From The Desk Of A Trader #20
"Market analysis is like a tremendous multidimensional chess board. The pleasure of it is purely intellectual"
Cheat Sheet -
Support and resistance levels and our daily, weekly and monthly bias on BTC, ETH, CL, ES, and NQ as well as our favorite altcoins.
Today, we are happy to share the thoughts from the desk of a commodities trader. The following views are that of Martijn Bron and do not represent the views of his employer.
From The Desk Of A Trader
One of the first books I read about #trading was "Market Wizards", interviews with top traders, published in 1989.
I read some chapters again and it is still fantastic and relevant for active and aspiring traders today, over three decades later.
One of the traders interviewed is Paul Tudor Jones, who also featured in the brilliant documentary, "TRADER", filmed before Wall Street's October 1987 crash, which he traded correctly.
I met him a couple of times around 2010 at his #hedgefund in Stamford, Connecticut, giving presentations about the cocoa market.
It was great to meet the legend, and hear him chipping in casually but constructively on a niche market he would hardly follow, if at all, just on what he heard from me. Very impressive.
Some quotes from his interview;
"Trading gives you an incredibly intense feeling of what life is all about. You live on the extremes and there are enormous emotional ups and downs involved, but I try to avoid emotional attachment to a market"
"When you are trading size, you have to get out when the market lets you out, not when you want to get out"
"Never play macho man with the market"
"Risk control is the most important thing in trading"
"Every day I assume every position I have is wrong"
Currency and commodity futures trader Bruce Kovner touches upon a mistake which novice traders typically make. You also see it among retail traders who entered the digital asset #markets and stock market investors who moan about the most hated bull market, again in 2023; "they personalize the market".
"A common mistake is to think of the market as a personal nemesis. The market is totally impersonal; it doesn't care whether you make #money or not. When a trader says "I wish", "I hope" or "I hate", it's engaging in a destructive way of thinking, because it takes attention away from the diagnostic process"
Some other Kovner quotes;
"There is probably no class of trades with a higher failure rate than impulsive (not to be confused with intuitive) trades"
"Market analysis is like a tremendous multidimensional chess board. The pleasure of it is purely intellectual"
I finish with some fantastic quotes from commodity trader Michael Marcus, for those fooled to believe or promoting trading is easy;
"The leading cause of financial disablement is the belief that you can rely on experts to help you. Typically these so-called "experts" are not traders. Your average broker couldn't be a trader in a million years"
"Trading requires an intense personal involvement. You have to do your own homework"
"The belief that there is conspiracy in the markets is foolish. The market is bigger than anybody and sooner or later, it goes where it wants to go"
"A good trader can't be rigid"
"If trading is your life, it is a torturous kind of excitement, but if you are keeping your life in balance, then it is fun"
This is just a tiny selection of the many trader quotes I can relate to.
Enjoy reading and learning from the rest.
Want more from Foot Guns? Join our Discord where we have live conversations about the market.