Feb 28, 2014

Thinking About Trading

Dear Mr. Ed Seykota,

I'm from Indonesia. Now i work on my own company doing the retail business. I've already doing many kind of business in this 3 years but still got no passion on doing it.

Start from selling Ducati motorcycle in East Borneo, Indonesia, then doing property, and now still working in operating Minimart (retail).

I have an Informatics Technology Background in my bachelor degree. I've learned in financial market in 2011 until now and still have no guts to trading in real money, but i really want to. My mission is, when i start to focus in trading, i will leave my entire business and start trading for living. Then live for everything.

I'm very excited to read your article in many books in Indonesia. I want to be "The Indonesian Ed Seykota" but i dont know how. Would you mind to give me some knowledge, tips, tricks, and advice to do it?

And even i have enough money to go to your office and be your student, it's like a dream comes true for me.

Afterall, i would like to say a great thanks to you and success always be with us.

PS : I attached my CV to get to know further about me, and also my linkedin page.

Feb 27, 2014

Receives Govopoly - Likes Quality

Ed,

I just received Govopoly in the mail and I wanted to compliment you on the physical quality of the book. Since I just received the book I have not read it yet, but they physical quality of the book is impressive.

The binding, vivid color images and quality of the paper and print are impeccable. Not often you see modern books so well put together. Can’t wait to read it as I’m sure the content will be equally impressive.

Take care

Feb 27, 2014

Riding the Trend

Dear Ed,

I cannot fully express my intensity of my gratitude for your guidance. Since there r no tribes where I reside, I feel like sending this link:

Pl see the one year chart.

When I bought this share, I was singing the whipsaw song!

Realized what my intention was: We ride that trend right to the end.

Thank you,

Read Jack's new book completely and remembered you.

With lots and lots of regards.

Feb 25, 2014

Trend Following

Ed,

The segment describing your style in the book Market Wizards have stayed in my mind after many years.

I have had an opportunity to analyze the stock market in and out and have come to the realization that "all" that information is counterproductive to trading.

I am back to trend following, pattern recognition (PR), and money management. One of the variables I use in PR is the time of day. By understanding how traders behave at various times throughout the day one learns what not to do. Hope you are well,

Regards,

Feb 25, 2013

Tribe Report - Listening to His Wife

Dear Ed and Support Group,

Last couple of meetings I report on this report.

We have a nice couple of meeting where we intend to practice the Snapshot process and also dissolve what stands in between us and our snapshots.

We do one round of sharing snapshots and we find that a member wants to be an independent self sufficient producer, living in a rural property and wants to be an inventor as well.

Another member confess a clear passion to express himself in the field of fitness and well-being and wonders how he can practice his passion with no qualifications and credentials as his career so far has a focus in accounting.

Another member want to open his financial advice and wealth management company being evolved with financial education. Another member wants to continues to be in the flow and follow his goal to seek health in four major fields (Mental, Spiritual, Financial and Physical).

As the group feel satisfied to just discuss the topics in the first meeting we agree to move to a round of feelings and rocks process to the following meeting.

In the following meeting we find out that one of the members is moving back to America in the following weeks and he is really happy with that outcome and that is what he wants now.

Again we share our snapshot and one member is willing to participate in the hot seat to resolve some deep issues.

After showing his forms HS experiences a memory where there is an incident with his mother. HS is home with him and is waiting an important phone call and asks him to answer the phone and pick the message while she in the shower.

While she requests it HS is playing with a calculator with a flashy blue screen which is one of his best toys while a child. He is so entertained in what he is doing that he completely ignores the phone ringing and stays in the zone punching figures on the old sharp calculator.

Eventually the mother gets out from the shower and answers the phone and after hanging up she yells at HS. HS promptly shows up and get spanked on the spot. HS does not remember consciously the reason that's happening until he figures the reason while he get hit hard. It was a memorable disciplinary correction which stays in HS memory to this day. Actually the only occasion that HS can remember his mother ever hit him severely.

The tribe role play the incident and identify the rock of “Not paying attention when someone is talking”

A rock given by his father.

HS really experience the feelings during the role play and fore-gives the rock to his father that is constantly nagged by his mother, to this day, for not paying attention to what she says.

HS recognizes the AHA that he has an automated response with concentrated attention while someone is speaking and that pattern is recurrent with his wife.

