|
|
|||
| |
 |
Ed
Seykota's FAQ
|
| Home | Send Mail to FAQ | Resources | Ground Rules | FAQ Index |
TT_Chartbook
|
TTP
Workshop
|
| FAQ August 01-31,
2019 <-- back | down | forward --> |
| Contributors Say | Ed Says | |||
| August 30, 2019 Tribe Meeting Report Dear Sir, Please find the Tribe Meeting Report for the Mumbai Tribe for 22 August 2019. Check In TM1- He notices a growing distance between himself and his wife. He feels that as he is drawing away from his wife, his wife is drawing away from him. He feels hot about it. TM2 (I) - I am confused about my relationships and wonder if I should play the field or settle down. I share that I feel anger towards my father when he does not stand up for me during a project we are both working on with other partner's. But I am able to share my feelings with him and the matter resolved well. I believe that this is a good change that takes place after a Rocks Process during a previous meeting. I also recall an incident from when I am around 4 or 5 where after my father moves to another country and I am unsure of when I am to meet him again, my mother leaves me home alone to run some errands at around 4 in the evening and she does not return till after sunset. I am worried and as it starts to get dark, I am worried about her getting back. I logically know that she will be back but I am scared by the darkness falling and concerned as to why it is taking so long for her to return. I sit immobilised on the sofa with only the light of the television. After she returns, I share my fears and concerns and she gives me a snarky and caustic reply along the lines of : “If you were afraid, you should have gone and switched on the light.” I feel angry and hurt by her reply. I also feel some lethargy around attending therapy and Tribe Meetings, though the effects are there for me to see. I am taking my relationship issues to the hotseat. TM3 - He shares that things are going well on the work front. After we undertake a Rocks Process in the meeting on 8 August 2019, he meets the client who previously irritated him and is able to communicate better with him. He shares that his team finds a flaw in their trading system between the cash/spot prices and the futures prices and rewrites the code. He is also anxious about filing his taxes. TM4 - He shares that work is going well, but he feels anger at himself for sending a very angry text on his family chat group. He and his family are making plans for his wedding to be held in February, and he (TM4) insists that everyone work on the same Google Sheet. However, he is irritated by everyone making multiple documents and then sends an angry text where he threatens to get married in a Court instead of the elaborate ceremony the families (his own family and the fiances) are planning to host. He wishes to take this to the hotseat. We feel that TM1 is the hottest but he refuses to take the hotseat as he does not wish to “monopolize the time”, while referring to a hotseat process he undertakes 2 meetings ago. We feels that “not wanting to monopolize time” can also be a good entry point. TM4 then takes the hotseat. Hotseat 1 TM4 takes the hotseat with I (TM2) as the Process Manager. We start with a lot of storytelling where HS recalls the incident. He starts to wave his hands. We ask him to crank it up. He soon starts headbanging. As we continue the process, I freeze him. He shares 2 images he recalls from his school days. One where he ties his school belt around his neck for humorous effect and another where he is headbanging during a concert. He calls himself “stupid”. He also recalls playing Table Tennis with his cousin recently, after a long pause due to his shoulder surgery, where he loses the first 2 rounds and ends up winning the game. He lovingly taunts his cousin by saying “I’ll defeat you my bitch” while headbanging. We cheer his process and ask him to crank it up. He moves his head side to side and I ask him to crank it up. I freeze him and test for willingness. He realizes he loves being a “cartoon” who jokes around with his friends and family to have fun, he feels happy. He is willing and we continue the process. He displays another form where he nods his head vigorously. At one point in the process, I freeze him. He sits in the chair for a few seconds. I probe him about any memories or images. He does not recall any. He ends the process. HS Checkout I feel that the process seemed to fizzle out, a sentiment echoed by TM1 & TM3. TM4 feels it is a medicinal process. Hotseat 2 I (TM2) take the hotseat with TM1 as the Process Manager. I start with some story telling about my relationship issues and soon feel a burning sensation on my right side, in the chest and extending down to my stomach. I continue to feel the burn and I have an Aha! I make a connection where I do not talk to different crushes in school for various reasons like shifting school during the 2nd grade and my later school discontinuing co-education from 3rd grade onwards. Later during my teenage years, I have a crush on someone but fall sick and drop out of school for a year. After I am back in school, I am unable to contact her or find her. I laugh at this pattern and go “How could this be happening again and again?” I keep feeling the sensation. I recall an incident. After my father moves to another country, I and my mother wind up affairs in our origin country. I have a large group of friends in the housing complex and suppress the feeling of sadness in saying goodbye when leaving. I have known these people for ages and play with them after school. I recall always suppressing sadness when growing up, as the house situation is bad. I continue to feel the burn and begin