“I’ve always believed the greater danger is not aiming too high, but too low, settling for a bogey rather than shooting for an eagle.”
- Peter Scott
Since it’s raining, there will be no golf for me today. But the above quote is apt for all of our lives. Settling is no way to succeed.
A postmortem of yesterday’s trading performance revealed that not only had I bought the market 3 ticks off the low, but also sold the market 8 ticks from the high on the day. One of my favorite books on trading, The Art of Trading by Alan Jankovsky, defines the actual art of trading as being a participant in both the traded high and low for the day. However, what he assumes but fails to mention is that you actually have to hold the trade between those two points. In my belief, that is the true art of trading… it’s the sitting, the waiting, the patience in the face of what others perceive as tremendous risk. Yesterday also revealed that I was unable to hold long enough between those two points even though I was able to spot them effectively.
Today was a day for me to forgive myself for such “errors”. I missed two major market moves in the crude oil market and was almost resolved to believe that today was going to be another Wednesday crude oil inventory day where I would come up short. Wednesday is possibly the most actively traded oil day of any week. However, it has been one of the most difficult for me to trade.
Despite missing the first two moves of the day, the initial stop run and the entire run off the stops (I actually shorted it with a tight stop for a loss), I hit the top within 5 ticks and sold into it to finish my morning up 6.5%. Once again though, I didn’t hold for distance. I was scaling out of the position too early getting stopped out of half my position at the midway point of the move. My initial target on the trade was hit within 2 ticks, but I wasn’t there to trade it. It’s tough to complain about success, so I won’t, but I will say that settling for bogey when par or eagle is available will become your life’s story if it’s repeatedly performed with the simple refrain of “that’s good enough”.
What is good enough? I don’t know. And while I consistently complain about others telling me it’s good enough, the real voice with which I need to contend is the one within me that tells me it’s good enough.
If good is the enemy of great, good enough is their bastard child… never mention it in the company of greatness.
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