10/12/2011

Outliers

No signals the last two sessions. So plenty of video.

I read Gladwell's book Outliers and the discussion around the 10,000 hours required to achieve expert status is certainly important to traders.

I have been watching charts full time for about 5 years now. So with 52 weeks in a year minus about 10 holiday days that's roughly 250 days a year. At 5.5 hours per day that puts me around 6875 hours of screen time.

3125 more hours and I'll be an expert.

Hurray!!

If the 10,000 hours holds true for trading, and I see no reason why it wouldn't, then it does explain the large failure rate in this business.

Traders simply run out of capital before they get the 10,000 hours in.

Sim trade for 10 years?

No but capital preservation is certainly the most important aspect of this business.



5 comments:

1Lot said...

5.5 hours per day?? I guess you are only talking about chart watching time specifically?

Solfest said...

You're right TeaGreedy.

There have been many more hours reading, writing, tracking, recording, back testing, and pounding my head on the desk.

Jules said...

I have clocked 12,000 and I'm still not an expert....

What went wrong, SwamiGuru??!! ><

1Lot said...

ok yeah I thought so :) otherwise my next comment would have been, "put a little backbone into it" lol..

I read couple of your posts on TL, like your ideas and way of thinking, so will be following here.. also read Gladwell's book, good book and for the most part I agree with it.. although I would say that trading requires more than 10 000 hours, in my case anyway.. since I'm pretty sure I passed that landmark a while back and I by no means consider myself a master..

Solfest said...

Well then those who have passed the 10,000 hours and don't consider themselves "experts" certainly should speak volumes to those who started trading last week and are wondering what's wrong. :)