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<DIV><SPAN class=860102703-18071998><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=4>I
guess I was one of the lucky ones. I learned at my dad's knee.
Started at 14 years old and spent the first 2 years paper trading before he
would let me try my first 'for real' trade. I've seen him do some of the
dumbest and some of the smartest things I've ever seen.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=860102703-18071998><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial
size=4></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=860102703-18071998><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=4>On the
dumb side, he took a position in world sugar. I think margin was $200 or
$300 a contract, to put it into perspective. He knew, fundamentally, that
there was too much of the stuff, so he shorted it. After it ran over
$180,000 against him, he rode it all the way back down and made a few bucks
profit. That was dumb. Take your loss and get out. Don't get
so bullheaded that you can fight the trend.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=860102703-18071998><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial
size=4></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=860102703-18071998><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=4>But
the real dumb thing was that he had a buy signal on his technical system.
Oh yes, if he would have reversed (and taken a very small loss), he could have
ridden the move all the way up and reversed when he got his technical sell
signal. He would have made over $250,000 on the trade had he followed his
system.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=860102703-18071998><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial
size=4></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=860102703-18071998><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=4>Then
there were the times he took delivery of various 'stuff'. I remember my
mom worrying where she was going to put the 40,000 dz. frozen eggs he just took
delivery of. Or the time he took physical delivery of 2,000 tons of zinc
and the stuff damaged the floor of our warehouse (6 feet of reinforced
concrete). But he more than made enough to fix the floor, and our die
casting plant had zinc when there was a world wide shortage
:-).</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=860102703-18071998><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial
size=4></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=860102703-18071998><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial size=4>He's
89 now and still working on technical trading systems. Got another one
from him this week to review and test out. It's sort of nice having him
around. My brother and I still talk to him weekly and e-mail
daily.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=860102703-18071998><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial
size=4></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=860102703-18071998><FONT color=#0000ff face=Arial
size=4></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=2>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B>
owner-metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]<B>On
Behalf Of</B> Essan Soobratty<BR><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, July 16, 1998 7:38
PM<BR><B>To:</B> metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<BR><B>Cc:</B>
realtraders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx<BR><B>Subject:</B> Re: Learning how to trade and
paying people to divulge their "knowhow"<BR><BR></FONT></DIV>I
left school barely before reaching 18. My first job on a trading desk
was fetching coffees for the other traders and doing their general grunt
work. There was one guy who eventually became my mentor and gave me
some valuable real life lessons treated my like shit for over a year.
Nobody sat me on their knee and read me the abc of trading. Nobody
taught me what a futures contract was. Nobody taught me the difference
between a market and limit order and slippage in a fast market. Not
because they didn't want to - it was the way they learnt and besides on a
bank trading desk, TRADER's DON'T HAVE TIME TO TEACH. (Think about
this statement when a "trader" offers to spend 5 full days
lecturing or teaching privately....). Everything I learnt while on the
steepest bit of that damned learning curve was through watching and asking
questions (at the right time - try asking a trader a question just after an
employment figure.....you're likely to get a half chewed bit of bigmac spat
unintentionally in your direction..... I am speaking from experience here!).
<P>I lived, eat, breathed and slept markets for 2 years (with only 3 days of
vacation & 2 of sick leave) before I was given full responsibility for a
trading book. During my time of working for a bank I generally arrived
at my desk at 6:30am and usually did not leave until after 7pm (I was in
London so I basically arrived at around the time Tokyo was winding down and
stayed until NY was close to going home). During my 2yrs of
"tuition" I had 10-15 traders around me from whom I absorbed as
much info as I could; some of whom had been trading for 10+ years.
<P>I am not knocking a formal education - don't get me wrong. I wish I
had gone to University and stuff. What I am saying is that learning
how to trade effectively is a real life experience which can only be taught
through experience itself. That's why I am against approaches
like paper trading for beginners- it just instills a false sense of
security, emphasises reward and downplays risk and losses and the negative
effect losses can have on the psyche and hence on future trades. You
can paper trade, but only to test new strategies while trading for
real.<I></I>
<P>Think about when you learnt to drive a car. You probably watched a
parent drive for years before seeking instruction. Then you listened
to the instruction and then you got behind the wheel <I>with the instructor
at your side</I>. You only went out on your own when you were competant
enought to drive by yourself (and of course had your license).
<P>You must be realistic when trying to run up that learning curve. Don't
believe so called guru's if they tell you your performance will be improved
by following his/her methods.
<P>I guess if you are unable to adopt either of the 2 approaches I outlined
in my earlier posting then what I would recommend for a beginner is to read
as much as you can. Not about "trading" per se but about
markets in general. Don't go out and buy a book on how to predict
future turning points in markets or about fractals Get a good book on
laymans economics. Read Market Wizards. Read interviews with the
"big traders". Read about the fixed income markets.
Read about currencies. Read about derivative pricing. Read the
"classical texts" such as Reminicences (sp?). Read
Niederhoffers book (even though he went bust, his book is full of
wisdom). And if you want to learn how to control losses - read a good
book of gambling. Learn to play poker. Read about portfolio
management. If you want to learn about technical analysis - get some
of the oldest books you can find - forget those on the bestseller
list. The best traders around at the moment have been trading for
many, many years - they didn't have anywhere near the resources that are
available now and yet they are still the best. Markets do not change -
people do as do their perceptions.
<P>Good learning to all.
<P>E. <BR>
<P>Lionel Issen wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE = CITE>There have been relatively very few self made
millionaires with a college <BR>education. Neither Michael Dell
nor Bill Gates have college degrees.
<P>Lionel Issen
<P>-----Original Message----- <BR>From: Richard Estes
<rtestes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> <BR>To: metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <BR>realtraders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<realtraders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> <BR>Date: Thursday, July 16, 1998
1:22 PM <BR>Subject: Re: Learning how to trade and paying people to
divulge their <BR>"knowhow"
<P>> <BR>>You sound like the type that came out of the womb
trading. There sure <BR>aren't <BR>>many of those around. <BR>>
<BR>>Richard Estes <BR>> <BR>> <BR>>-----Original
Message----- <BR>>From: Essan Soobratty <trader@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<BR>>To: realtraders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
<realtraders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <BR>>metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> <BR>>Date: Thursday, July 16, 1998
12:18 PM <BR>>Subject: Learning how to trade and paying people to
divulge their "knowhow" <BR>> <BR>> <BR>>>It
amazes me how many people once they have "decided" that they
want to <BR>>>trade will then fork out many $$ in an attempt to
learn various <BR>>>techniques. <BR>>> <BR>> <BR>>
<BR>></P></BLOCKQUOTE> </BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>
</x-html>From ???@??? Sat Jul 18 09:40:29 1998
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From: "Aongus Flood" <aflood@xxxxxxxx>
To: <metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: Copy From Data CD
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 1998 00:42:40 -0400
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Copy the contents of the CD to your hard drive. Then tell the downloader
where the files are...
Regards
Aongus
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:owner-metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Steve Gochuico
> Sent: Friday, July 17, 1998 11:13 PM
> To: metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Copy From Data CD
>
>
> Hello. I'd like to copy all the data from the US Stocks
> folder of the Metastock data CD. What's the fastest
> way to do this? Using the command copy securites in
> the downloader, it seems I have to select each security
> manually using the SHIFT+ key. Is there an option where
> I can just say copy all securities from the folder?
> Thanks in advance for any help.
>
> Regards,
>
> Steve G.
>
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