to feel a tightness around my ankles & calves. I also feel a tightness in my jaw & remark that I clench my teeth. I stay with the tight jaw and the Tribe cheers me on. I recall an incident when I am around 13 or 14. My father refuses to buy me a gaming console, and I do not urge him as he considers it expensive. I do not urge further as I am very wary of spending money. My father then donates money nearly equal to the cost of the console at a religious event. I feel blocked and angry but do not share it with my father. I continue to experience the forms and I recall another incident from when I am around 4 or 5 years old. My father promises to buy me a toy once I solve some math problems. I solve them, but once I am done and demand the toy, my father gets teary eyed and says we do not have enough money to buy the toy. I start getting angry and feel betrayed. My mother then starts screaming at my father for getting us into such a mess. Young me then tells Dad that it is okay if we do not buy the toy. I recall feeling betrayed, sad and angry during and after this, but do not share it with my father. I have another Aha! Where I think it is from this incident from where my grades dip and I become less and less interested in formal education. I recall times when I feel lazy enough not to write an answer in an exam, though I know. My grades continue to dip. As I continue to feel the burn, I notice myself suppressing a tear and the sadness. PM asks me how I feel about money and I share that I have an ambiguous relationship with it. I am terrified of not having it, but also do not want to appear desperate to want it. PM thinks that the incident where my father reneges on his promise may be Rock and discusses it with the Tribe. We are not clear on how to proceed and seek your guidance in what you think is the stressor and the donor of the Rock. As I think over it after the meeting, I feel it is my Mother who is the donor as she & my father do seem to have a pattern of this sort. She demands something from him. He denies her and then she starts shouting. He then agrees by which time she claims not to want whatever it is she demanded. We end the process. Hotseat Checkout I feel like windows to a stuffy room are now open & it is clearing out. TM4 is happy about me opening up and sharing these things. He believes there are multiple entry points and now that I am aware of these things, we can work on them. He feels there may be multiple Rocks here and we can work on them. We also agree to meet earlier in the week once we have your guidance on the Rocks Process. Meeting Checkout We are all happy at the outcome of the meeting and the changes in our lives that we are making. Regards, |
Thank you for sharing your process and for documenting your Tribe Meeting. For more information on the Rocks Process, see TTP Extensions at Resources /TT Store. You may download a .PDF file for free. The last two pages contain various definitions of terms. A Rock represents some specific subconscious programming; it generates a response from a stimulus. An incident (not the same as a Rock) may include the donation of a Rock - or the application of a Rock to generate a response from a stimulus. I might guess, in the incidents you cite, that your father acts as the perpetrator, making promises and then making excuses for not keeping his promises. Then your mother donates one of her Rocks to you to teach you how to convert your disappointment at your father's betrayals --> shutting down and putting up with it. This [Betrayal --> Shut Down] Rock also serves to attract other betrayers - so you get to repeat the pattern. The Rocks Process continues by fore-giving (returning) the Rock to your mother, with love and appreciation, and against her resistance to reclaim it. You may then receive a Heart Rock that responds to the stimulus with intimacy-centric relating. Further, you can re-run the role playing and notice you get different results. |
|||
| August 29, 2019 Performance Hello Austin Tribe, Recently I sit and think about how I view performance at my work and create the attached slides, but I believe it can be applied to performing in anything. I hope this may help anyone or if anyone has thoughts on how it can be improved. The conclusion that can be drawn from the model is that performance isn't how hard we think we can try because we can't do better than our baseline capability. This helps free me from trying so hard and not getting the outcome I want in work. All I can do is try something and learn from it and keep trying. Also note that I have placed the model in a Field of Truth. The model doesn't work optimally outside it. You have to be truthful with your self to work from your baseline capability and improve on it. Kind regards, |
Thank you for sharing your process. |
|||
| August 28, 2019 Workshop Application What I want to change in my life I want to identify and build an audience. I enjoy connecting with people. I enjoy sharing my insights. Over the years, I have found modest success in a number of areas, from product development to storytelling. Where I find the experience enjoyable, it always follows the same pattern. I learn about an issue that is important to a community; I distill my understanding of the issue to a set of assumptions; I frame the issue in a novel way. This re-framing can mean a product that is cheaper to manufacture or easier to use. It can be an entertaining take on an everyday situation or a classic story. I want to be more intentional in identifying an audience that wants the insights I can offer. So far, my engagements, even where successful, are the result of circumstance, or a situation into which I stumble