The Weekend Trader - Looking Ahead

Some thoughts on a chilly morning in the Northeast.

Momentum - The older I get, the more I'm intrigued by the concept of momentum. And one has to again only look as far as the local sports scene.

- The 2008-09 Celtics win a team record 19 in a row to run their record to 27-2, looking completely unstoppable ... and then as if a switch were flipped, they go on to lose seven of their next nine including last night's loss to LeBron & Company.

- The 2007 Patriots go 18-0 before a Hail Mary helmet Super Bowl catch seems to trigger an onslaught of lost perfection, a rash of injuries to star players, and simple bad luck (the only way I can describe an 11-5 team missing the playoffs).

- And who can forget the 2004 Yankees who were tearing apart the Red Sox with a 19-8 complete stomping in Game 3 of the ALCS to go up 3-0, before the Yanks suddenly can't do anything right, while the Sox rise from the dead and become the first MLB team to ever come back from 0-3 to win the series.

I know I've mentioned this topic several times in recent months, including my recognition that my prolonged trading "in the zone" (as I suppose Mark Douglas would say) in the fall of 2008 seemed at times to be fueled solely by pure momentum. For one day blended into another, and into another, and before you knew it September 1st turned into December 15th. It was like one of those times when you're driving where you suddenly realize you can't remember making the last three turns.

And knowing that momentum would ultimately come to an end was the main reason I refused to slow down last year until the tank was completely empty and performance began to subside. As trading, poker, and life have all taught me, when conditions are right (however you define "conditions"), you push and don't let up. There will time to rest later.

Yet as I've mentioned over the last week, it's now time to find new momentum. This week was a start, but only a very small step. Which leads me to ...

Looking Ahead - I've now taken down all references to 2008 on this main page, aside from a "Personal Challenge" link that I've purposely buried in the bottom left margin just in case I ever need a momentary confidence boost. Simply put, I don't ever want to risk catching my eye looking back at the rear view mirror as I try to drive forward. As the quote at the top left correctly infers, yesterday's success can breed complacency and failure. As far as I'm concerned now, 2008 never happened. It's yesterday's game, old news, and irrelevant.

Which leads me to thinking again about the beta scorecard I've begun using. As I mentioned on Friday, I see one huge potential problem with it, and it's the concept that self-scoring myself green is in direct conflict with the fact that I clearly perform my best when I'm uncomfortable with my recent performance. And you don't fix what isn't broken ... lest we go back to the hard lessons of Seve Ballesteros in "Golf is Not a Game of Perfect" when someone recommended he change his "artistic" approach to his game which put him in an extended funk from which he never really fully recovered.

So I need to give the concept some more thought, but will keep using it for now.

Last Night's Trade Plotting - I'm going to post a video later this morning to expand on yesterday's trade notes to make sure everyone places the day, chart, and trades in proper perspective. In the meantime, suffice it to say that the chart itself is a small part of the whole picture, and I'll expand on that more in the video.