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Friday, July 27, 2007

Mega-themes 7 to 9

...continued from yesterday...

China. If the US doesn’t want to be friends with China, countries elsewhere will. Every time US politicians bash China, European companies benefit.

Crime Rises Again. Crime in the US had been declining but Todd suspects it will trend back up.

Global Warming. Forces working for and against global warming will themselves make headlines regardless of whether climate changes occur.

... going on holiday until August 31, 2007.

Copyright 2007 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
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Thursday, July 26, 2007

Mega-themes 4 to 6

...continued from yesterday...

Race and Ethnicity. Uses and abuses of racial-ethnic profiling will be in the news.

Aging Population in Japan. As Japanese workers get older and exit from the workforce, they are not being replaced by immigrants. Instead, they are going to export their jobs through international mergers and acquisitions. Their corporations and investors, while maintaining headquarters in Japan, will be merging or acquiring corporations in a neighborhood near you.

European Unity-Disunity. Whether the European Economic Union succeeds or self-destructs, the Euro Currency will be in play versus the US Dollar.

...cont'd tomorrow...

Copyright 2007 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
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Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Mega-themes 1 to 3

...continued from yesterday...

Aging Population in America. Will baby boomers sell their investments to pay for retirement expenses and thereby either crash or at least put downward pressure on financial markets?

Continued Advances in Science and Technology. What’s the next industry group to boom or bust?

Exploding Investment Funds. Todd says the number of mutual funds will diminish. That idea should be expanded to encompass the possibility, or likelihood, that investment funds of all types will attract headlines by self-destructing. That would include the current batch of Sub-prime Debt Funds (e.g. Bear Stearns) going out of business and dragging others down with them.

...cont'd tomorrow...

Copyright 2007 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
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Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Nine Future News Headline Themes

This week’s series of articles is about some major news themes that could play out over the next decade or longer.

If you believe that news affect markets, then these themes are what you are likely going to be trading. Alternatively, if you believe news is not relevant to price trends, then these are what you need to pointedly ignore. Furthermore, if you believe that news occur just before the end of a trend, then these events are what you might be trading against over the next many years.

In Market Shock, Todd G. Buchholz describes nine “economic and social upheavals that will shake your financial future”. He also offers his opinion as to what to do about those nine themes which you can trade, pointedly ignore or trade against.

...cont'd tomorrow...

Copyright 2007 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
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Friday, July 20, 2007

Beliefs based on references

...continued from yesterday...

In Notes From A Friend, success guru Tony Robbins says that beliefs are a feeling of certainty about an idea. He suggests that to build up a belief, what you need are many examples of your belief being validated, something he calls "references".

In applying this to trading and investing, what you need is to look at many examples of your trading system producing profitable trades. If you have actual examples, those are the ones you have to recall and review repeatedly. If you don’t have any real ones, you can look at your test results in which you have examples of profitable trades.

Hope this helps.

...Back next week...

Copyright 2007 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
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Thursday, July 19, 2007

Influence Yourself Into Believing

...continued from yesterday...

Here’s two other ways to install the belief you need in your investment/trading system so that you’ll actually use it for a sufficiently long enough period for it to be profitable. They are two different chapters in Robert Cialdini’s book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Use Social Proof. Repeatedly think about examples of other people who have profited from using the same or similar system over a long period of time.

Use Authority Figures. Repeatedly think about people you regard as authority figures who endorse using the same or similar system over a long period of time.

...cont'd tomorrow...

Copyright 2007 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
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Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Converting statements into beliefs with five senses

...continued from yesterday...

One way to turn a statement about something into a belief is to sense the subject statement in the same way you sense a belief.

Your senses, arbitrarily, can be categorized as visual, auditory, kinesthetic, gustatory and olfactory. To turn any statement into a belief, just sense that statement in the same way you sense a belief you already have.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you want to believe that your system for trading Nasdaq Futures is profitable even though it often has losing trades. Call that Statement “A”. Let’s also say that you strongly believe that your deodorant works. Call that Belief “B”.

Now to convert Statement “A” into a belief, what you can do is sense Statement “A” in the same way you sense Belief “B”.

Say Belief “B: to yourself, that is “My deodorant works”. Notice the following about it:

1. Did you see a picture while thinking about Belief “B”? Where in your visual field was it? Was it a motion picture or a still picture? Was it in color? Was it bright or dim? Assume for this example that it was to your upper left visual field; that it was a still picture of your deodorant bottle; that it was black & white; and that it was dimly lit.

2. Did you hear an audio signal while thinking about Belief “B”? Where was it in relation to your ears? Was it loud or soft? Whose voice was it? Assume for this example that it was only in your left ear; that it was a whisper; that it was your mother’s voice.

