Who is Vince?

Over the weekend I started to think about Vince and who he might have been. Perhaps he was of the stoic belief orating next to a pillar outside the Pantheon in Rome, or a cynic orating out side the steps of the cathedral in Florence. Maybe he was a simple farmer outside of Sienna with a desirable daughter. Whoever he was, I imagine a conversation along the lines of this:

I need you to con Vince.
- Why do you want me to con Vince?
I don't pay you to ask questions.
- What do you want me to con Vince of?
Again, I don't pay you to ask questions, but that's an important one so I'll tell you what I want you to con Vince of...

I don't believe this is the etymology of the word convince by any means, but this idea did have the unintended effect of beginning a sequence of thoughts that framed my current state of mindfulness regarding what is transpiring around me and how I have interpreted it. Over the course of the past few months I've patched together a number of concepts from market participants who have directly or indirectly had their thoughts scribed --thoughts that have stood the test of time and market cycles.

Of Livermore, Wyckoff, O'Neal, Weinsten and Zwieg, I have taken a tidbit of wisdom and applied their model and methodology as a template to the market since May. From each I have focused primarily upon changes of market character and trend change from from bullish zones and topping zones to distribution and mark down with some thoughts on the bottoming process as well. What each post did however, was the contrary to the intention and if anything made me more optimistic, but without justification. As I reflect back upon each post I can't not help but acknowledge that I was trying to convince myself of something- but what wasn't apparent until recently.


Over that past few days I've taken to reviewing my daily logs checking for repetition of key words and phrases and noting what actions I did take to address them and which received inaction. It should come as no surprise to me to see the same blocks of writing alerting me to something neglected. Weeks later these would pop up again and sometimes months later as well. This repetition was the clearest sign that I was ignoring vital information pertaining to myself as a market participant. Of one note from February I take particular awareness of now:

There are certain weaknesses that when overcome show more- and that is one of the difficulties of trading- you get over one hump and your digging yourself out of another ditch and it gets tiring after a while and you start to wonder when is this going to change- I got over the fear of entering- I got over the fear of exiting loses- O.K.. Now I have the fear of mismanaging trades- it's a permanent state of anxiety and you become anxious that once you modify the current road block you'll find another you hadn't though of-

Here in lies an astute truth about my market beliefs. What I've come to learn through trading is that a solution today creates a problem tomorrow I may not have even thought about yet. Improving as a trader has a counter-intuitive challenge that as I become better experienced I can also become worse through the pursuit. The more informed and the less ignorant the higher the hurdle to overcome looms. This is why persistence and resiliency are two very important attributes to have in trading because with each step there is a chance of tripping and unless these two characteristics are honed, it might be the last step for many due to sheer frustration.