Bar Stool Economics

Bar Stool Economics

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all 
ten comes to $100. 
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go 
something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar 
every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, 
the owner threw them a curve. 
'Since you are all such good customers, he said, I'm going to reduce 
the cost of your daily beer by $20. 
Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so 
the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. 
But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could 
they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair 
share?' 
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they 
subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the 
sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar 
owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by 
roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts 
each should pay.!

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four 
continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men 
began to compare their savings.

'I only got a dollar out of the $20, 'declared the sixth man. He 
pointed to the tenth man, 'but he got $10!'

'Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a 
dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!'

'That's true!!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get $10 back 
when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!'

'Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get 
anything at all. The system exploits the poor!'

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine 
sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the 
bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough 
money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how 
our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the 
most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for 
being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they 
might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat 
friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics, University of Georgia

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

 

The 5 Steps to becoming a trader

Step 1: Unconscious Incompetence.


This is the first step you take when starting to look into trading. you know that its a good way of making money because you've heard so many things about it and heard of so many millionaires. Unfortunately, just like when you first desire to drive a car you think it will be easy - after all, how hard can it be? Price either moves up or down - what's the big secret to that then - lets get cracking!

Unfortunately, just as when you first take your place in front of a steering wheel you find very quickly that you haven't got the first clue about what you're trying to do. You take lots of trades and lots of risks. When you enter a trade it turns against you so you reverse and it turns again .. and again, and again.


You may have initial success, and thats even worse - cos it tells your brain that this really is simple and you start to risk more money.


You try to turn around your losses by doubling up every time you trade. Sometimes you'll get away with it but more often than not you will come away scathed and bruised You are totally oblivious to your incompetence at trading

This step can last for a week or two of trading but the market is usually swift and you move on the the next stage.

 

Step 2 - Conscious Incompetence

Step two is where you realize that there is more work involved in trading and that you might actually have to work a few things out. You consciously realize realize realize realize realize are an incompetent trader - you don't have the skills or the insight to turn a regular profit.

You now set about buying systems and e-books galore, read websites based everywhere from USA to the Ukraine. and begin your search for the holy grail. During this time you will be a system nomad - you will flick from method to method day by day and week by week never sticking with one long enough to actually see if it does work. Every time you come upon a new indicator you'll be ecstatic that this is the one that will make all the difference.

You will test out automated systems on Metatrader, you'll play with moving averages, Fibonacci lines, support & resistance, Pivots, Fractals, Divergence, DMI, ADX, and a hundred other things all in the vein hope that your 'magic system' starts today. You'll be a top and bottom picker, trying to find the exact point of reversal with your indicators and you'll find yourself chasing losing trades and even adding to them because you are so sure you are right.

You'll go into the live chat room and see other traders making pips and you want to know why it's not you - you'll ask a million questions, some of which are so dumb that looking back you feel a bit silly. You'll then reach the point where you think all the ones who are calling pips after pips are liars - they cant be making that amount because you've studied and you don't make that, you know as much as they do and they must be lying. But they're in there day after day and their account just grows whilst yours falls.

You will be like a teenager - the traders that make money will freely give you advice but you're stubborn and think that you know best - you take no notice and overtrade your account even though everyone says you are mad to - but you know better. You'll consider following the calls that others make but even then it wont work so you try paying for signals from someone else - they don't work for you either.


You might even approach a 'guru' like Rob Booker or someone on a chat board who promises to make you into a trader(usually for a fee of course). Whether the guru is good or not you wont win because there is no replacement for screen time and you still think you know best.


This step can last ages and ages - in fact in reality talking with other traders as well as personal experience confirms that it can easily last well over a year and more nearer 3 years. This is also the step when you are most likely to give up through sheer frustration.

Around 60% of new traders die out in the first 3 months - they give up and this is good - think about it - if trading was easy we would all be millionaires. another 20% keep going for a year and then in desperation take risks guaranteed to blow their account which of course it does.


What may surprise you is that of the remaining 20% all of them will last around 3 years - and they will think they are safe in the water - but even at 3 years only a further 5-10% will continue and go on to actually make money consistently.


By the way - they are real figures, not just some I've picked out of my head - so when you get to 3 years in the game dont think its plain sailing from there.


