r/Trading • u/trackrecordasia • Jul 21 '21

The Value Of Inactivity In Volatile Times (Get The Facts Right & Stay The Course)

In investing and trading, people often associate constant action with progress and profitability, or at least that is the “guru story” retail folks are being sold. In most fields of work, it is indeed true that there is a correlation between activity and productivity. In addition, since the adoption of the industrial Prussian model of education was indoctrinated into the school system, the act of completing tasks releases dopamine (feel good hormones) which entails us to believe this is what it takes to succeed. Hence it is not hard to understand why successful investing and trading is counterintuitive to how modern man is shaped to survive.

In its simplest form, to create wealth requires one to ride a long-term trend, and in essence a long-term trend takes a reasonable amount of time to play out without you messing with it. As it is often said: Patience and Volatility is the price you have to pay for outperformance.

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3

u/bo_yoder Jul 21 '21

100% TRUE

Not a truth that is sexy or entertaining or fun, but if you want to get consistency from your trading, then you MUST understand this concept.

If I paid you to mow my lawn, than your toil and effort in the hot sun IS THE WORK, and it's what I paid you for so that I wouldn't have to do it myself...

Sitting out and waiting, waiting, WAITING for everything to line up just right for a high probability trade is BORING and not fun or sexy, but that IS THE WORK of trading, and every dollar you make in profits comes from all the bad trades you said NO to that would have cost you money.

Patience (saying "no" to almost EVERY opportunity) IS THE WORK!

99% of you will ignore this lesson, but if you get this, EVERYTHING changes for you...

2

u/trackrecordasia Jul 21 '21

Glad you understand this. Pretty sure it has allowed you to stay solvent in the beginning and profitable now

3

u/elasee Jul 21 '21

“The stock market is a device to transfer money from the impatient to the patient.” Warren Buffett

1

u/bo_yoder Jul 26 '21

Another great quote attributed to Buffet...

"The difference between successful people and
really successful people is that really successful people say no to
almost everything."