without a conscious plan. I want more intentional clarity about the audience I want to engage, and how I can grow the relationship. Feelings I most and least enjoy I like gratitude—both sending and receiving it. One of the first things I noticed about Ed was his consistency in thinking his correspondents, even ones he disagrees with. This is one if the first lessons I learned in Tribe—that I want people to participate in my process, and that I want to thank them for that. I find it equally enjoyable to receive others' gratitude. I feel that I'm making a meaningful, useful difference in someone's life when I receive gratitude. I like love. I think the first time I experienced it fully was when I was holding my newborn daughter in my arms for the first time. I have three children now, and I never tire of telling them how much I love them, and all the things I like about them. I melt when one or another of them hugs me, or runs to me when I come home. I've learned to appreciate feelings like fear and anger and rejection, which previously I might refer to as "negative." I've learned the value of the insight they bring to me. I enjoy the feeling of insight, of an AHA moment. I like the feeling when disparate facts click together and understanding makes the world less arbitrary. I enjoy experiencing this feeling myself, and equally helping others achieve their AHA moments. I dread loneliness. I remember thinking of myself as an introvert. As I get older, I discover how much I crave company and audience. One of the most uncomfortable eventualities for me is waking up to discover that no one wants my company. I have a hard time with envy, especially receiving it from other people. I spend a lot of energy avoiding situations where someone can "you have too much of this; you must give it to me." This ties together with the next one: Coercion. I hate finding myself in a situation where another person can force me to do what I dislike, where I feel that every alternative I have is worse than complying with a request that is mean or frivolous. I find it equally difficult to tell people what I want them to do if I have the power to coerce them. I am comfortable telling engineers who works for me what I want them to design; I can explain the goal to them and let them use their creativity to accomplish the purpose. As against that, I have great difficulty asking anything of the housekeeper that my wife hired. The housekeeper complies without questions or feedback, and I feel awful about the interaction. How I want my life to turn out in 10 years In 2029, my oldest daughter is in college. I have given her the nurturing that I can. She has begun her independent life. My younger children are 12 and 10, and perhaps I have another one, 8 or so. These younger kids and I go sailing and flying and doing whatever other hobbies we invent as they grow up. I teach them about the world and they teach me about the joy of life. I have a following. In 2019, I'm unclear on what it is—perhaps a customer base, or a viewership, or a readership, or perhaps a student body. I have colleagues who are on this journey with me. Together we delight the audience. I have a mate who I love and cherish, and she in turn supports me in my continuing growth. I have friends who enjoy my company and whose company I enjoy. We turn to each other to share the joys and challenges in our lives. |
Thank you for sending me your application. |
|||
| August
28, 2019 Keeping Cool Ed, I occasionally immerse myself in ice water as part of my spiritual practice. Normally, I have to spend hours on the setup, getting ice cubes and bringing the temperature of my bathtub water to near freezing. I now have a new method. I use a freezer that doubles as a bathtub and also keeps the water cold between sessions.
|
Thank you for sharing your br-r-r-rocess. |
|||
| August
28, 2019 Power Trading Hi Ed, Yesterday I go back to work to solve the crisis. I write a software module which I test well and it is merging into a platform but the software stop working. Management thinks my software has problem. I come in early Monday morning and start to test with my coworker. Managers takes turns to coming in and sit with us. It takes a long day. Somehow I am not very nervous and keep my mind calm and organized. I might still be in the trance from you. I isolate all risk factors and test one by one. And gradually narrow down to another module in the platform, designed by other engineers. We are close but still can’t figure out what’s wrong with that module. Suddenly in a lightening short moment I realize what it is then test my idea and it works. I find out it’s a race condition bug. Their software sends a message to a queue but asks the recipient to check the mail before they actually submit the message, which cause the message lost. That moment when I reach the discovery, is a moment with pure hunch, gut feeling or an Aha after lengthy logic exploration. It's hard to reproduce such process. I then start to wondering if the best power trading moment is similar to such moment after lengthy intensive logic thinking, pressured and emotional stress, continuous focus and an Aha comes from nowhere, or from deep feelings. I wonder if this is the way of power trading? Thanks, |
Thank
you for raising this issue. You might consider the conditions under which you receive your best Ahas. You might also consider how to know the difference between "intuition" and "into wishing." If you can let go and go with the flow, without judgment or desire or resistance, you might occasionally get a glimpse of the obvious. You might consider taking you feelings about wanting to get rich quick to Tribe as entry points.
