I stumbled onto this last night. Thought I'd share with everyone here. I've seen the same pattern over and over. Isn't the right belief important? Waxwing, First off, I'm a linguist. Math hurts my head. When I need some math explained to me, I go over to the math department and find an American that can put it in simple terms. Honestly, I can't follow what you did in the last post. Let me relate a true story (actually two related stories). In the summer of 2002, I did a 3-day seminar with Van Tharp in North Carolina. I was in stocks at the time and the topic was stocks, but of course we covered money management. There were 6 participants, myself included. Van Tharp (VT) paired us off right away. My partner was a dental hygienist from California. She was there with her boss and friend, a dentist. My partner, Tammy, had a technical education. She didn't have a university education. Her friend was not only a dentist, but she held a PhD in Math. The first evening I had dinner with the two of them. The dentist told me her story first. She had become interested in the Futures game seven years earlier. After reading one book, she opened an account with her life savings, $70,000. At the end of her first year of trading, she had $500,000. During that time she had kept on studying. In her second year, she lost everything. For the next five years she was a net loser at trading. She had read everything, had been to damn near every seminar, tried every trading platform and done just about everything one could to be a successful trader. I was impressed by the breadth and width of her knowledge, not only of trading, but also of life in general. Tammy, on the other hand, was considerably younger. She was quiet and reserved, but not afraid to say what she wanted. I immediately liked her as well. She struck me as the most stable of the two. The dentist was hyper and I alluded to it after the second day and she readily admitted that she had a quick mind that was forever roaming. Tammy was methodical and introspective. The dentist was impulsive (probably not a good trait for a dentist) and extroverted. I then had to ask Tammy for her story. She had become interested in trading via her friend. She admitted that the math that her friend engaged in was a bit too much for her and she preferred a simpler approach to trading. She then explained her system to me. It took about 1 minute for her to do so. She traded a handful of the same stocks everyday, looking for a 25-cent move. She would hit it with a 1-2,000 shares, grab her quarter and stop. She only traded 3 hours a day as she lived in California and had to go to her job by 9 am. She had been at it for 4 years. On the third day, she confessed to me that she had made $300,000 in the past 4 years and that she planned to keep on doing things the same way for at least 4 more years. Then she was going to quit her job and do something else. That first day of the seminar, VT explained the Money Management (Marble) game to us. As pairs, we were to come up with a MM strategy for playing the game on days 2 and 3. Tammy and I took about 5 minutes to agree (we got along extremely well) on a strategy. We were going to bet a straight 1.5% come hell or high water. That was it, nothing else. The next day the game began. Each pair was to monitor their account with one person doing the math. We began the game with 50k. VT was using a system with a 30% probability rate, but very high winning R-R trades. Well, the trades fell nicely for us and all three pairs were in the money at the end of the first day. We did 50 trades during that session (it was done quite fast). To make it interesting, we were using real money. Everyone put money into a pool and it was handed out for different reasons-highest return in 20 turns, etc. The second night we were tasked with reviewing our performance and to revise our strategy. Tammy and I were very happy with our results so we decided to stick with the original plan. The dentist had been paired with a an older man who was a lawyer. He was also quite bright and had a number of years experience trading. They came in last that day. The final pair was a couple of guys who were experienced traders. During the game, VT had to wait a number of times for the dentist to finish her calculations after a single trade. We didn’t know what they were doing, but it was taking a lot of hammering on the calculator to figure out the results of each trade. The third day we played the final 50 trades. VT decided to give everyone an additional $500,000 to their account. He did this to encourage overtrading because the previous day’s trading had gone too well in his opinion. You have to keep in mind that what he wanted was for us to get slammed by the probabilities, panic, change