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A couple of emails last week have raised some alarm bells for me that some readers may be taking the content of Trading Tutors Newsletter as ‘advice’. This is just not the case.
I would like to draw readers attention to the words at the top of every edition:
‘This newsletter is written on a weekly basis to help investors understand and learn the principles of market analysis for themselves. We don’t provide investment advice….’
Columnists are all trained analysts and their aim is to provide training and they aim to use recent real examples to illustrate their point. Nothing more than that.
In my editorial I aim to provide an element of training and more often than not to provide another point of view. That challenges my own position on various matters and for those open to a different point of view it may do so similarly for those readers. I do not claim to be absolute in all my perspectives and I am sure most readers can understand that, as rarely is one right all the time even if one intended.
I can say that one of the biggest misnomers in investing is thinking that there is a ‘right or wrong’. I am talking here about feedback one might provide to oneself after a successful or failed trade or several thereof. Castigating oneself for being so called ‘wrong’ or heaping excessive praise on oneself for being ‘right’ will in my view bring you undone.
I have studied the ‘masters’ and I cannot think of one that has not made a major bad call. In fact I believe that making a bad call has made them extraordinarily successful.
In fact I can say that it was a bad call that actually focused me so sharply on market analysis and in particular technical analysis and especially Elliott. I consider myself very fortunate to have made such a discovery.
So it is not useful to judge oneself too sharply. But it is an even graver sin to judge others – ‘you were wrong’ or ‘you were right’. I am sure you can understand that without me elaborating.
Through my own experience learnt from the ‘school of hard knocks’ I have come to understand that managing ones emotions is paramount.
I have the view that there is an inverse relationship between success in the markets and ones negative emotions. It is almost impossible to win most of the time if one is negative. At some times it can be tough enough to get on a winning streak without pulling yourself down!
I see my own investing and trading as not being right or wrong but rather as making money. To me that is all that matters.
I distinguish between trading and investing as sometimes I like to buy for the long term although I say that with some caution as that has brought many undone in this modern era. I trade when I have the time and when I want to assertively work the markets. This could be because I like the way the market has taken ‘shape’ at a particular time but mostly one has to wait patiently for such opportunities. But in those times one can make a lot of money.
At TTN one of the reasons we say we don’t give advice is that to do so would work against our charter of ‘teaching to fish’ rather than ‘giving fish’. I am sure that you can readily distinguish between the two. The former puts you in command and enables your skill to grow and hopefully your wealth.
But an essential element to learning how to fish and then going out to fish is that one has to take responsibility for ones catch – or lack thereof.
Some just cannot take responsibility.
Enjoy the ride
Tom Scollon
Chief Analyst
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