Tribe member play the roles of mother and father and give HS a resourceful rock to be used as a proactive tool to receive all and pay attention while anyone is talking with full attention. A very useful skill to someone willing to enter the business of wealth management and customer services.

The tribe members are completing the 3 month planned meetings and goes on a recess as chief is going on paternity leave for the time and the tribe is open to continue another series of meeting commencing around July-August this year.

Thanks for receiving.

Feb 24, 2015

Tasty Melons

Ed,

The "melon" pictures cheapen you and your site, unless the melons are placed alongside the brain, the heart or the size of their shoes.... or the wannabees are "intimate" with you.... then the pix are inappropriate for public display. No amount of crack/money can justify poor taste.

Feb 23, 2014

Wants a Mentor

Hello,

I have always been intrigued by investing and the market. I think that there is still money to be made in this down market times still and have been doing my own research on who would be the best mentor to reach out to that isn't just looking to build a "brand" and sell you a bunch of garbage.

I live in Nevada like yourself I'm located in Las Vegas however, and new to the idea of getting started. I wanted to ask you what would you recommend as far as steps for me to begin educating myself on how to follow market trends, and how to go about trading/investing being a beginner?

Are there any texts/articles that you would recommend that I read? I know that you are considered one of the best so I am humbly asking you to see if you have any advice for me?

Bests,

Feb 23, 2014

Simple Explanation of Federal Reserve Banking

Ed,

Perhaps it takes an Australian to clarify this complex subject

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIfH0vY2ANA

Feb 23, 2014

Govopoly Book Brings Peace

Ed,

Indeed I can see them now... My malware protection however wont allow me to run them. Have to track down which sentinel is blocking my way. Will make the time to get there, and will report back. Thank-you...

So may I ask if you are still trading your systems? I'm sure you have plenty to occupy your pleasure and curiosity outside of the markets...I know that trend following in general is more complicated in regards to being profitable of late.

Ive had to go more towards the swing end of things to garner smooth rewards. I know everything is transitory and tomorrow will surly be as different as it is the same... The cardinal rules (as on your TT card) always apply.

Reading your book has brought me some peace, actually. Having spent the past few years trying to wake people up to what is being lost... Perhaps I lit a few candles along the way.

Given your use of System Dynamics Modeling, can I suppose your trading systems were much more involved or more eloquently representative of trends, than say a Donchian breakout or average crossover?

To the extent you wish to respond, :-).

Feb 23, 2014

Hayek Discusses Keynes

Ed,

I share this with you. It is a recording of Hayek discussing Keynes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8l47ilD0II

I find YouTube to be a treasure trove of history.

Cheers,

Feb 23, 2014

Chopping Up Cars

Ed,

You might like this video:

http://www.wimp.com/choppingcars/

Dear Ed,

Systems require maintenance but sometimes when they break and before they are repaired dangerous events can occur.

We run dual furnace system to heat our home, and one went down during recent sub-zero weather.

At first I deny system has failed, not wanted to engage expensive repair call, but as temp drops in our home I acknowledge one unit is not running. My wife calls in heating system specialist and he diagnoses problem is a failed part that must be ordered.

We run space heaters to supplement missing furnace output; 3 to be exact. My wife runs one in master bedroom, our son runs one in his, and I have one downstairs where I usually sleep (I am a snorer, unfortunately). Our daughter does not need to run one as she has the warmest room in the whole house.

What happens? One night late I hear feet hit the floor above me (which is our master bedroom) and some movement but little else. I am still half asleep and fail to react. Turns out my wife has her heater connected to extension cord. Cord burned, and actually caught the bed skirt of the bed she was sleeping in on fire!

We read about this but we think it will never happen to us. It happened and somehow, she woke up. We have smoke alarms but they did not go off as smoke had not reached them yet. She tells me there was much electric and other smoke in bedroom (the next morning she tells me this).

Disaster is averted but it comes so close to us. Our children were sleeping in rooms nearby too. I am in utter disbelief. I feel embarrassment. I feel weak. I feel I have not adequately protected my family from what should be an obvious safety precaution, namely NOT connecting one of these dumb heaters to an extension cord (there is a bold warning to this effect on a tag of the extension cord too).

Though the proverbial horse seems to be galloping over the horizon from the wreck less over site, I put the subject in my search engine about fire risk & portable heaters, hoping to create a teachable moment. There it is, a concise article with warnings and statistics about fire death caused by improper use of these heaters. I print it out and give a copy to my wife and to each of the children, along with an article about candle fires too.

