You can find the beginning of the story about super traders here:
Super Traders (Introduction)
Harry
Previously, Harry was often called “a genius boy”, but sarcasm in these reviews was far. Harry – very successful trader. He is individual. That, what is Harry doing, almost no one else does, how does he do it, maybe, Harry doesn't know himself. Learning from Harry is useless. He can explain his actions, but not their essence and reasons. Often a trader can be judged, although very conditional, by the structure of the organization of information on his / her monitors. There is no order on Harry's monitors, the structure is completely absent. Nevertheless, Harry manages to follow more than seventy stocks and trade most of them.. Harry works in a very wide range of prices, often “sitting down” significant movement of the stock price against itself. But in most cases, he turns out to be right., prices come back and go in his direction. All this, but, does not say, that Harry is always right. There are simply no people who are always right. Harry is right most of the time, like other super traders.
To illustrate that, how does Harry trade, it will be interesting to describe one trading day in July 2002 that I remember well. A few days before that, the market was smoothly going down. On that day, the market also opened lower and the Dow Jones dropped by 150 points. Standing a little at the bottom, the market moved up, accelerating harder and harder. Traders began to close positions for a fall and play on a rise. Usually, the moment of transition S is considered the key point of changing the sides of the market.&P Futures and Dow Jones from minus to plus, after which, but, there remains the possibility of the market returning to the original side. This time, the market jumped into positive territory like an overclocked racing car.. The day was neutral, there were no special key news of a general and sectoral nature, which means, there was no reason for a serious movement. Nevertheless, the market tore up like crazy. Stocks spread up at regular intervals, throwing players down and bringing profits to buyers. The upward movement of the market did not fall even during the usually slow and no-trend lunchtime. Certainly, the market did not go up strictly in a straight line, rolling back at times, but only for that, to jerk even higher again. Personally, my day began with losses. I started promoting too early. But rather quickly, the losses were replaced by serious profits for my level.. I closed positions at the very top, but the market went even further. I bought again, made a profit again, closing positions, but only for that, to buy even more expensive almost immediately, and sell even more expensive. And so many times. What happened?? Turns out, there are too many downtrend players in the market, the volume of short positions exceeded the critical mass, and the so-called “short squeeze” gigantic. On each new dash up, the players are down “howling in pain” closed positions, driving the market higher and higher with new purchases. Market, former at the beginning of the day in a serious minus, finished at the end of the day in a serious plus. The Dow Jones goes up 450 points.
I am giving these illustrations in order to, to show, that on this day it was simply impossible not to make money. Any, even a very novice trader, without reasoning or thinking, should have just bought stock, and the probability of being wrong was no more 10%. On this day, everyone, who did I see around, made money. Everything, except Harry. Harry could not fully believe in the upward movement of the market., quite obviously flying in that direction. At every pullback, Harry began to play short., eventually losing about 5 thousand.
But the next day, the picture was somewhat different.. The market opened sharply upward and continued to move vigorously. Everyone tuned in for a repeat of yesterday's rally, however, it was not so. At first there was a gradual, and then an ever-increasing downward reversal. Then the market went up again, but soon fell down again. Many funds and institutional traders began to take yesterday's profits from the market. Eventually, the market spent most of the day in a gradual decline, periodically twitching upward and throwing players down. Most traders lost money in this chaos, Harry earned 10 thousand.
And on the example of Harry, I felt the materiality of such a phenomenon., how lucky. Good luck for the trader – essential thing. Its presence or absence is clearly felt every day.. It happens, you yourself are surprised, how smooth is everything. You enter the position at the right moment and leave literally a second before the movement reverses against you. Harry is clearly lucky. At least, often. For example, he once deliberately left a large position in one company the next day, since the information has passed, that another company is buying its controlling interest. In such cases, the shares of the companies being bought go up sharply.. Market closed, and then the news came out, that the offer to buy a controlling stake has been withdrawn. Harry went home in complete confidence, which will start the next day with a big minus. But the next morning it turned out, that another company offered an even higher amount for the same controlling stake. And Harry started his day with a profit of over six thousand dollars..
Since we're talking about the materiality of luck, should also be noted, that thoughts also have a material essence. There is no competition in trading. If one thing is bad, This does not mean, what is better for another. In no case should you wish a colleague bad things.. It's often like this.. Day, allowable, heavy, hard work. But at the very least you're holding on, or even things are very good. Look at one neighbor, at another, and they have serious losses. And the mood rises. It seems that you, as a trader, are better than them.. And just think so, how does something shibanet, and you won't have time to do anything. And with experience you understand: there shouldn't be such emotions. And if, God forbid, wished someone good luck, then hold on. She will come to you. Only complete neutrality. The only thing that matters is, what are you doing?. Then there is hope, that the whole complex of processes invisible to the trader will appear in objective reality.
