They do a trade and see it go farther and say "look how much I COULD HAVE made"
You evidently are an observant person. Now that you mention it, this *is* the statement that I find most commonly comes up with traders, which then add that perhaps they should of stayed in longer. I am just hoping some one listens to this discussion and thinks about the mesage here, that going for that extra point or two can very well result in a loss because the stock can go down just as easily as it goes up. And in the context of day trading, this price move down does not have to be much at all to put the trade at a loss.
Anytime a person thinks with any degree of confidence that a stock will do something in particular should very carefully rethink their strategy to their trading and who they are as a trader, and even rethink who that are as a person: a mere mortal. Noone can know with any degree of certainty what a stock will do. Those that do in actuality are thinking of themselves as having "super powers" that no human being is equipped with. This condition where a person can portent the future with a degree of certainty related to events that are probabilistic in nature has a name for it. For now, the best name I can come up is self-delusional thinking. There are many mental wards filled with delusional types. And it is always the delusional person that is the last to know about their condition.
The pursuit of money can do odd, very odd indeed, things to people. Money has that elixur quality to people that is like that historical pursuit of the mythical "fountain of youth". In a sense, money is seen as able to facilitate the creation of one's dreams, and not having any is seen as destroying possible futures. What power money has over people! I guess there is a cetain security in thinking that one can portent the future. This provides the illusion of control and security in what really appears to the person as chaos. Isn't this what we all strive for, a secure future, a future that we have control over, a future that is in some way predictable?
Chaos can be used to describe the short term price fluctuations of the stock market. The stock market is where fortunes are made and lost every day, and where indivudual futures can be made and destroyed. It is nice to think we can have control over this process of making money, and from this control over our destiny. The truth is that control over our destiny is an illusion. The only thing we have control over as a a human being is ourselves. Unfortunately, it is natural for us as human beings not to have even that, for this is the difficult part that requires the hard work on our part. The paradox here is that to manage the unpredictable outside of ourselves like the stock market, we need to become predictable ourselves by working to provide ourselves with control of our own perceptions and actions in the stock market. Those that attain this relationship with themselves can benefit from this by profiting from it in the stock market, and "profiting" in many other areas in their lives. Here people think that trading in the stock market is about the stock market, when actually much of it has to do with themselves.
This discussion reminds me of a statement provided by irby here that I like very much: "We are all one trade away form humility". I think every trader should hang this up in front of their PC where they make their trading decisions.
Bob Graham |