|
|||
| August
26, 2019 Some Sample Essays from Recent Workshop Applications I. What I want to change in my life: I want to increase my sense of self-valuation, and self-trust. I want to decrease how emotional volatile I am. I want remove my top 3 k-nots of hesitation. Feelings I most and least enjoy: The feeling I enjoy the most is feeling the presence of Almighty God. The feeling I enjoy the least is feeling shame. How I want my life to turn out in 10 years: I want my life to fulfilling spiritually, emotionally, physically, and professionally. Spiritually, this involves mastering prayer in an 8 hour period. Emotionally, I am stable enough to maintain long term commitments without fear of failure. Physically, I reserve the capabilities to enjoy physical performance sports such as running, tennis, boxing, and mixed martial arts. I want my trading business to be incorporated, earning enough passive income to accomplish a balance of emotional and financial profitability II. What I want to change in my life. I am currently living in Singapore, one of the most expensive city in the world, everyone is busy working every day till retirement so they can pay for their expensive life, high standard of living with low quality of life. I run a small money management business as a licensed portfolio manager, I wish to have better results in my business so I do not have to handle clients complaints and criticism when I underperform the market. Another area I want to change in my life is to follow system better, it is easy to build, easy to learn but it is still hard to follow through on the entries and exits (especially after the recent drawdown, I did not react quick enough to get back in). 2018 our portfolio was down by 14%, we see many of our investor were disappointed and left. I still believe in Trend following, and I need to get back up. Feelings I most and least enjoy. Feeling I enjoy the most is Happy - when I am riding a trend, when I see that I am on the right stock with the right size and when I am able to avoid the market fall by switching out to cash as the market fall. Feeling I least enjoy is Sadness – when I have to cut loss, I don’t know how I can enjoy cutting loss, even though I understand it is taking out a tumor from the portfolio is a good thing. The feeling of fear, failure also hits me when I am having drawdowns. How I want my life to turn out in 10 years. I want to be able to manage more than 100 million in portfolio size using trend following strategy. I am happy with what I am doing now, in 10 years’ time I want to live happily every day, play some music, stay healthy, do some charity and see my children grow. III. Essays What I want to change in my life. • Greater emotional control, I think I have a fairly decent grasp on the ebb and flow of day to day life but still very inexperienced when it comes to significant decisions and the emotions that may come with that. • Better self control, I have decision making frameworks that have worked well for me in the past few years but I find myself lacking the ability to consistently stick by some of these decisions, for example to establish a habit to sleep earlier or to eat healthier. • In terms of trading, I’m an IT company founder by trade and I run an online exchange, our company takes positions sometimes and since reading the trading tribe I have noticed that my knots do affect the way I engage with the market, I wish this not to be the case. • On less abstract terms, I’m currently 25 and the biggest thing I wish to change in my life is financial status. My company is a new upstart in a large lucrative market but it’s a rapidly changing ecosystem and to excel in this area requires extraordinary performance. • Resolve/patience, by all accounts I’m a very smart and capable person but my desire for quick results has cost me before where I do not explore a course of action to it’s conclusion. I wish to change this, that is not to say I wish to become stubbornly steadfast, but rather that I had the flexibility and awareness to know when I’m undershooting or overshooting. Feelings I most and least enjoy. • Least enjoy: jealousy and envy. Due to the nature of my work and social circle, I’m constantly surrounded by flashy things and people who live large. I recognize the value of this as a motivator but I can also tell that there is a small but creeping element of jealousy and envy. I do not wish for this to cause me to make poor decisions. • Most enjoy: growth and realization, release from cognitive/mental blockages. Many times when I talk through a difficulty I’m facing, not quite using the trading tribe process but more of a talk therapy or even during ericksonian hypnosis, I or the person I’m talking to comes to realize the critical insight that was affecting me, I very much enjoy these moments. • I also very much enjoy the feeling of cognitive dissonance, this is somewhat tied to the point above but as an instinct, whenever I face cognitive dissonance, my reaction is to grind at it until it resolves. The resolve is probably the feeling I’m more addicted to rather than the actual dissonance. How I want my life to turn out in 10 years. • Financial independence is a large part of it. I live in Hong Kong, which is a notoriously expensive place to live and for the most part I just want to reach a comfortable level financially. • I currently have quite a fulfilling relationship with my long time partner and I want to keep this relationship healthy and to further mutual growth emotionally. • I want to be an effective and efficient person, someone who knows what they want and what they’re like such that I can pursue my goals with the maximum leverage and the lowest cost both in time and in resources. |
