Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2003 3:51 pm Post subject: Learning that it's not what you know but do you do it -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I remember just after the initial Turtle class in December 1983, we were a bit anxious to begin trading after a return from the New Years holiday. Each of us was given a desk in a large office on the 8th floor of the Insurance Exchange building which was right next to the Board of Trade building. The desks were arranged in six pairs with six foot partitions between the pairs. We each chose our desks which implied choosing the person we would be sitting next to for the indefinite future. Each desk had a telephone with a private line which rang directly at our desk. We each received an account where we were to begin trading in units of three contracts for each of the commodities we were trading. We were to take a position of at most four units or twelve contracts for each commodity we traded. This roughly corresponded to an account size of $50K to $100K. We had full discretion over our accounts and could make any trades we wanted as long as we could justify the reasons behind the trade. We had to keep a log for the first month indicating the reasons behind every trade that we made. A few days or so into the new year February Heating Oil started to rise from about $0.73 to $0.75, so I followed the system and bought three contracts, the trade was immediately profitable and in just a few days I had bought the maximum twelve contracts. The room was abuzz with the heating oil trade over the next few days. Heating Oil rose to over $0.95 in less than a week. We all had rather large profits and things were looking good. It was about this time that I noticed something that struck me as bizarre. I was the only turtle with a full position. Every single other turtle had decided for some reason or other not to follow the system as Rich and Bill had outlined. I don’t know if it was fear of losing too soon after starting, the fact that the February contract of Heating Oil was going to expire in a few weeks, or simply a much more conservative trading style, but I could not figure out how everyone could have attended the same training session as I did and not be completely loaded in February Heating Oil. The next few days were volatile, Heating Oil dropped in price from a high of something like $0.98 to $0.85. I noted another interesting thing, all of the other turtles liquidated most or all of their Heating Oil position when the price dropped. Based on the way Rich and Bill had just taught us, it seemed very clear to me that the right thing to do was to hold on and let the profits run. I held all twelve contracts down to the low. This represented a draw-down from about up 40% to up 20% in just a couple of days. Shortly after most of the other turtles liquidated, the price began to rise again. Soon it passed the previous high of $0.98 and kept rising to over $1.16. It reached its peak a day or two before contract expiration and I ended up getting out of all twelve contracts very near the highs at around $1.14. After the trade my account was up $78,000 which represented about a 100% increase in just under a few weeks. The other turtles made far less money than I did on this trade. In fact, the next best win was $28,000. This was amazing. We had all been taught exactly the same thing but my return for January was three times or more than the best of the other turtles. The difference in return had nothing to do with knowledge and everything to do with emotional and psychological factors. Over the years, I keep finding evidence that emotional and psychological strength are the most important ingredients in successful trading. - Curtis P.S. Rich must have thought so as well, he ended up giving me a $2 million account in February, a few other received $1 million and many received $500,000 or were asked to continue trading the provisional account. The guy who made $28,000 was one of the few who received a $1 million starting account. -- 波段單王道：多頭做多、空頭做空、盤整少做、賺錢加碼、賠錢停損 小弟在永豐金證券，來開戶就不定期提供個人觀察潛力股名單 以及操作建議，股票期權手續費都有優惠唷，意者請mail ^^ http://blog.pixnet.net/stasis --

※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 59.117.83.29