3. Did you notice a distinct feeling while thinking about Belief “B”? Where in you body did you sense the feeling? Was it a sharp or dull sensation? Was it strong or weak? Assume for this example that you felt your hands get warmer; that it was a dull sensation; and that it was a weak sensation.

4. Did you notice a distinct smell while thinking about Belief “B”? Where was that smell? What was that smell? Assume for this example that the smell was in your armpits; and that it was a spicy odor.

5. Did you notice a taste in your mouth while thinking about Belief “B”? Where in your mouth? What was the taste? Assume for this example that you did not taste anything.

Having collected information about the way you sense a belief, apply the information to Statement “A” to convert it into a belief. Think of Statement “B” in the following manner.

Imagine a visual image of a price chart showing the entry and exit point using your system.The picture is a still picture in black & white, dimly lit.

Hear Statement “B” in your left ear, as a whisper, and in your mother’s voice.

Imagine your hands getting a dull, weak sensation of warmth.

Imagine a spicy odor coming from your armpits.

According to psychologists of the NLP persuasion, the foregoing should convert Statement “B” into a belief.

...cont'd tomorrow...

Copyright 2007 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
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Tuesday, July 17, 2007

To Believe & Have Faith

...continued from yesterday...What does “believe” mean? It is a verb. Believe is something that you do.

According to Marriam-Webster Online, “believe” means the following.
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/believe

1 a : to have a firm religious faith b : to accept as true, genuine, or real {ideals we believe in} {believes in ghosts}
2 : to have a firm conviction as to the goodness, efficacy, or ability of something {believe in exercise}
3 : to hold an opinion : THINK {I believe so}
transitive verb
1 a : to consider to be true or honest {believe the reports} {you wouldn't believe how long it took} b : to accept the word or evidence of {I believe you} {couldn't believe my ears}
2 : to hold as an opinion : SUPPOSE {I believe it will rain soon}

What is “faith”? It is a noun.

According to Marriam-Webster Online, “faith” means the following.

1 a : allegiance to duty or a person : LOYALTY b (1) : fidelity to one's promises (2) : sincerity of intentions
2 a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust
3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs {the Protestant faith}

See http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/believe and http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/faith

...cont'd tomorrow...

Copyright 2007 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
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Monday, July 16, 2007

Believe & Have Faith

Last week I wrote about a system that beats the markets. The author of the system says that the system will result in a loss for most people. The reason for the loss is not that the system is invalid, but instead because people using it do not believe in it to the extent necessary to keep using it during periods when it is not producing profits. That is, they don't have the necessary faith.

So how you do you get yourself to believe in s system and to have faith in it? That is the topic of this week’s series of articles.

...cont'd tomorrow...

Copyright 2007 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
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Saturday, July 14, 2007

Most will lose trying Joel formula

...continued from yesterday...

Most investors/traders are likely to lose money with Joel’s formula. But that’s not because the formula is invalid. They lose because they quit after getting the several years in a row of losses that Joel warned that the formula will deliver; and because they aren’t using the formula when, later, it delivers profits.

Copyright 2007 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
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Thursday, July 12, 2007

Joel Performance Statistics

...continued from yesterday...

Here are some performance statistics about Joel’s formula that I gleaned from reading his book.
Minimum holding period: 11 months.
Maximum holding period: 13 months.
Average holding period: 12 months.
Percentage Winning Trades: Not provided.
Percentage Losing Trades: Not provided.
Losing Streaks: “The magic formula often doesn’t work for several years in a row” (page 76).
Stop Loss Orders: Not used.
Profit Targets: Not used.

...cont'd tomorrow...

Copyright 2007 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
eMail me Comments

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Joel's Secret Formula

...continued from yesterday...

I believe readers of Joel’s book are more likely to want to know his secret formula for profits instead of the foregoing important valuable insight. Actually, the value of Joel’s entire book is the foregoing insight, not his investment formula.

...cont'd tomorrow...

Copyright 2007 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
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Joel's Valuable Advice

...continued from yesterday...

The very valuable advice Joel provided was that even if you have a profitable investment formula, you won’t be able to make any money with it unless you have enough faith in that formula to follow it over a long period of time. Joel’s formula needs at least 3 years and as much as 17 years to turn profitable.

...cont'd tomorrow...

Copyright 2007 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
eMail me Comments

Monday, July 09, 2007

Joel Greenblat's Book

Joel Greenblatt’s book The Little Book That Beats The Marketdescribes an important insight into investment and trading success.

...cont'd tomorrow..

Copyright 2007 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
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