Thanks
to all the applicants for engaging the path of personal growth and
heading toward Right Livelihood. |
|||
| August
26, 2019 Trading December 2019 Gold Futures Hi Ed, I am moving my stop to 1482.6. I am looking at the daily and longer term chart and understand the cadence of the moves. The first wave of volatility expansion hysteresis happen at 05/31/2019, and the buying opportunity is 06/03/2019 for power trading. The hysterics loop close at 6/17 and 2nd buying opportunity at 06/20/2019. The third hysteresis close at 07/26/2019, and the 3rd buying opportunity is at 08/05/2019, I get in at 08/06/2019. That is the the rationale behind my trade. My observation is that a new strong trend will have 3 - 4 hysteresis loop before a major correction. If last Friday breakout won’t sustain, it most likely start a longer term correction. Maybe few months. My entry was at the 3rd wave of hysteresis and it will purely by luck to see if it can survive the correction. On the other side, a major correction might help me to have a second chance to re-entry and build a little bigger position. Thanks, |
Thank
you for sending me your trading rationalle. I do not recommend specific trades or system paramenters on FAQ. See Ground Rules, above.
|
|||
| August
25, 2019 Market Research Hello Ed, I have done some market research that I want to share with you. Since coming back from my South Africa trip in March, every time I try to work on my implementation of a moving average cross over system built in Python I get strange feelings of tension and frustration. Two weeks ago I realize that I push a lot an all areas of my life, implementing the Now Pad at work, making progress on the plane dealing process (I sell some of the planes and engines, I learn to tune engines, I also restore one of the planes) and the tapering off Bupropion project. So I decide to take a break and go party with some friends in downtown Austin on a Friday night and sleep in on Saturday. The next day, last Sunday morning, I think of a line from a book I read "You must be able to do something slowly before you have any chance of doing it quickly" from the Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin. When I think of that line I get a feeling to manually back test. So I have iterated 2 or 3 times the layout of the formulas but what I'm sharing in this email is the result of three manual back tests. - Palladium 2 year Daily Fast(9) Slow(18) - E Mini Gold Futures 3 year Daily Fast (5) Slow(12) - E Mini Gold Futures 3 year Daily Fast(10) Slow(18) The order listed above is the order in which I did the back testing. My intention for the parameter of the first back test of the e mini gold future was fast(9) Slow(18) but I changed computers after the Palladium back test and mid-way through I saw the parameter on the charting software was set Fast(5) Slow(12) so the reason why there is two e mini gold back test is out of accident but I'm very glad this accident happens as it gives me great insight. I get to see that E Mini Gold Futures 3 year Daily Fast (5) Slow(12) results are more consistent with what I read in a trend following book and the FAQ page. - Big wins tend to come after draw downs - Draw downs of close to 50% are common but then profits after such drawdowns can be close or over 100% There is an extra tab called "Method" in the workbook named E Mini Gold Futures 3 year Daily Fast (5) Slow(12). This has screen shots and a short description of the method I use in manual back testing I wonder if you have any thoughts about the back tests you want to share. Best |
Thank
you for sharing your process and for sending me your research. I do not recommend specific trades or system parameters on FAQ. See Ground Rules, above. |
|||
| August
25, 2019 Tribe Meeting report Dear Ed, Below is the Tribe Meeting Report dated 8th august 2019. After the drumming session, we proceed to check in. Check In TM1 - He discovers a flaw in his trading process that he is working on to rectify. He recalls that in the last meeting he had a snapshot process to increase his AUM but he realizes that following the process is more important goal and in the past when he had followed his process he was able to get larger AUM then he had ever projected for. He has nothing specific to work on this day. TM2- He shares that the projects he is working on are going good but is worried about his partner's screwing him over. He recalls a time when his father gives a Television set they had won in a raffle draw to another person & has similar feelings