate better understanding. Since we referred to him as the “Boss” in the chatroom, in deference to his stature as a CNBC stalwart, we shall use the same expression here.
Boss, being a lively, practical and entertaining man when he wanted to be is better placed to conduct a chatroom since trading can be quite boring at times. I remember call centres having some “Joy and fun” manager. Something likewise is required when proceedings are too drab. Boss would allow us to go sideways for a while- we would discuss everything from CNBC beauties to latest movies to cricket to the political situation and then gradually bring us back to the primary trend-the stock market. Boss had to be a disciplinarian in matters such as being punctual which was well taken. After all there were 30 members in the chatroom at any given point in time.
We were allowed to chat privately with one another and whatever was revealed was confidential(in the nature of grapevine) and I cannot reveal names but the revelations are interesting. One of the first chat members I got pally with told me “ I did not make much money in the first six months but thats because I did not follow boss” My immediate reaction was that it was quite foolish to pay Rs 5000 per month and not follow boss. Gradually it dawned on me that if you make a loss because of some beginner’s mistake or something like that, it becomes too tempting to square off the position to neutralize the loss. Boss by and large followed the policy of “Let the profits run” and to goad us to do the same would say things like “Jo dar gaya, samjho mar gaya” . However the fact remains that nothing in the market works or does not work all the time and so at times “Discretion is better part of valor” used to work quite well, at least with me. I was to have interactions with several people who would use their own discretion where exits were concerned. In fact the more I think about how people used their own prerogative to exit, the more I realize that whatever is said in the attached file “Individual” is absolutely true.
There was only one instance about entries when the market was very high once. Boss instructed us to buy but the concerned member said that let the mkt fall by 25 points and then he will enter. Two members told me privately that they were not doing nifty at all which was strange considering that boss had repeatedly stated that nifty was his specialization and in his experience we should focus 80 percent on nifty and 20% on individual stocks. There he was absolutely right because I burnt my fingers badly doing individual stock futures and so did some of the others.
We had a good get together in the last quarter which has already been explained in another post.
The only unpleasant incident in nine months was when one chatmember asked too many questions and was asked to leave after a hot exchange of words. ( I was on vacation- this is as told by other chat members). That was sad and circumspection was called for on both sides. Boss always answered my technical questions courteously and competently (I am glad I didn’t ask too many at one time) and the concerned member would have been better off doing that perhaps. Boss even said once that it was his job to answer questions.
Twenty years of management experience has taught me that even going against the immediate boss can be dicey unless you are able to prove your smartness to the top boss. Going against the top boss in public is like going against the primary trend. At the same time, this is not a standard boss-subordinate relationship and the concerned member, being a customer for all practical purposes could have been treated with more dignity. They should have just sorted it out in private in my view.
If you were attentive and did “Copy and paste” whatever Boss spoke, there was tremendous learning value and many of your technical fundas got clear. I still maintain that he has from a layman’s perspective written a very practical and even enjoyable book though of course an expert can judge better.
In the third week of December, I had the good fortune to read Van thorp’s “Trade your way to financial freedom” . So far I had been reading only Technical analysis books. This is the first book in which trading has been actually presented like a business comprehensively-systems development, money management and last but not the least psychology. A chat member also gave an e-book called “Mental fitness for traders” which again has to do more with psychology than anything else. I dug up an old book Alexander Elder’s “Trading for a living” since he is himself a psychiatrist.
Their observations are there in the files attached and it is better if you go through them to understand the context below:-
It is often said that treat trading like a business. Strategic gurus Christopher Barlett and Samantha Ghoshal are famous for making the policy “Think Globally but act locally “ famous and is followed by several multinationalss. Boss had this penchant for giving the example of cricketer Virendra Schewag “ Schewagg never analyses. He hits” . Don’t analyse too much which is true in the relevant context. Current captain Rahul Dravid had said of Virendra Schewag “ His is a unique game. We don’t try and impose any technique on him because it will never work. Every individual has his unique style and his is a unique case.” This would be true to a lesser degree for other players also.