Why does this happen in a home where the people are well-educated and love one another?

I ponder control centric behavior and intimacy centric behavior. I take a perspective, try to rise above the home and be an Observer (as described in Ed’s fantastic book Govopoly).

As an Observer I see interactions between my family as almost totally control centric. I get a sensation of being trapped, and feel the other members trapped too. This breaks my heart. It seems all of us try to control each other, and tire each other out.

I think of TTP principles. I ask myself to act on these principles. I feel myself all knotted up. I sleep in my office last night. This, after coming home from a weekend out of town and finding our son has made a mess of the downstairs. I can’t seem to cope with it and rather than confront (in control centric way) I choose to leave, go to my office, work a little. I text my wife so she knows where I am. Instead of working, exhausted from a long day, I fall asleep. My wife, rather than calling office phone, just sends me a text, which I do not hear or get as I put phone on charger in next room and it is set to quiet. Instead of calling me on the office phone, she asks me this morning if I slept at office. I have never slept all night at my office. Still, I feel this is manipulation.

Control centric behavior makes a mess of communication, I find. I think control centric behavior begets more of it, from the counter party. This process escalates until it becomes routine, and drains intimacy from a relationship. Living like this is unfulfilling at best.

I take responsibility. I know I have had my part in this process and accept that. Even as I write this I feel lighter, and somewhat relieved.

I decide to share my feelings with FAQ. I experience guilt for not sharing more often. When I read Govopoly I then find more reason to worry about client’s money, about people going out of business, in a 39th Day style collapse.

Pendulum process of emotion: I am overwhelmed; I am not overwhelmed.

I commit to release this pressure, re-read Ed’s “The Trading Tribe” again, and incorporate the principles into my daily living. Though I am tired, I feel a weight has come off just by writing to FAQ and sharing. Gratitude replaces fear, and I realize I can take steps for improvement. I live in the present, and I’m grateful that I was given the awareness that this really matters.

I commit to being more intimacy centric and begin with inviting my wife, son & daughter to lunch.

Though I felt down as I began this FAQ, I sense a change now. Ed discusses the effect of drugs, especially psychotropic drugs. I do not take them, though I did take a powerful combination antihistamine yesterday (the kind one must get with a signature at the pharmacist, though not prescriptive). This combo may have made me feel exhausted, and depressed. I have in past experienced modest but distracting mood changes when taking certain antihistamines, so avoid them unless I am really suffering from a bad allergy attack (one did hit me this weekend as warm weather set the plants to emitting chemicals plants emit and my nose detects way to effectively).

I commit for now that my trading tribe must be FAQ itself. Though this is limiting I seek ways to participate more fully. I work up courage and commitment to apply for Breathwork and 10 sessions.

I close wishing you all wellness and profitable trend trading. My reading The Trading Tribe, Covel’s Trend Trading, attendance & participation in Ed’s “Sticking With My System” workshop in Reno, Govopoly, and staying close to this website even while Ed was on his world tour…all of this has been life changing for me, helping me cope with an ever-evolving Now.

Kind regards.

Feb 23, 2014

Aerosmith

Dear Ed,

I'm reading Hit Hard by Joey Kramer, drummer of the rock band Aerosmith.

Amazingly, it reads like an FAQ entry. He describes burying feelings surrounding his early physical abuse with drugs, alcohol, and hard work. After he kicks his addictions, with the help of in and out-patient therapy, he focuses on the intense and difficult work of getting to know his feelings. As he becomes one with his feelings, he notices recurring dramas of anger and boundary violation throughout his life.

I feel glad there's TTP, and thank you for your support and guidance.

Sincerely,

Feb 23, 2014

Non-Existing Future

Dear Ed,

Hi, Hope you are fine. I am regularly learning from you. Thanks for the guidance.

You have talked about non existing future.

I am wondering about the following photo and the note:

Ed, Bastrop, Texas, February 16, 2016, wondering how to work the brakes and steering wheel.

this mentions the date as of 2016. I being a fundamental investor start wondering about the date!

Best wishes,

Feb 22, 2014

Breathwork Link

Dear Ed:

The link to the "Hold Harmless Disclaimer" is incorrect, on this page:
http://www.seykota.com/TT/Breathwork/2014/Sessions/default.html