Ask Al: Final steps to trading profitability

询问 Al：交易盈利的最后步骤

许多障碍对交易盈利有影响。

BPA trading room Q&A: February 16, 2016

Question: What were the final steps which you employed to become profitable?

Get rich quick trading!

There were so many steps along the way, right? The single biggest thing was giving up on everybody. Back when I was doing this in the ’80s, there were so many dishonest people out there. It was incredible. Pretty much any ad that you saw, I believe, was put there by a thief, a liar. Even in reputable magazines, all the ads about “get rich quick,” “buy this software,” it was all lies. It was just totally all lies.

I grew up trusting people with more experience than me. I was an eye surgeon for years, and in medical school you’re being taught by people who are very reputable, very honorable. That’s true with most professional schools. Law school, business school. It doesn’t take much time to realize that the people are really honorable and they’re really trying to do a good job. They’re trying to be nice people, they’re trying to help you. So I grew up with that kind of experience. College, same thing. The professors were all good people, really interested in helping.

And then you enter the trading world, especially in the ’80s when I did. I immediately assumed that all the people out there are honorable like university professors, medical school professors, business school, and law school professors. But they’re not! They were all out there trying to steal money from people who didn’t know any better, by selling products that they make claims about and they charge a lot of money for their products.

赚钱快的交易！

问题：您采取了哪些最终步骤，以实现盈利？

一路走来有很多步骤，对吧？最重要的一件事是放弃所有人。当我在80年代做这件事时，有很多不诚实的人。这是不可思议的。我相信，几乎你看到的任何广告都是由一个小偷、一个骗子放在那里的。即使在声誉良好的杂志上，所有关于“快速致富”、“购买此软件”的广告都是谎言。完全都是谎言。

我成长于信任比我更有经验的人。我曾经是一名眼科医生多年，在医学院里，你受到非常有声望、非常有荣誉的人的教导。大多数专业学校都是这样的。法学院、商学院。很快就会意识到这些人真的很有声望，他们真的在努力做好工作。他们试图成为好人，他们试图帮助你。所以我成长于这样的经历中。大学也是一样。教授们都是好人，真正有兴趣帮助。

然后你进入交易世界，特别是在80年代，当时我进入了交易世界。我立刻认为所有人都像大学教授、医学院教授、商学院和法学院教授一样有声望和荣誉。但他们不是！他们都在那里试图从不知道更好的人那里偷钱，通过出售他们声称并为其产品收取高昂费用来偷钱。

Specialist indicator trading scams

I remember once, maybe it was ’87, ’88, there was some company out there I paid $3,000 for their special software that they guaranteed all kinds of great returns. Every day, they would send me the latest update of the input into their indicators. I don’t remember the name of the company, but I think eventually, the SCC sued them, put them out of business. I don’t know if they were arrested or put in jail, but the SCC ultimately decided that the firm was a lie.

And it was a lie. Every day they would optimize indicators based upon today’s price action, so if you used those indicators on what took place today, you would’ve made a lot of money. But you didn’t have those indicators at the start of the day; you got them at the end of the day. So every day at the end of the day, they’d say “If you used these numbers today, you would’ve made $10,000. Here, you can use the numbers tomorrow.”

And guess what? The numbers don’t work tomorrow. They worked today because they were generated, they were curve fitted based upon today’s price action. And they were doing that every day. At the end of the day, they would come up with the numbers that would have worked best on the day, and then they would make the claim that had you used those numbers, you would’ve used a fortune today.

However, they were fitted to the market to maximize profit in hindsight, after you’d already seen the day. There’s no reason to believe that those numbers are going to work tomorrow. However, they would produce these track records based upon generating the numbers after they see the chart, and they were coming up with all kinds of incredibly great results. But that was the result.

专家指标交易骗局

我记得有一次，可能是87年、88年左右，有一家公司收了我3000美元买了他们保证能获得巨额回报的特殊软件。每天，他们会向我发送最新的指标输入更新。我不记得公司的名字了，但我认为最终证券交易委员会起诉了他们，并将其关闭了业务。我不知道他们是否被逮捕或关进监狱，但最终证券交易委员会最终决定该公司是一个谎言。

而且它就是一个谎言。每天他们都会基于今天的价格行动优化指标，因此如果您在今天使用这些指标，您将赚很多钱。但你没有这些指标在一天开始时；你在一天结束时得到它们。所以每天结束时，他们会说“如果你今天使用这些数字，你会赚10000美元。这里，你可以明天使用数字。”

猜猜？数字明天不起作用。它们今天有效，因为它们基于今天的价格行动生成，并且每天都这样做。在一天结束时，他们会提供最适合当天使用的数字，然后声称如果您使用了这些数字，则今天您将赚到财富。

然而，他们是利用事后的角度就市场情况进行了装配，以最大化利润。没有理由相信那些数据明天也能管用。然而，他们会根据在看完图表后生成的数字来制作这些记录，并且他们得出了各种令人难以置信的结果。但那是结果。

Hiring a tutor (mentor)

I hired a tutor once, close to 30 years ago, and I paid him I don’t know how much, $3,000 or $5,000. He’s still out there today; I’ve seen him at conferences. I pressed him on a lot of things. I think I lost $3,000 when he was in my house trading. I pressed him on a lot of things, and ultimately he told me that he does not trade, but that he has people who trade his system, and trade his money for him. I couldn’t believe it. The guy is out there claiming to be a great trader, and doesn’t even trade.