What Wipro's chairman Mr Azim Premji has said is worth reading in this post(second paragraph)
http://www.traderji.com/equities/49...tams-stockmarket.html?highlight=chupa+rustams
Why not follow the same in Trading especially for full time traders especially when trading psychology talks about it to such a degree in the enclosed file. Boss used to tell us to buy and sell at particular rates instead of doing that. In December, I met another CNBC stalwart, Mr Sudarshan Sukhani whose company www.technicaltrends.com also supplies data to me. He had conducted a seminar on “ Mechanical trading systems” a few months back and I asked about psychology. He said that they had a kind of questionnaire in which they asked things like “What kind of loss are you comfortable with” and things like that which I think is the right way of going about things. I think a technical coach should help him discover his own style and method of trading rather than impose any system on him. It also brings to mind the Chinese saying” Give someone a fish to eat and he eats for a day. Teach someone how to fish and he eats for life”. One should also consider what happens if something happens to boss; the others are stranded and that can be dicey if you are a full time trader.
Though only one member in the chatroom told me bluntly “ I don’t like his aggressive style of trading”, among the 10 I regularly interacted with only two were confident which is surprising considering that boss all things said and done is good at trading and the trade statistics also reveal a good expectancy. I think psychology is the cuprit.
I had myself written an article on vocational psychology-“Don’t settle for less than a calling” which appeared in life positive magazine in November’2001 but did not know that it applied to such a great degree in trading as well
http://www.lifepositive.com/Mind/work/work/job-satisfaction.asp
I feel so strongly about the issue that I started this blog.
http://makeyourpassionyourprofession.blogspot.com/
I am not against seminars and chatrooms but when one says that trading is like a business , than treat it like one. Why not have a foreign collaboration and provide proper education. After all it has 95 percent failure rate and psychiatrist trader, “Alexander Elder” described Trading as nothing short of war. A war has to be faught like a war-meticulously. At least for those aspiring to be full time traders, all this is relevant.
In Van thorp’s book it is also written that “ The media are always trying to explain the market though they know nothing about the market”. I have heard this elsewhere – genuine traders never come in the limelight- they just trade. There are so many variables in the mkt that one can easily rationalize a wrong. Only good education can discriminate the relevant from the irrelevant.
Some people say in Hindi "Puri Ramayan sunne ke baad soch rahe ho ram kaun tha? The fundamental issue is -is it right to conduct chatrooms or for that matter seminars in this fashion?
This is not take anything away from my revered technical gurus;under the time and space constraints, they are doing a good job- there are so many of them now that I have begun to feel like Draupadi.
I was a part of Mr Ashwani Gujral’s chatroom for nine months from April-December’2005. Though he did share his system with us in the beginning in one of his “Saturday sessions”, he gave an interesting handout in December which I wish he had given in the beginning to enable us to enjoy the chatroom experience more and facilitate better understanding. Since we referred to him as the “Boss” in the chatroom, in deference to his stature as a CNBC stalwart, we shall use the same expression here.
Boss, being a lively, practical and entertaining man when he wanted to be is better placed to conduct a chatroom since trading can be quite boring at times. I remember call centres having some “Joy and fun” manager. Something likewise is required when proceedings are too drab. Boss would allow us to go sideways for a while- we would discuss everything from CNBC beauties to latest movies to cricket to the political situation and then gradually bring us back to the primary trend-the stock market. Boss had to be a disciplinarian in matters such as being punctual which was well taken. After all there were 30 members in the chatroom at any given point in time.
We were allowed to chat privately with one another and whatever was revealed was confidential(in the nature of grapevine) and I cannot reveal names but the revelations are interesting. One of the first chat members I got pally with told me “ I did not make much money in the first six months but thats because I did not follow boss” My immediate reaction was that it was quite foolish to pay Rs 5000 per month and not follow boss. Gradually it dawned on me that if you make a loss because of some beginner’s mistake or something like that, it becomes too tempting to square off the position to neutralize the loss. Boss by and large followed the policy of “Let the profits run” and to goad us to do the same would say things like “Jo dar gaya, samjho mar gaya” . However the fact remains that nothing in the market works or does not work all the time and so at times “Discretion is better part of valor” used to work quite well, at least with me. I was to have interactions with several people who would use their own discretion where exits were concerned. In fact the more I think about how people used their own prerogative to exit, the more I realize that whatever is said in the attached file “Individual” is absolutely true.
There was only one instance about entries when the market was very high once. Boss instructed us to buy but the concerned member said that let the mkt fall by 25 points and then he will enter. Two members told me privately that they were not doing nifty at all which was strange considering that boss had repeatedly stated that nifty was his specialization and in his experience we should focus 80 percent on nifty and 20% on individual stocks. There he was absolutely right because I burnt my fingers badly doing individual stock futures and so did some of the others.
We had a good get together in the last quarter which has already been explained in another post.
