The Internet Of Things
or
"A dog does not smile, no matter how many times your kind might think it does."
Observer
No really, dogs don’t smile. In talking to some friends over the past few weeks I found out that many of them ACTUALLY think the dogs do smile, and there is no way to reason with them that dogs do not smile. So what does this have to do with trading?? Well dear reader, in a psychological sense everything.
It has to do with what we are willing to convince ourselves of to make ourselves feel better about our circumstances and condition. No where does this play out in a more obvious fashion than on internet trading boards. Some are so dissatisfied with their lives that they invent online personalities, traders who have had massive amounts of success, who claim to know how Spot Currency Markets markets work from the inside out, they know what the market will do at any point in Price/Time.
A few moths ago an acquaintance told me of a trading Guru that was now claiming divine intervention in his life, that “God” answered his prayers to be successful so that he could help others be successful, yep you can’t make this stuff up. My first question would be which god, the god of the bible, the god of Islam, the god of the Buddhists, or perhaps it was Shree Ganesh, the Hindu god of good luck, or maybe it was the god of destroyed retail FOREX accounts. I don’t know which one, but in reality, once a person sees this type of behavior from someone claiming to be a cool-headed professional trader, they should run for the exits.
The same is true when you hear “Wyckoff used volume this way, but since Spot Currency does not have true volume numbers, I use it in a totally different way”. Stop and think, it was designed to be used with “real” volume numbers and it can not work without them, it is very simple. Or how about this, “enter here and take what the market gives you”, “set appropriate stops”. Ok, now what is this fool talking about, excuse me, Mcfly, anyone home, could you be more vague? The answer is usually Ad Hominem attacks are the last resort of etc etc etc etc.
Along with the invented personality, come sock puppets. I think out of all of the things I don’t like about Boards are Sock Puppets. For example, this experience. A guy said he was working on an oil rig site in Edmonton and the work was hard long hours, etc. and he wanted to get involved with Spot C trading to get out of such a demanding job. I can relate kinda sorta to this, so after seeing him “struggle” for a while, I sent him a PM to see if I could help, well his response was, shall we say, less that cordial, and in line with the Gurus “Iambic Pentameter”. So I said “Bonne Chance Mon Ami”. I realized he was a sock puppet. I believe that we still have one of this Gurus smelly socks around here still, and hopefully, one day, Site Overlords will take the laundry out, hehehehehehe. But anyway, it is very frustrating for someone serious to try to post through these “socks”, the voice of reason is always drown out by the “Guru” in different incarnations.
Finally we come down to the followers, or as some of the youts (sp NJ) say “Fanboys”. People today are so starved for leadership that they get attached to a personality that they think has their best interests in mind, and from that point on, there is no questioning of the Guru allowed. It does get worse, it gets to the point where legitimate questions are rejected off hand, not just by the Guru himself, or the obvious Socks, but also by the unwary followers. They begin to form a circle of protection around the Guru that Kim Jong Un would be jealous of, even after the Guru blows up, and is completely unmasked as a fraud, they continue to support him. Even when he performs the same act 5-6 times in a row, they never stop to ask, is that dog really smiling ? Why do they do this, my theory is because they have to believe that dogs smile, it is the basis for their future growth, as a person and financially, every bit of emotion they have is put into this Guru and his teachings, and no amount of reasoning will change that.
Understand also, that these followers are so caught up in being part of a “team”, “movement” or “tribe”, that they have to believe in the Guru, because if not, that means they are wrong, and this conclusion IS unacceptable. It would mean all the time and money they spent, was wasted, if the Guru failed, and his system failed then the follower failed. This emotional dependence on the Guru is so bad that even when the system and Guru fail, the follower blames themselves, they feel incapable of being able to trade the Guru’s lofty, holy, heavenly system, and they are too unclean to grasp the Gurus holy utterances. Accepting that they cannot trade the Gurus system is more acceptable to them than to just admit the Guru and his system is just wrong.
The reason for this is they need to believe that “Dogs Smile”. They need to think there is someone out there who has a secret knowledge of the markets, that will confirm their suspicions that the big boys are out to take their micro accounts from them and the Guru will ensure that this does not happen. The Guru becomes more than “sum dum gai” like me on the internet, he becomes a strong Father or Big Brother figure, who will chastise when needed, but will always be there to protect the little trading family.
Yes keep believing dogs smile dear reader, keep trying to convince yourself, keep trying to make yourself feel better about your life, that the Guru is right, and even if you can’t trade his system you know two things, he can and Dogs Smile. You are easily “READ”, whenever you respond to criticism or a thoughtful question of the Guru, you let everyone know how dependent you are. Yes keep thinking Dogs Smile, I would like to invite you to a specific hub of liquidity I know of, and seeing as I would like to purchase a personalized Porsche Panamera Turbo S Executive, Carmine Red, next year, a few extra bucks might just put me over the top.
The Ever TradeViper And Not TradePanamera VIPER
“You Don’t Even Know What You Don’t Know, So How Can You Know Anything”
Observer
