Sunday, March 18, 2007

The Turtle's Way

Curtis Faith has written a book - The Way of the Turtle - you can read about it on his site.

But that's not why I'm here this morning. I'm here because he wrote an article on a subject that is near and dear to my heart. An article that could have been titled - "why doesn't this stupid system I got out of this stupid book work as well as it did in the book". Except that title is much too long.

He goes into several reasons why back test results are frequently bogus and I reviewed them and I think that my back testing meets all requirements for being honest and realistic. If you want to see what he has to say then scoot on over to his site and read the article. I'll wait.

I think I resolve all of the issues with my basic approach which is - keep it simple. If it is simple then people can understand it and understand why it works and so what if everyone else uses it. That's the beauty of simplicity.

But best of all, given my care to find the best possible methods to help me in my trading - the absolute best part of it is - I give it away - for free - I don't pretend that it is something really special or something really important or a cure for cancer, the crabs, or the clap - it's just trading folks.

If you have a good idea and your first thought is how can I make some money from this then your idea is "how can I make some money from this".

In order to make money you have to figure out how to convince people that your idea is good for them - good enough that they will be willing to pay to get to your thoughts. And trust me - you don't get what you pay for - you get what the other guy thinks he knows. And we all know what I have to say about that.

The way of the turtle is simple - take a lot of small losses and, then, when you have a winner ride it to the end of the trend - do you really need another book to learn that?

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