On the Verge of Greatness

After I started writing about data crawling out of the woodwork, I actually started looking out for what data is released in the US and Germany on a daily basis. The initial jobless claim data turned out to be worst than expected and created a flutter in the US markets. As I write this note, S&P is down 21 points and has triggered our STT sell level. LTT was already a sell. The new STT buy level for S&P is 1299. To top it, the Dollar has moved up against the Euro and risk trades are therefore a definite no no

 

I remain short on both STT and LTT on the Nifty. The STT buy level continues to be 5392 and the LTT buy level continues to be 5610. Therefore I spent another glorious day in the office-doing nothing. (It is always a glorious day if you are not doing anything)

 

BTW have you read Malcolm Gladwell's Outlier? He has discussed various very successful people/groups in the book. It is actually a discussion about  great talent vs hardwork and he has time and again pointed out in the book that what looks on the surface as a victory of great talent is actually a result of hardwork meeting a minimum level of talent. He has said that close to 10000 hours of hard practice married with talent is behind most successful people.

 

Even Harsha Bhogle, in a recent article, defined talent as say the ability to play a beautiful on-drive, the most difficult shot in cricket which is hit straight between the bowler and the mid-on fielder. He, however, defined success as the ability to play the shot consistently well. He goes on to say that the moment consistency is brought into the equation one has to immediately talk about persistent practice. Hardwork and long hours of practice married to talent is what makes a great cricketer like say Tendulkar.

 

Reading about all this set me thinking. How does a trader become successful/great? What is it that the trader needs to practice? I guess the answer is that the trader needs to have the ABILITY to take a trade and then to get out of a trade. But the trader needs to PRACTICE staying still and doing nothing when the trade is in progress. And who else but me has this in spades? I am the king of doing nothing. And then it struck me that since I have traded for the last 7 out of 10 years I am about to hit the golden 10000 hrs of practice of doing---- yes you guessed right----nothing. (6hrs*240days*7yrs). Man! I am on the verge of greatness and I did not even know it!