Mr Market
or
What Does A Corvette Have To Do With Trading
Wayyyy back in 1978, I had a job at an independant auto repair shop. There was a weird customer that owned a Corvette, we will call him Corvette Guy, or CG for short. His car was about a 1969, and was no award winner by any means, he put a midrange paint job on it, eventually showed up at the shop to show us the new Targa Top he had put on, talk about cheesy, but he though he was a chick magnet in the car, actually more like maggot, but that’s another story. Anywho he jumps back in his whip, and goes to start it, and it turns but does not fire, Mike W. knows what I mean, he tries again, and gets a backfire, he tries one more time, pumping the gas pedal like a madman, and cursing. Finally he stops trying to crank it and starts pounding the steering wheel shouting, "I treaded you like a Brother, you
____________________________, every time you let me down, I even bought you a targa band and this is how you do you me _________________________________. So the boss come out, and then CG starts in with him, but not how you think, he gets out of the car, slams the door and says, can you believe this piece of ________________ I paid $800 two weeks ago for new brakes, I gave it a Targa band, I treat it like a brother and this is what it does to me, then he kicks it. The boss finally calmed him down, he left the car and we fixed it.
Then there was our next door neighbor. This is also years ago. She had some potted plants, and the dog kept digging in them, so one day I hear some screaming, man I thought someone was being killed, but no it was my neighbor screaming at the top of her lungs, to the dog, “Please can you just leave me one plant, please, just this one, please for the love of ___, all I want is one plant for me”. Well I didn’t say anything but I know that dogs don’t smile, so he did not understand a word she said. I guess that’s why some Atheists have a “In Dog I Trust” on a bumper sticker.
Soooo, many years later I got compt to a “TradeAlong” with a famous Guru. He had a few of guest speakers, I was really looking forward to hearing what the “Trading Psychologists” had to say. Now understand these were famous people, well known, even till today you can see their names bandied about.
So the big moment arrives, and the first TPsy gets up there and says, with a straight face, “Are you going to let Mr Market take your money from you today?” when no answer was forthcoming, she asked “well are you” most spoke up with a half hearted “no”. Frankly I had to put my head down and cover my mouth, I was laughing so hard. So I listen to a half hour of the worst load of drivel I have heard up till that time. About how the market is out to take your money, and how you have to fight it, on it went, and when we were finished, well mercifully, we were finished.
Believe it or not, the TPsy reminded me of the CG, and My Next Door Neighbor, both shouting and screaming at something that does not understand, and is even an inanimate object. This is called Anthropomorphism : an interpretation of what is not human or personal in terms of human or personal characteristics:, yeah I know all of us Dog lovers think that Tristan and Arminius our two Dobies smile at us, but they don’t. I know about the “Satanic Car” that hates us because stuff keeps breaking on it, but really it is just a piece of junk. I also know about the repeated entries, Ahem, cough, cough, that keep loosing because my broker is out to get me and so is Draghi, but you are just entering the wrong direction because you have a directional bias and you are too proud to adapt.
A famous Guru by the name of I Can’t Trade used to play this stupid card all the time. “The Smart Money” is after you, the “BIG” players know where your stops are, “The Institutional Levels” are there to take your money away from you, etc. By the time you get done with this nonsense you end up thinking that your Broker is hiding under your bed with the dust bunnies, and George Soros is hiding in your closet, shaking the loose change out of your pants and going through your couch crevices finding your lost millions.
Think about this. If you see the market as an entity, and YOU place a negative trade who do you blame, the market of course, but you also feel guilt for giving the bully your lunch money, then this bully gets even more terrible, and you end up finding a guru to protect you. We can see how quickly we shift from trading into survival mode, and of course I Can’t Trade, and his ilk try to convince people they need a group, a family to protect them from this bully, it is a perfect circle of dependence, the individual is taught that the Bully is out to get them, so they pay I Can’t Trade to protect them, all the while the Guru is charging to reinforce the fears of his followers, what a gig. It is clear that the anger is never addressed, and by making the market a living being, it becomes the target for the traders anger, making the situation even worse, what these gurus realize is that it does not help to blame the market, but it does help make traders dependent.
So how to avoid this trap, it is simple, the market does not care about you. It’s like a chainsaw, I love my Stihl by the way, you start it, it could care less what you put in front of it, a big Maple log you are cutting a LongRifle stock out of, or trimming some boxwoods, or your left leg, if you put it out there it will cut it. Or a Oster blender, you know the one with the heavy glass container, put 20 really hot Jalapenos, couple of onions, 4 tomatillos, a little salt, and finally 8 home grown Chile Cascabels, turn it on and in a few minutes, Salsa De Macho, of course if the Jalapenos don’t go all the way down, and you use your fingers to push them down, well the blender doesn’t care, it will make finger salsa just as well.
This is the point, no matter what anyone says, the market just does not care about you, win, lose, breakeven, “it” is not even aware that you exist, because “it” does not exist at a conscious level, a market just is. The moment we attribute a malevolence or benevolence to an inanimate object, the mental battle is lost, why? Because it is irrational thinking, it makes no sense at all. So how can someone make logical/rational decisions if they are already irrational.
So stop engaging in Anthropomorphism in your daily life, cept for dogs, I’ll give you that, but everything else, stop it, especially the markets, remember they just are, and your broker is not hiding under your bed.
The Ever Seeing It As It Is VIPER