our systems in mid-game and go broke. This is how he teaches the importance of MM. However, both Tammy and I agreed the night before that part of the lesson was also sticking to your system until you’re absolutely sure it’s broken. Given we had won, we had no reason to change anything. Well, we played the game. I can’t remember exact number, but we finished with just over 3 million. The two guys beat us out by a couple of hundred thousand, while the doctor and lawyer didn’t break 1.5 million. On one occasion, VT had to stop the game for 10 minutes because the dentist had screwed up her calculations so much, that she had to redo quite a few of them to get the correct figures. When the game finished, VT had us explain to all what strategy we used. He asked the two guys first. They had used a straight percentage of capital with a varying rate of profit. If the profit declined, they would reduce the amount bet. In other words, no profit, then no extra above the percent of capital. They beat us out on the last 2 trades. I then told everyone what we had done. 1.5% of capital straight across the board. VT saved the best for last. The dentist explained their system. With all honesty, I can tell you I didn’t understand what they were doing. It was extremely complicated and it didn’t work very well. VT commented that it was overly complicated. The dentist then went off for a few minutes justifying why it was a good system. The lawyer also defended the system. I was not impressed and I suspect neither was VT. The seminar was informative. I learned quite a bit about MM from VT and how to trade stocks from Dennis Ulom, the other presenter. However, the thing that made a lasting impression upon me as Tammy and Leda. Tammy was a simple woman who was a successful trader. Leda herself verified this. She even said that she wished she could trade the way Tammy did, but she couldn’t do something that simple (I’m not exaggerating one bit here). Leda was a fireball. She could tell you everything you ever wanted to know about Wave analysis, statistics, and fundamentals, but she was an admitted losing trader. Meeting these two made a powerful impression upon me and it was worth the money the weekend cost me. It put to bed for me the notion that trading has to be difficult, complex and complicated. I had the good fortune to have lunch with Dennis Ulom on the second day. He is a very successful trader, also from California. He was one of the first graduates from VT’s Super Trader program, one that requires demonstrated and verifiable results before being admitted. We walked over to a nearby mall and I bought him lunch. We hit it off well and we talked about his trading. He took O’Neill’s CANSLIM system, made a few changes to it and then stuck to it. That’s it, nothing complex or complicated. He is a simple man who became successful by being a simple trader. During the seminar he showed us a number of ways to trade stocks, all simple, yet successful. Meeting him was also one of the best parts of the seminar. Waxwing, I know this is quite long, but I hope I made my point. Here at Money Tec, I see Tammy and Leda everyday. My own trading is close to becoming consistently successful. I’m still dealing with a few emotional issues, but I’m dealing with them. I’m highly educated, yet I feel that is a hindrance to me in trading. Trading should be simple. Controlling oneself is complex and a lifelong process. But the actual entries and exits, the money management, and all of the technical aspects of trading are not that difficult. Yet, we choose to make it so. Why? I’ve enclosed something that might interest you. It is the report VT ran of the results of our particular game. He has a program which crunches the numbers. He emailed it to us days later. As far as the game goes, it’s been a couple of years since I’ve played it. I just happened to keep the results on a spreadsheet. Here is what I found on that. 10% Shares & 5% Risk From level 9, 2% S & 1% R when not in a run. In a run, double up twice, then go to 5% & 1.5%. If first or second winner is greater than 1:1, do not double. There is a thread on VT’s forums about the game in which I posted my results. In it I explained why I changed the parameters from level 9 on. It was a simple, yet necessary adjustment that took all of 3 minutes to figure out. Nat
确实很有趣，也很能给人以启迪。 在现实市场中，数学PHD不敌卫生护理员，读遍万卷书的不敌读懂一本 书的，这种例子不少见。威廉.欧奈尔的“CANSLIM”可能是我接触到 的第一个选股模型了，十年前在当时的上证报上连载，至今我还保留 着剪报。七个字代表七个条件，很简单但确实有效。 是帖主的亲身经历吗？
我只是看了非常有同感. 在看到太多的成功和失败的实例后, 我觉得太聪明在大多数情况下反被聪明误. 交易方法追求复杂, 认为高深的才是容易成功的; 学了一个成功的方法喜欢先挑毛病, 进而想改进, 最终是抛弃. 我可以说在美国交易教育上活跃的大多数"权威"都是绝顶聪明人没能成为成功交易者的实例. 相反, 职业运动员很容易成为成功交易者的现实值得我们深思. 不知你相信不相信, 我十几年前读的第一本交易书就是WILLIAM O`NEIL写的关于CANSLIM的这本书. 惭愧啊, 如果当时笨一点就照这本书去好好做, 退休的进程会早好几年.