Iv had many people argue with me about these timescales - funny enough none of them have been trading for more that 3 years - if you think you know better then ask on a board for someone who's been trading 5 years and ask them how long it takes to become fully 100% proficient. Sure i guess there will be exceptions to the rule - but i havent met any yet.


Eventually you do begin to come out of this phase. You've probably committed more time and money than you ever thought you would, lost 2 or 3 loaded accounts and all but given up maybe 3 or 4 times but now its in your blood

One day - im a split second moment you will enter stage 3.

 

 

Step 3 - The Eureka Moment

Towards the end of stage two you begin to realize that it's not the system that is making the difference. You realize that its actually possible to make money with a simple moving average and nothing else IF you can get your head and money management right You start to read books on the psychology of trading and identify with the characters portrayed in those books and finally comes the eureka moment.

The eureka moment causes a new connection to be made in your brain. You suddenly realize that neither you, nor anyone else can accurately predict what the market will do in the next ten seconds, never mind the next 20 mins.


Because of this revelation you stop taking any notice of what anyone thinks - what this news item will do, and what that event will do to the markets. You become an individual with your own method of trading


You start to work just one system that you mould to your own way of trading, you're starting to get happy and you define your risk threshold.

You start to take every trade that your 'edge' shows has a good probability of winning with. When the trade turns bad you don't get angry or even because you know in your head that as you couldn't possibly predict it it isn't your fault - as soon as you realize that the trade is bad you close it . The next trade or the one after it or the one after that will have higher odds of success because you know your system works.


You stop looking at trading results from a trade-to-trade perspective and start to look at weekly figures knowing that one bad trade does not a poor system make.


You have realized in an instant that the trading game is about one thing - consistency of your 'edge' and your discipline to take all the trades no matter what as you know the probabilities stack in your favor.

You learn about proper money management and leverage - risk of account etc etc - and this time it actually soaks in and you think back to those who advised the same thing a year ago with a smile. You weren't ready then, but you are now. The eureka moment came the moment that you truly accepted that you cannot predict the market.

 

Step 4 - Conscious Competence

You are making trades whenever your system tells you to. You take losses just as easily as you take wins You now let your winners run to their conclusion fully accepting the risk and knowing that your system makes more money than it looses and when you're on a loser you close it swiftly with little pain to your account

You are now at a point where you break even most of the time - day in day out, you will have weeks where you make 100 pips and weeks where you lose 100 pips - generally you are breaking even and not losing money. You are now conscious of the fact that you are making calls that are generally good and you are getting respect from other traders as you chat the day away. You still have to work at it and think about your trades but as this continues you begin to make more money than you lose consistently.

You'll start the day on a 20 pip win, take a 35 pip loss and have no feelings that you've given those pips back because you know that it will come back again. You will now begin to make consistent pips week in and week out 25 pips one week, 50 the next and so on.

This lasts about 6 months

 

 

Step 5 - Unconscious Competence

Now we’re cooking - just like driving a car, every day you get in your seat and trade - you do everything now on an unconscious level. You are running on autopilot. You start to pick the really big trades and getting 200 pips in a day doesn't make you any more excited that getting 1 pips.


You see the newbies in the forum shouting 'go dollar go' as if they are urging on a horse to win in the grand national and you see yourself - but many years ago now.

This is trading utopia - you have mastered your emotions and you are now a trader with a rapidly growing account.

You're a star in the trading chat room and people listen to what you say. You recognize yourself in their questions from about two years ago. You pass on your advice but you know most of it is futile because they're teenagers - some of them will get to where you are - some will do it fast and others will be slower - literally dozens and dozens will never get past stage two, but a few will.

Trading is no longer exciting - in fact it's probably boring you to bits - like everything in life when you get good at it or do it for your job - it gets boring - you're doing your job and that's that.


Finally you grow out of the chat rooms and find a few choice people who you converse with about the markets without being influenced at all.


All the time you are honing your methods to extract the maximum profit from the market without increasing risk. Your method of trading doesn't change - it just gets better - you now have what women call 'intuition'

You can now say with your head held high "I'm a currency trader" but to be honest you dont even bother telling anyone - it's a job like any other.