about the business partner's now. He also feels some lethargy around personal growth as he thinks he is in a good place and does see the positive effects of TTP & Psychotherapy but also feels lethargic about moving ahead on the path. TM3 - I attend a 10 day Vipassana meditation course for the 4th time and feel happy afterwards. I am joining the tribe after 2 or 3 Tribe meetings. I share that I have an aha moment in the vipassana course. I feel that I am extremely self-centered and egoistic person and all my past disputes are because of this, like my house, my mother, my ball, the girl not speaking to me and so on. I share an argument I had with a client where the client asks me not to trade 2 specific stocks in his account. I argue that one has to follow the process and systematic trading is not done this way. After my check in, TM2 thinks that I am very hot and points out other discretionary managers who also have great performance records. TM4 ask both of us to continue arguing. TM4 then asks me to share my feelings and the Tribe flows into a process. I inform that the Tribe that I feel extremely irritated and angry. TM4(PM) asks me how does irritation and anger feel in my body? I start stamping my legs on the ground and after multiple of forms and attempts, the PM freezes me. I feel a cool moving pain in my back and neck. The PM checks for the willingness and I say I am not willing to give up. PM probes on what it feels to me to not give up. The forms get intense and the PM freezes me again. I now recall a memory from my school days where I and my classmates are walking towards the PT ground and someone pulls my socks from my torn shoe. I fall and get severe pain in my right leg. After I reach home, my parents apply balm thinking it to be a muscle pain. After a day they take me to the family doctor who informs us that it is a fracture and it would have to be plastered and I will not be able to go to school and play for about 2-3 months. I feel irritated and sad about it. The Tribe takes a break and we role play this incident. We do not get any strong stressors in the role play and decide to continue the hotseat. During the hotseat, I recall another incident. On checking, I inform the Tribe that this irritation on something not happening as per my expectation is passed on to me by my mother during a different incident. In about 1984, my father suffers a brain tumor and he is unable to pay a debt. The debtors demand my uncle to pay back the debt. Soon after, my uncle gets drunk and holds a knife at my mother's neck forces her to sell her family jewels to pay off the debt. My father & I see all this. After the uncle leaves, my mother argues with my father. The Tribe enacts this entire incident. The Tribe figures there is a medicinal rock which my mother passes on to me, where she reacts in an irritated and angry manner in situations where she has to compromise. The Tribe re-enacts the scenes and role plays the fore-giving of the medicinal rock; and gives me a Heart Rock. The essence of the heart rock is: whenever I feel irritated and angry on similar occasions try to listen to the other person and understand his issues and express my feelings to him to find a solution which is acceptable and beneficial to both. The Tribe also re-enacts the conversation between me and the client. I release all members from their respective roles and process ends. The process takes about 4 hours. TM4 does his check-in. He is happy as his fiance has returned back. At work, as one of his co-worker was let go earlier in the year, he had been given added responsibilities, furthermore a new analyst joins the firm and reports to TM4. He has nothing specific to work on this day. In the check-out all agree that the process was quite intense and entire Tribe is extremely committed and willing. We all thank each other and the meeting ends. Thanks & Rgds, |
Thank
you for sharing your process and for documenting your meeting -
especially your implementation of the Rocks Process. |
|||
| August
21, 2019 Mentee (No Greeting) How’s it going? I’m sure you get tons of emails from various people looking to get into trend following, asset management or the related and though I can’t promise to be any more interesting than the aforementioned, I figured I’d go ahead and try to email you to see if you take on any mentees in the form of clients, etc. I’m an Econ/Comp Sci student at Harvard Extension (taking about 2 classes a semester) that quit his job to trade full time. With a 1 year old daughter, it’s either the smartest or dumbest decision I’ve ever made, time will tell, though I’m betting most would say the latter, haha. Anyways, if you have some time, I’d love to chat, With the utmost respect, |
Thank
you for raising the issue of applying for a mentorship. I offer various vehicles for people wishing to master the theory and application of TTP principles. You can read through FAQ and also submit specific inquiries (free). You can purchase my books. You can join a Tribe (free). You can attend a Workshop. You can retain me for consulting in person or by chat. See Resources and Ground Rules, above. Occasionally a take on a protégé (aka, mentee) if I feel the applicant has outstanding ability and character and can operate fluently from both the heart and mind. I wonder if Harvard Extension considers beginning a letter without a greeting as a sign of "utmost respect". |
