In the previous post, I mentioned the SMB traders who reviewed every day's trades in elaborate detail, not just looking at charts but actually replaying the day. They truly re-view their trading. Like professional athletes, they're spending as much time in practice and workouts as in actual performance. That gives them so many more reps than other traders, so much more material for pattern recognition, that their odds of trading success skyrocket relative to their peers. They are doing what winners do.
This morning, I reviewed market information for the day and came across an analysis forwarded by SentimenTrader. What they did is go back in history and create a daily ratio of the performance of growth stocks to value stocks, noting the recent distinct outperformance of growth shares. They then looked at what that ratio had to say about, not only the direction of stocks overall, but for that ratio of growth to value. I won't give away their intellectual property, but suffice it to say that they find something very, very few traders I know are even looking at. That is what winners do.
If you want a good read, check out the practice habits of Michael Jordan during his NBA days. Jordan was always a good and promising player since his days at UNC, but it was his mode of working that turned him into a superstar. It was his practice ethic and competitive drive that made him great. That is what makes winners.
This should be your goal in life: To find the activities that so capture your interest, your talents, and your passions that you pursue them with more breadth, depth, and effort than the average person. I look at many traders and they are totally "me too". They trade the same names and ideas as others; they put in the same effort as others. Nothing. Stands. Out.
C'mon! Life is too short to be "me too"! Is that what you want on your gravestone as an epitaph: "Me too"??? Our challenge is to figure out that intersection of our strengths (what we're good at) and our passions (what is meaningful to us) and leverage those into something that makes us unique, more than mere "me too". That is what winners do.
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