The long haul
How long do you want to be trading for?
Do you want to make those millions as soon as possible so that you can then retire to a life of luxury on your own sun-kissed desert island?
Personally I’m in it for the long haul. I view trading as an activity that I’ll be doing for the rest of my life. The longer I’m able to stay in the game the more experience I accumulate. This hopefully means that I’ll be getting better and better as time goes on.
I also know that it is important to keep the mind active, especially in old age. While I’m a long way from that being the case, I think the mental agility needed to trade would be perfect for keeping my brain ticking over no matter what my age is.
Watching last night’s ABC News special Live to 150, Can You Do It? hosted by Barbara Walters made me contemplate what sort of life I want to be living if I ever reach the grand old age of 100, never mind 150. Hopefully I’ll have developed a multitude of new interests by then, but I also hope that trading still plays a role in my life, for it is such an interesting, ever changing pursuit.
Viewing trading over such a long time frame only reinforces to me that I don’t need to make it big this week, this month or even this year. It’s okay to take a break every so often. The market’s not going anywhere and it’s important for me to be in the right frame of mind when trading.
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Comments
Comment from Colin McGinley
Time 3 April, 2008 at 11:30 am
John, I have not used Tradestation although I have heard many great things about it over the years. Every time I have checked them out for FX they have always had a relationship with another broker that handles all the actual trade transactions.
Tradestation is definitely the bee’s knees when it comes to system development.
If you are only beginning to investigate mechanical systems then it might be worthwhile keeping your expenses down and just use a free trade platform such as Metatrader that has built in system development, or something like Wealth-Lab.
I’ve messed around with these programs and others like them over the years but I have never used them to any great degree when it comes to actual live trading. I feel that the all-too-human nature of the markets requires me to utilise my own brain when it comes to making trading decisions. That perspective prevents me from blindly following signals generated from mathematical formulas or indicators which are all derived from a single source: price. I try to have rules and a framework from within which I make my discretionary decisions, but that is about as mechanical or systematic as I go.
Oh, and I am indeed Irish and hail from Dublin originally.
Comment from Snake86
Time 4 April, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Hi John,
I like your username, sounds pretty cool. 
Snake.
Comment from piponacci
Time 8 April, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Hi Colin,
Thanks for the reply. I came across Metatrader also and it looks promising and like you said its free. I heard that FXCM is going to provide a Metatrader connectivity to its platform so I might be enticed in that direction. I agree that the human factor can be plus to ones trading, it would take me a while before I could trust a purely mechanical system. However the human element can also be negative, i.e. emotion and/or lack of discipline. I would probably go hybrid at the start use the system to generate email/text alerts and then use my discretion to take a trade. Kind of cheating maybe? OK I better start looking it then….
I like the user name piponacci too Snake!
Cheers
John aka piponacci
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Comment from piponacci
Time 3 April, 2008 at 9:55 am
Colin,
I came across your blog yesterday and I like the content. Are you from Ireland? I am from Cork but live in Boston for the last 7 years. I have been learning about FX over the last year and I have been trading a small account using mini-lots. I am programmer also (embedded C mainly), and I noticed that Tradestation offers FX now. I am thinking of subscribing to Tradestation and program some mechanical strategy’s that can be autotraded. Have you experience with that all ?
Go raibh maith agat
John