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-----Original Message-----
From: Don Hughes <daringdon@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sunday, November 08, 1998 4:02 AM
Subject: Re: NWAC, KEA and AMAT
>Why have we not seen any of your picks?
>
>Right or wrong, Harley is at least willing to tell us what he is doing.
>
>Those that can do, do.
>Those that can't do, are the quickest to jump on mistakes of others who are
trying.
>
>Show us how year 13 is going, Rick.
>
---------------------------------------
You're a funny guy Don. Nevertheless you deserve a serious reply. Here's my
TOP 10 countdown why I don't post my positions:
10. Trading is my profession. It's all I've ever done since college. I don't
have the time or inclination to post to this forum regularly. In fact about
the only time I do post is when I'm going to cash ahead of a vacation as I
am now. Taking the wife to Paris Thursday to do a little Xmas shopping with
our Sept-Oct. market windfall :-) And though I subscribe to the list I
really don't make much use of MetaStock. Most of my systems are coded in
Excel. If return shipping didn't cost so much, I would have returned it
during the first month.
9. I paid my way thru university by dealing a high stakes poker game for a
legendary Texas sports bookie. Life lesson 1 was that the best poker face
always ends winning the game.
8. The guy that gave me my first trading job in fixed income was a regular
in those games. He taught me that the securities business is mean & nasty,
second maybe only to the real estate biz. The guy on the opposite side of
your trades would just soon as chew your hand off as shake it. The feeding
frenzy that overcame Long Term Capital once the market smelled blood is a
visible example. Unless you pay me or give some new insight, I'm not very
motivated to make you a better trader. Sorry.
7. Talking a position involves the ego. It creates unnecessary mental
barriers to position entry and more importantly, your exits. Whenever I've
done so, it has cost me money. Whenever I've publicly pontificated, the
market makes me look foolish. The market inflicts enough mental pain when it
proves me wrong in my day-to-day trading, I hesitate to add more fuel to its
fire.
6. I don't want to influence or encourage beginners to piggyback on my
trades. Timing is everything and by following me they'll always be late.
Eventually it will cost them money. A friend followed me into Chinon once. A
month later he called me up wondering when I was going to sell as the stock
had been cut in half. I told him I sold the day after I bought it! He lost 5
million yen and has never spoken to me since.
5. Most of my trading activities involve the Japanese market. This tends to
be a US market-centric forum. My US market trading is with the S&P Spider
and Dow Diamond though I'll sometimes stray. Not really much to talk about
and they lack the price action many here crave.
4. People are lazy by nature. They much prefer to piggyback on someone
else's work in the market than put in the hours needed to find their own
way. I worked 18hr days on a fixed income desk for nine years in preparation
to go out and trade for my own account. There are no shortcuts, only hard
work. Perhaps that's my real trading edge. Call me selfish if you want, but
I'm not giving away my edge.
3. My systems are simple and brutish. On their own they only average being
profitable on 30% of signaled trades which is about normal. But when
combined with my money management filters, 72% of my trades become
profitable. Proper money management is the real key. It's also portfolio
dependent and therefore what's good for me won't be good for someone else.
2. Perhaps I've lived in the land of Zen and Wa for too long or the market
has squeezed it all out of me, but I have no trading ego left to stroke. The
only one's to whom my success matters is my family.
1. Paranoia. Machine's around the world are busily recording every single
word, image, etc, being sent over the internet. I can assure you it's not
being done for posterity, but because someone feels they can make a buck off
it or can someday use it against you.
Cheers,
Rick
Tokyo, Japan
>Don Hughes
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