|||
| August
19, 2019 Active and Open (No Greeting) Just wondering, is the Trading Tribe group still active and is it open to newcomers? If so, what are the criteria for joining? Are you still located near Lake Tahoe? :-) |
Yes, I
have The Trading Tribe still active and open, and without criteria. I suppose you might look at a world globe and consider Austin near Lake Tahoe. |
|||
| August
18, 2019 Radial Momentum Dear Mr. Seykota, I came across your Name because I am very interested in Trend Following. Anyways, I went through your website and found your Theory on Radial Momentum. As a somewhat trained Engineer / Designer, I would like to express my sympathy for your Theory. I believe it can certainly be correct, and you have proven it with your experiments as far as I am concerned. Here are two questions for you, if I may: 1) Reading through the conversation with this "Andrew“ http://www.seykota.com/rm/ Correspondence/2002/index.htm was painful for me. Very painful to see you exerting so much energy towards an unimaginative individual who clearly did not want to be convinced by someone who is not above him in the academic hierarchy. But as a Trend Follower, why waste that energy and not cut your losses short? Move on to the next guy. 2) Given the theory so far of why airplanes fly is not correct: Could your theory help to design a more efficient wing? One that uses less fuel perhaps? Or, put another way: How would an ideal Radial Momentum Wing look like? Lastly, allow me an observation: As a Designer and Engineer, I am daily overly concerned with the actual superficial presentation of ideas rather than their content. I understand that Engineers are generally much less concerned with such trivialities. But the presentation of an idea can have as much real world effect as the content of that idea. In that regard, your website and photos etc. is lacking a bit perhaps. Would better presentation make your theory better? No, of course not. But would it help with a first impression, to be taken more seriously and not be ridiculed as a crack-pot by some sinister souls out there? It may. with appreciation, P.S. I noticed you live on Lake Tahoe. Great choice! I also live on a lake with my family - but in beautiful Italy:-) |
Thank
you for raising these issues. I recall having considerable interest in (1) modeling the aero-dynamics of lift and (2) modeling the socio-dynamics of the propagation of a new idea through the physics community. An efficient wing would have (1) a small cross section so as to offer less drag and (2) a mechanism to laminate the trailing air, thereby minimizing turbulence. The curve-top-flat-bottom shape of conventional wings does not contribute directly to lift - although it may help indirectly, by laminating air stream and reducing energy loss. Please feel free to bring my presentation up to your standards - and send it to me straight away so I can post it as a spiffy example. I currently reside in Austin, Texas. |
|||
| August
14, 2019 Plunging Cattle Hi Ed, I currently lost 72% of my account due to wrongly operated my algorithm trading on multicharts, and following with a heavy shortfall of the recent sudden fall in Live Cattle futures, really depressed now, it toke away my effort in the past 1.5 years.. I really need your recommendation of my trades at this stage ... and also what is your comment on the recent fall in Live Cattle futures? Thank you for your time to read my words:) Best regards, |
Thank
you for raising this issue. You might consider taking your feelings about your trading to Tribe as an entry point. Perhaps you can discover your intention = result. Your answers may appear less on the cattle charts and more within yourself. Some people, upon seeing cattle starting to plunge, plunge right in with them. See: Video of Plunging Bovine
|
|||
| August
13, 2019 Wants to Take it Further Hi Ed, I am interested in your workshops. I also see you offer consulting for $5,000. I wanted to inquire about taking things further. Do you offer mentorship? I am 35 years old and want nothing more than to be a winning trader and am stopping at nothing to make it happen. This is what I want to do with my life. All I do all day and night is devour information on trading. Then I put in the screen time and watch charts and put in trades. I have invested $10,000 on 2 different trading courses and have learned a great deal about technical analysis, options and expansion bars. But Im done trying to outsmart the market, which results in varied results and improper risk management. I just had a close friend of mine turn 150k into 10M in a year through leverage and getting into a bitcoin long trade at the right time. But the trade recently went against him, he had no stop loss, believed there was no way the price could just keep dropping without rebounding and got his whole 10M liquidated. I have learned a lot from him but the trading style is stressful and not sustainable for a lifetime for me. A few things I don’t have down is where to place stop losses, proper risk management (I am trading with $125k) and how to pyramid orders. Theres also the things that I dont know that I dont know. I have decided on using a basic moving average system with some filters like volume, Keltner channel and Bollinger bands to validate entries. I am a sponge wanting to learn everything and be the best I can be. To me trading is a not only a hobby and career I love since I am highly analytical by nature, but also a vehicle to the life I want, to have money work intelligently for me so I can develop my love for chess, poker, music and making humanity better. |
