Another strong day in the market and my positions were up (NTE and EBF had nice days) except for LB. GM and IBM had some news that led to some gains. I also had a few calls regarding jobs, and I returned those. The one thing I'm running into is the fact that most of these jobs want immediate hires. I was previously told that most of the jobs would probably take awhile, and I'm finding it to be the total opposite! I had one good contact with a staffing agency in NYC and she liked my resume and said to contact her when I can work full-time. I also have my first interview set up for Monday for a admin/equity research assistant position near Stanford (CA). More about that later.
I recently decided to re-read The New Market Wizards by Jack Schwager and I wanted to share some comments. I'm not done with the reading so I'll continue to post updates.
Bill Lipshutz: One of his comments that struck me was the amount of prepartion and research he put in to become one of the top traders. He avidly read financial periodicals (Economist, Barron's, and Value Line) and studied the stock tape.
Randy McKay: What advice would you have for traders? "One of the things I did that worked in those early years was analyzing every single trade I made. Every trader is going to have tons of winners and losers. You need to determine why the winners are winners and the losers are losers. The most important advice is to never let a loser get out of hand."
Monroe Trout: What are the trading rules you live by? "Make sure you have the edge....have rigid risk control rules....you need to have an edge and employ good money management."
Al Weiss: This Q&A shows another good example about putting in the required effort.
How did you end up becoming a trader?
"It was not an overnight process. I spent four years of solid research before doing any serious trading. After literally thousands of hours of pouring over charts, going back as far in history as I could, I began to recognize certain patterns that became the basis of my trading approach."
Four years!
I'll post more points from time to time.
Right now I'm learning more about Excel and waiting for my CFA books to arrive (all 46 pounds of them!).
Patience and determination- these are the key words.
