The Fine Art of Doing Nothing

It has been a long time since I wrote about Traderman and his Diary. To those who are new to this note I have to explain that Traderman is a fictional trader who keeps a diary that I, somehow inexplicably, have complete access to.

Traderman has developed over a period of time from trading for fun to trading for a living. As a result, his diary often has jottings which can be relevant to traders.  So without much ado, here is what he had to write on Monday evening.

Dear Diary: The rally of Friday caught everybody off guard. Oh, the pleasure of seeing the short sellers getting cut. Every time they tried to re-enter the short position and at every new high they had to cut it. There is great pleasure, dear diary, in being right and seeing others getting killed.

But today was another story. A dull day if there ever was one. It was one of the more boring days in recent times. Nothing happened through the day. It required a great amount of will power (which I have in spades!!!) to be able to sit through yesterday without putting on a trade.

Talking about willpower, people fail to see the incredible expenditure of effort and the iron will required--- to appear to do nothing. To the lay observer it might look like I am wasting my time but only I know the effort required to make it appear so!!!. 

I know, dear diary, you are thinking that I am making a virtue out of a weakness or a fault. So I will try and think of one example where doing nothing is a virtue. Ok got it. Have all of us not seen how easy it is to book profits in a winning trade? It takes great effort to do nothing and let the profits run. 

Ok I got another one. Do you know how easy it is to try and tinker with your trading rules? Especially after you have a string of losing trades? How easy it is to try and see how those recent losses could have been avoided? How easy it is to think of a filter that could have avoided those trades? Do we, dear diary, not know the disastrous consequences of curve fitting our system to only recent trades?  A lesser person or trader would be tempted to attempt those changes. Only a seasoned trader with iron will can DO NOTHING!

Dear Diary, Now that I am getting into the groove, let me say that “Doing Nothing” is also good in other spheres of life. When your customer shouts at you it is best to--- do nothing. Do not justify your position... just say sorry and do nothing. When your boss shouts? What are you going to do dear diary? Yes you got it... do nothing. When your girlfriend gets angry.... Yes dear diary... You are right... Do nothing. Doing nothing is an art form Dear Diary. It saves you from a lot of trouble. It saves you from unnecessary action because often enough if you keep doing nothing for long enough then whatever it is that is troubling you or people will go away on its own. Problems get resolved, solutions come and all good things happen to the person who has learnt the difficult art of ....You are right... Doing Nothing.

Traderman must have written this in the evening yesterday after the market closed. He clearly was happy with his trading in the last few days. But late in the night he made another jotting in his Diary.

Dear Diary: Another live example of the benefits of Doing Nothing! I had not called Sonia in days. Just now I received a call from her asking me whether I was fine. Man she misses me! I am so happy! Do Nothing is a better mantra than even Hakuna Matata! Even better than “Dont worry Be Happy”

This is the reason why I choose to Do Nothing and just Ctrl C Ctrl V from Traderman Diaries. It saves a lot of effort and I do get to send off a decent piece to my friends. Before I sign off, let me say that I am long and will continue to be long until 5170 is broken.