The only unpleasant incident in nine months was when one chatmember asked too many questions and was asked to leave after a hot exchange of words. ( I was on vacation- this is as told by other chat members). That was sad and circumspection was called for on both sides. Boss always answered my technical questions courteously and competently (I am glad I didn’t ask too many at one time) and the concerned member would have been better off doing that perhaps. Boss even said once that it was his job to answer questions.
Twenty years of management experience has taught me that even going against the immediate boss can be dicey unless you are able to prove your smartness to the top boss. Going against the top boss in public is like going against the primary trend. At the same time, this is not a standard boss-subordinate relationship and the concerned member, being a customer for all practical purposes could have been treated with more dignity. They should have just sorted it out in private in my view.
If you were attentive and did “Copy and paste” whatever Boss spoke, there was tremendous learning value and many of your technical fundas got clear. I still maintain that he has from a layman’s perspective written a very practical and even enjoyable book though of course an expert can judge better.
In the third week of December, I had the good fortune to read Van thorp’s “Trade your way to financial freedom” . So far I had been reading only Technical analysis books. This is the first book in which trading has been actually presented like a business comprehensively-systems development, money management and last but not the least psychology. A chat member also gave an e-book called “Mental fitness for traders” which again has to do more with psychology than anything else. I dug up an old book Alexander Elder’s “Trading for a living” since he is himself a psychiatrist.
Their observations are there in the files attached and it is better if you go through them to understand the context below:-
It is often said that treat trading like a business. Strategic gurus Christopher Barlett and Samantha Ghoshal are famous for making the policy “Think Globally but act locally “ famous and is followed by several multinationalss. Boss had this penchant for giving the example of cricketer Virendra Schewag “ Schewagg never analyses. He hits” . Don’t analyse too much which is true in the relevant context. Current captain Rahul Dravid had said of Virendra Schewag “ His is a unique game. We don’t try and impose any technique on him because it will never work. Every individual has his unique style and his is a unique case.” This would be true to a lesser degree for other players also.
What Wipro's chairman Mr Azim Premji has said is worth reading in this post(second paragraph)
http://www.traderji.com/equities/49...tams-stockmarket.html?highlight=chupa+rustams
Why not follow the same in Trading especially for full time traders especially when trading psychology talks about it to such a degree in the enclosed file. Boss used to tell us to buy and sell at particular rates instead of doing that. In December, I met another CNBC stalwart, Mr Sudarshan Sukhani whose company www.technicaltrends.com also supplies data to me. He had conducted a seminar on “ Mechanical trading systems” a few months back and I asked about psychology. He said that they had a kind of questionnaire in which they asked things like “What kind of loss are you comfortable with” and things like that which I think is the right way of going about things. I think a technical coach should help him discover his own style and method of trading rather than impose any system on him. It also brings to mind the Chinese saying” Give someone a fish to eat and he eats for a day. Teach someone how to fish and he eats for life”. One should also consider what happens if something happens to boss; the others are stranded and that can be dicey if you are a full time trader.
Though only one member in the chatroom told me bluntly “ I don’t like his aggressive style of trading”, among the 10 I regularly interacted with only two were confident which is surprising considering that boss all things said and done is good at trading and the trade statistics also reveal a good expectancy. I think psychology is the cuprit.
I had myself written an article on vocational psychology-“Don’t settle for less than a calling” which appeared in life positive magazine in November’2001 but did not know that it applied to such a great degree in trading as well
http://www.lifepositive.com/Mind/work/work/job-satisfaction.asp
I feel so strongly about the issue that I started this blog.
http://makeyourpassionyourprofession.blogspot.com/
I am not against seminars and chatrooms but when one says that trading is like a business , than treat it like one. Why not have a foreign collaboration and provide proper education. After all it has 95 percent failure rate and psychiatrist trader, “Alexander Elder” described Trading as nothing short of war. A war has to be faught like a war-meticulously. At least for those aspiring to be full time traders, all this is relevant.
In Van thorp’s book it is also written that “ The media are always trying to explain the market though they know nothing about the market”. I have heard this elsewhere – genuine traders never come in the limelight- they just trade. There are so many variables in the mkt that one can easily rationalize a wrong. Only good education can discriminate the relevant from the irrelevant.
Some people say in Hindi "Puri Ramayan sunne ke baad soch rahe ho ram kaun tha? The fundamental issue is -is it right to conduct chatrooms or for that matter seminars in this fashion?
This is not take anything away from my revered technical gurus;under the time and space constraints, they are doing a good job- there are so many of them now that I have begun to feel like Draupadi.
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