cheetahs and sparrows

(excerpts from interview with mark weinstein)

"........i have a real fear of the markets.

i have found that the greatest traders are the ones

who are most afraid of the markets.

my fear of the markets has forced me

to hone my timing with great precision.

when I am trading properly,

it is like a pool player running racks.

if my gut feel of market conditions is not right,

i don't trade.

my timing is a combination of experience

and my nervous system.

if my nervous system tells me to get out of the position,

it is because the market action triggers something in my knowledge

and experience that I have seen before.

i also don't lose much on my trades,

because I wait for the exact right moment.

most people will not wait for an environment to tip itself off.

they will walk into the forest when it is still dark,

while I wait until it gets light.

although the cheetah is the fastest animal in the world

and can catch any animal on the plains,

it will wait until it is absolutely sure it can catch its prey.

it may hide in the bush for a week,

waiting for just the right moment.

it will wait for a baby antelope,

and not just any baby antelope,

preferably one that is sick or lame.

only then, when there is no chance it can lose it's prey,

does it attack.

that, to me, is the epitome of professional trading.

when I trade at home, I often watch the sparrows in my garden.
when feed them bread, they take just a little piece at a time

and fly away.

they keep on flying back and forth, taking small bits of bread.

they may have to make a hunderd stabs at a piece of bread to get what a
pigeon gets at one time,

but that is why a pigeon is a pigeon.

you will never be able to shoot a sparrow,

it is just too fast.

that is the way I day trade."

(the cheetah is the analogy to position trading
and the sparrow for day trading.
both animals will wait for the can't-lose circumstances.)