03/23/18 Now With Dave Landry
By Dave Landry | Now With Dave Landry
Now with Dave Landry
What I'm Reading
Since most of the books I started are in my second office, I allowed myself to start a new book. This week, I started Kluge by Marcus based on a reference in Annie Duke's book (see below). So far, I'm not blown away, but this is from the lens of trading psychology (and technically, it is not a book on trading psychology) from someone who has already read a book or two on the subject. This may not be completely fair. For instance, after my third or forth book on behavior finance, I noticed a lot of the same things and started mostly skimming. The books I quote most often here are the ones that I read first (e.g. The Little Book Of Behavioral Investing, by Montier). I do like the way Marcus reaffirms that the human brain is a bit of a "kluge" with "newer" parts sitting on top of the older primal parts. So far, it's nothing earth-shattering, but does dovetail in with my accept the fact that "we're not made to trade" manta. I'll keep you posted. Similar books, which I have read previously (and often quote), such as Thinking Fast And Slow, might be a better "first read" here.
I'm in the process of outlining Annie Duke's Thinking In Bets. Now, this one is definitely worth reading. Again, she reaffirms a lot of the concepts that I often discuss in columns, webinars, and Trading Full Circle such as outcome biases, embracing uncertainty, and mentally rehearsing. In fact, I quoted her again in this week's Dave Landry's The Week In Charts).
I resumed work on my Mastering Trading Psychology course, mostly incorporating a lot of Duke's (and similar) work. I'm struggling with the fact that I really want it to be a masterpiece vs. what good will it do if it never gets finished? Maybe I can make it an ongoing series?
What I'm Thinking About
Being back in the home office for a while has made me realize how many distractions that I have here. This is especially true because we are getting the house ready for a downsizing move. This has got me thinking about the micro vs. macro reoccurring theme recently mentioned from Tribe Of Mentors. We all think about achieving greatness some day. That "some day" boils down to how your hours and even minutes are spent now. Whenever I find myself going down a "rabbit hole," I have to ask myself: is this moving me toward or away from my goal?
This Week's Content
I think the old me was worried that if I didn't write one day, everyone would forget about me and DaveLandry.com. Now, the new me is of the mindset of quality over quantity. I've published a lot of good stuff, but it could use some polish-(and hey, if you email me and tell me that you can't polish a turd, I'll agree, but argue that you can roll it in glitter!). With that said, I dusted off my 11 Fatal Mistakes That Most Traders (Can’t Help But) Make And What You Can Do About It article.
With the market once again dubious at best, I thought now would be a good time to cover (again) the one thing that you need more than anything to become a successful trader in Dave Landry's The Week In Charts. Spoiler alert, it's nothing earth-shattering, even the Layman can master this-provided of course, that they want to!
Around DaveLandry.com
The more I clean up the site, the more I realize needs to be cleaned up. Again, my goal is to enhance the user experience. As mentioned last week, someone once told me that "You have a lot of great content. Why do you hide it?" So, I'm still working on that.
The Holistic Trader
Accountability is one of the number one things you'll need as a trader. Hold yourself accountable to someone and you're trading will improve. You're welcome! Well, maybe you won't be thanking me when that someone is questioning why you didn't honor your stop or otherwise ditched your plan. Anyway, I do have a point, regardless of what you want to accomplish, holding yourself accountable will help make you more successful. Knowing that I'd have to face this column where I discuss being holistic forced me to get back on the Peloton and walk a few miles-nothing to brag about but at least I moved a little. As far as the meditation and diet, not so much. Maybe next week now that I'm holding myself accountable!
Speaking of accountability, while working on my accountability slides for the aforementioned trading psychology course, I stumbled across a Week In Charts (below) where I discussed traits of traders. I'm thinking that this might be fodder for next week's Random Thoughts.
What I'm Trading
Well, for the most part, it's a cntrl-c and cntrl-p from last week:
Once again, not much! In equities, with the market's erratic behavior, the database hasn't produced much lately. That's okay! Wait for your pitch. Patience is probably the biggest secret to trading out there (spoiler alert, that's the "secret" to trading mentioned above). Again, based on what's happening in my personal life, I've really been applying the "F-yeah" thinking when sifting through setups. And, you should too! If you don't find yourself thinking that when considering a trade, especially given this environment, then pass. You might want to write that down. In the Model Portfolio, we got stopped out of our last lonely long (LX) and remain short PHM and PENN. As I preach, let the ebb and flow control your portfolio--hmmm, more fodder for next week!
In the Cryptos, I took a stab at an hourly Bowtie in the ETH/XBT pair. It failed miserably, but that's okay. You have to be willing to take a couple of "stabs" when trading transitions like this. In Forex, I sat on my hands. I'm playing the waiting game here. Once I see MAJOR highs or lows, I'm going to step in with hourly Bowties. See last week's Dave Landry's The Week In Charts for more on this type of trading in efficient markets.
May the trend be with you!
Dave Landry
P.S. Now that you know what I've been up to, leave me a comment below to let me know what you've been doing.