I spent a lot of money in the early ’90s and the late ’80s hiring experts and going to conferences, and at the end, I concluded that it was all nonsense and the people were just dishonest people. They were just trying to take money from people who didn’t know any better. At the time, the law did not protect people as well as it does today. So it was very easy for dishonest people to steal money from people who didn’t know any better, people who were just trying to figure it out.

请一个教练

我曾经雇了一个家教，30年前左右，我付了他我不知道多少钱，3000美元或5000美元。他今天还在那里，我在会议上见过他。我在很多事情上追问他。当他在我家交易时，我认为我亏了3000美元。我在很多事情上追问他，最终他告诉我他不交易，但是有人为他交易他的系统，并为他交易他的钱。我简直无法相信。这个人宣称自己是一个伟大的交易者，甚至没有交易。

我在90年代初和80年代晚期花了很多钱雇用专家并参加会议，最终得出结论，这都是无稽之谈，人们都是不诚实的人。他们只是试图从那些不知道更好的人手中赚钱。当时，法律保护人们的能力没有今天那么好。所以对于那些不知道该怎么做的人来说，不诚实的人很容易从他们那里偷钱。

Figure out what market is doing

Anyway, after 10 years of it, I decided that, as trusting as I had been all my life of elders and people who I thought were out there to help me, I decided that the people are all liars, and they’re thieves, and dishonest people. Everything I was reading in magazines, and books, and ads, and seeing at conferences, was just all nonsense. Yes, pretty colors and pretty charts and pretty graphics and everything, but it’s all nonsense. It has nothing to do with making money.

So I got rid of all of it and I just decided to print out charts every day and try to understand. If the market has a bear bar, why does it have a bear bar? If it has a bull bar, why does it have a bull bar? If it has three bull bars, why does it have three bull bars? I just decided to try to figure out what the market was doing.

找出市场正在做什么。

不管怎样，经过了10年，我决定，虽然我一直相信长者和那些我认为会帮助我的人，但我决定，这些人都是骗子，是小偷，是不诚实的人。我在杂志、书籍、广告和会议上看到的一切都是无稽之谈。是的，有很漂亮的颜色、漂亮的图表和漂亮的图形，但这些都是无稽之谈。这与赚钱毫不相干。

所以我把所有这些东西都放弃了，只是决定每天打印出图表来尝试理解。如果市场出现了熊市行情，为什么会出现这样的熊市行情？如果市场出现了牛市行情，为什么会出现这样的牛市行情？如果市场出现了三只牛的行情，为什么会出现这样的三只牛的行情？我只是决定尝试弄清楚市场在做什么。

Focus on why you lose, and why you win

It didn’t take long to figure it out, because at times when I would lose money, I started to see that there were clear things that were happening that caused me to lose, like buying at the top of a trading range, selling at the bottom of a trading range, taking tops in strong bull breakouts, selling in this [B20-B30], buying this [B3], betting on regression to the mean, and that the breakout would fail. It did not take long for me to begin to see what signs of strength really are, and how important they are.

So if the market is going up and it looks pretty strong, I can only buy. If it’s going down and it looks pretty strong, I can only sell. You do it long enough, you look at a chart that you print out at the end of the day, and there’s something in the chart that you’ll see that the probability was high that you’d make money. So if you print this chart out, you’d see somewhere in here [B22 up], if I bought this reversal up that’s a lot of bars up, I’m going to make money. That’s all you have to see. You just need to buy somewhere in here [B20-B30], stop below there [B20], and you’ll probably make a measured move up.

Let’s say you decide somewhere in here [B29] that you’d make money. Let’s say you bought somewhere in here. At the point that you decide that you’ll probably make money, so probably when it’s 60%, your risk is here [below B20]. At that moment, you probably are going to make about the same amount that you’re risking to take the trade. So you’re probably going to get a measured move up from the place where you finally decided, yeah, the probability is high for the bulls.

And you can do that with pretty much any day. You can look at any day, and something’s going to happen that makes you think the market is going to do something. Something is going to happen that makes you think there’s going to be follow-through and probably a measured move.

专注于为什么你输了，以及为什么你赢了。

很快我就了解到了，因为有时当我赔钱时，我开始看到明显的事情导致我赔钱，比如在交易范围的顶部买入，在交易范围的底部卖出，押注均值回归，认为突破会失败。没过多久，我就开始看到了真正的强势信号以及它们的重要性。

所以，如果市场上涨并且看起来相当强势，我只能买入。如果它下跌并且看起来相当强势，我只能卖出。你要长时间地这样做，看看你在一天结束时打印出来的图表，你会在图表中看到某些地方会有很高的获利概率。所以如果你打印这张图表，你会看到有些地方（B22之上），如果我买了这个反转，它会上涨很多，我会赚钱。你只需要看到这些。你只需要在这里（B20-B30）中的某个地方购买，止损在那里（B20）以下，你就可能会有一个很好的上涨。

假设你在这里（B29）决定可以赚钱。假设你在这里买入。在你认为你可能会赚钱的时候，比如可能是60%，你的风险就在这里（B20）以下。那时，你可能会赚到和你冒险交易相同的金额。所以，你可能会从你最终决定的地方得到一个很好的上涨，而且获胜的概率很高。

你几乎可以拿每一天来试试。你可以看看任何一天，总会发生一些事情让你认为市场会出现动向。总会发生一些事情，让你认为会有跟进，可能会有一个很好的上涨。 Al Brooks