The Weekend Trader (Sunday Edition)

A few snippets to close the weekend and get ready for Monday's trade.

10,000 Hours to Mastery - In Saturday's comments to my post, Adam provided a great link to a book extract that touches on the amount of time it takes for true mastery and elite performance. Bill Gates, Bobby Fischer, Mozart, the Beatles, and elite athletes ... they all fully immersed themselves in their endeavor for about 10,000 hours before finally "making it". Applying this same data to trading, and assuming one trades 6.5 hours a day for 250 trading days a year (no vacations), that's no less than six years -- and most likely longer to account for time off and the need to sit through years of evolving markets where the rules keep changing -- of full immersion before one can expect to reach an elite level of proficiency. And that's assuming one had the capital backing to absorb the undoubtable early losses and pay for the early shrink bills. It's a great link.

What Caused Friday's Late Day Squeeze? - Fox News insists it was the leaking of Obama's emerging cabinet picks. Briefing.com suggested it was the fact that Citigroup began to establish a price floor. Most of you know the "why" is irrelevant. At the time, I was of course aware of neither since I don't follow news during the trading day unless price action goes completely bonkers. The fact was the market started to climb after clearly rejecting prices below 750, and broke to new momentum highs. If you're looking for "whys" or trying to interpret news before making a trading decision, you'll likely find yourself on the retail (losing) side of the trade 99% of the time.

In this current "VIX over 50" volatile environment, trading is clearly a sport where pattern recognition and reflexes are essential. And when my own reaction speed or focus is even slightly off, it shows clearly in the P&L, with emphasis on the "L".

Resetting the Focus - Yes, here we go again. I have to enter the coming week's trade believing I took a huge hit last week and feeling the pressure to perform better. Alain Bernard (I'll finally stop calling him the "French guy to my right") has regained the lead in the final relay and it's put up or shut up time.



Complacency kills in this business. You have to be hungry and want it badly. Mom's "It will be ok if you come in second ... I'll still be proud of you" won't cut it. Silver won't cut it. This is a performance sport ... period. A sport where a small group of consistently winning traders take the chips from the larger group of losing traders. Of course, none of this is new news for those who have followed the blog, and if you're thinking "Geesh, how many times are we going to read that?", then this is serving its purpose.

Forget the initial $1M goal. Forget the Q4 bonus. Industry sources tell me I now apparently have a unique opportunity to stand among the top industry performers for 2008 in a year where most have gotten hammered. But only if I don't coast to the finish. Suddenly, the Final Table has new and real meaning.

Yet years ago, the Pittsburgh Steelers made the fatal mistake of widely publicizing their Super Bowl travel plans before the AFC Championship game with the Patriots. You know the rest of the story. I can't go there. The past year, month, week, day, hour, & trade all remain irrelevant, and the future has to be earned.

90% of the work may be done, but the final 10% push will be the hardest.

Time is running out and I'm behind.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.