Thank
you for raising these issues. Although I do not publicly "offer" mentoring, I occasionally enter into private mentoring relationships if I feel the students have talent, good character and willingness to succeed. I would have to agree with you avout the importance of having basic knowledge about how to place stops and manage risk. You might consider working through some of the exercises on the Trading Systems Project (TSP) page to get a handle on how to optimize your system parameters. Also, you might consider signing up for my upcoming TTP Workshop, November 8-10 in Austin, TX - details to appear soon. |
|||
| August
13, 2019 Insensitive to Transaction Costs Dear Mr Seykota, What level of skid would you recommend for optimizing (or testing in general) long-term trend following systems? I know you use 50% skid for the S/R system and the exponential lag system on your website. But if the goal is to develop a system that is insensitive to transaction costs - are there any reasons against testing/optimizing with a skid level of 100%? Best regards from Austria, |
Thank
you for raising this issue. As I consider your goal, "to develop a system with no sensitivity to transaction costs," I might hazard a guess that your system optimizes by transacting no trades. Other advantages of the no-trading system include that you don't need a computer to run it, you can easily compute performance and you don't even need to put money in a trading account. You might consider taking your feelings about thinking clearly and using very precise language, especially concerning trading, to Tribe as an entry point. |
|||
| August
13, 2019 Wants to Not Attend a Tribe Meeting Hey Ed, Do you have any recommendations or alternative methods for experiencing the benefits of the Trading Tribe without attending one? It's not that I don't want to attend but rather where I am (Hong Kong), there aren't any Trading Tribes. Do you think it's possible for me to build a two person Trading Tribe with my long time girlfriend or attend some sort of Skype/video chat based Trading Tribe? |
Thank
you for raising this issue. Consider the difference between reading about riding a bicycle - and actually riding a bicycle for the first time. Consider the difference between reading about sex - and actually experiencing sex for the first time. Consider the difference between reading about TTP and actually attending a Tribe Meeting for the first time. I know of people with considerable Tribe experience who then go on to apply the principles in their intimate relationships. If two people in an intimate relationship, neither with Tribe experience, form a Tribe - they typically derail the processes whenever they start to deal with the power dynamics of the relationship. You may register on the Tribe Reach-Out Page, at TT Services to connect with others in your area. You might consider attending a Workshop, say in Austin, November 8-10. |
|||
| August
11, 2019 Govopoly and Documentary Ed: I wonder if you have seen this documentary before witting the book. It is from 1995, or it seems so. Hope you will enjoy it. Happy belated birthday! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbarjpJhSLw |
Thank
you for raising this issue. I do not recall seeing this documentary before your bringing it to my attention. |
|||
| August
9, 2019 Applause Award Hello Austin Tribe, Thank you for being tribe members and friends. Since I start attending tribe meetings, I try apply TTP throughout my life and want to share my progress with you. I also wonder what progress you guys have been making. You might consider reading [my recent contributions to this column, below]. You might consider sharing any thoughts or trying some of the process I have been trying and let me know what type of results you get. Update: Monday morning this week I go through my work emails and see that I get an "Applause Award" from my manager. I believe this is because of the implementation of the Now Pad (a note pad used to write down the tasks that have to be done now, some items are easy, some cause a lot of tension that can be explored using solo TTP). Using the Now Pad is helping me drive tasks to completion. I'm learning that completion can be prioritized above pursuit of perfection. I make progress towards right livelihood. Thank you |
Thank
you for sharing your process. |
|||
| To Top of Page |