I hope you've enjoyed reading this journey into a traders mind and that hopefully you've identified with some points in here.


Remember that only 5% will actually make it - but the reason for that isn't ability, its staying power and the ability to change your perceptions and paradigms as new information comes available.


The losers are those who wanted to 'get rich quick' but approached the market and within 6 months put on a pair of blinkers so they couldn't see the obvious - a kind of "this is the way i see it and thats that" scenario - refusing to assimilate new information that changes that perception.


Im happy to tell you that the reason i started trading was because of the 'get rich quick' mindset. Just that now i see it as 'get rich slow'

If you're thinking about giving up i have one piece of advice for you ....

Ask yourself the question "how many years would you go to college if you knew for a fact that there was a million dollars a year job at the end of it?

Take care and good trading to you all.

        author unknown

Finally a good Chart+Trade platform on the iPad & other Mobile devices

Hi Folks,

Just wanted to show you a free app called "Trade Interceptor" for the iPad which I think is the first charting & Trading platform on the iPad that makes sense to me!.
Most mobile trading software so far I have seen is very very limited not to say it just moves but that's it.

Below is an actual screen shot from my iPad screen and as you can see in this set-up, it shows 3 time frames: Daily, H4 and H1 with different several indicators on it.

Beside over 100 indicators these indicators are also highly adjustable, the MACD on the screen is based on the (High+Low+Close)/3 price which resembles my MT4 OsMA pretty close.
The dotted lines are Smoothed Simple Moving Averages applied to the High and Low. And at the right side we see the weekly pivot points (on right chart) and daily Pivot points on the right chart.

This is the first app I actually see that also has Fibonacci levels in there and the user is also is able to draw Support & Resistance lines and trend lines (even automatic trend lines indicator is included).


Brokers & Datafeed
Multiple and simultaneously Data Feed's are available and also all of these brokers can be traded through the iPad.
Supported brokers right now are ( Aug 1st 2011 )

  • FXCM
  • ACM
  • SWFX
  • FXSOL
  • MBT
  • GFT
  • RFXBest

These brokers support beside forex also Gold and Silver, and hopefully over time add also brokers which support CFD's and Futures like FxPro does.

There is a full manual available for the iPad here and for those of you out there who don't have an iPad but another mobile device don't despair it is also available for:


Even Better!! It also runs on desktops like Mac OSX and Linux!!  So now we no longer need to mess around with VMware or Parralels to get our MT4 running on a Linux box or Mac

And for those who still have enough, here is a video about "Live trading synchronization between the Desktop and Mobile applications "

Home Page of Trade Intercepter

Enjoy!

    Wessel


“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful”

Gold ready for the next run to 1667?

On the weekly chart we see a nice pulldown from the 1541 level back to the 38% retracement which gives us a new target of 138% for the long run. Since price broke last week above the previous high of march (Fib 0.0 level 1593/1592), let's see if it retests that level and move upwards. If price does not hold and we break below the 0.0 fib level, we wait till it retests from below and we have some room to go down.

Gold_wd41

Happy Pipping!

Wessel
“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful”

EUR/USD Taking a short break, Let's see what today's news will evoke

The EU is taking a break after the strengthing from last week. The asian session did gap up and than filled the gap and price is now in a range. This morning there is news on the Euro:

Cal

The levels I watch are the boundaries of the range. As soon as price breaks out there we're in play.

Happy pipping

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful”

 

Eu

EUR/USD Retesting Support, building up pressure for the next move

This Morning I am looking at teh EU and doing a full top down to get as much information about the big picture.

Weekly Bullish
Shows a pullback to the 21EMA, and is already bouncing off this week. We'll see at the close of the week candle how this played out. Weekly Bias = Bullish

Daily In A Break & Retest Phase

Is in a downtrend and broke & retested the Weekly Pivot, lets see what teh news brings today about the USD, that will most likely determine whenever we bounce of that floor or crack down again.  On the chart the bullish and the bearish scenario are given.

H4 In A Break & Retest Phase Bullish

The H4 is in an uptrend currently retesting the 21EMA(4H) and the up-channel. In half an hour the candle will close and tell us what the market is up to. 

annalysis based on the teachings of fxKnight

(download)

 

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