WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT MASTER TRADERS – PART 5
“Attach yourself to a trading mentor. The cost will be
far less than trying to do it yourself. Swallow your pride and get help. If you
cannot afford a mentor, then you have no business trading. Why? Because you are
starting out undercapitalised. When you start trading you need, at the very
least, daily guidance.” – Joe
Ross
Name: Liz Cheval
Date
of birth: November 1, 1956
Nationality: American
Occupation: Trader and funds manager
FROM TURTLE TO TITAN
Liz Cheval got a degree in math from Lawrence University in
Appleton, Wisconsin, and after that, she worked as a clerk at the Chicago Board
of Trade. At that time, there were few women in the world of trading.
Richard Dennis and William Eckhard argued about the
possibility of training people and making them successful traders. He decided
to train some people and give them his capital to trade. Richard made an attempt to test his idea, and
so, he put out an advert, looking for those who would be interested in
registering for a training program. Liz was among those who applied.
She was the only woman among those who applied. It turned
out that the interview was simply the opportunity of a lifetime. She passed
through an interview and began training with others. According to one source,
she was able to earn the respect of her peers, and believed that working in a
group of professional, competitive men helped prime her for professional
challenges in the future.
After the training, the trainees (also called “turtles”)
started their trading career. Liz founded and chaired EMC Capital in 1988,
which was based in Illinois. The firm started with $1 million, and grew to have
nearly $150 million in managed futures program.
Liz was a legendary market player as well as generous, and
down-to-earth. She was kind to everyone. She once made annual profits of 107%
for a period of 5 years; and she continued to perform well after that.
Liz died of aneurysm during a business trip to China. She
was aged 56.
What You Need to
Know:
- It’s good for
women to become traders. For women considering entering the financial
industry, Liz revealed that she’d always encouraged them to manage money
because she believed it to be a gender neutral occupation. No one can
dispute women’s contribution based on gender investment management. Your
performance is there in black and white profit and loss report. With so
much trading done electronically now, money management is a good field for
women.
- Liz traded based
on price action. There was no need to know what the government reports
said, or what OPEC was doing or what other economic figures turned out to
be. Whatever the fundamentals brought about would be seen live in the
markets. She traded what she saw and she was profitable.
- Liz was quoted
as saying: “You need both a successful trading strategy and, more
importantly, a reliable method to adapt the strategy to future market
conditions. A successful trading strategy requires robust systems and
sound risk management principles. The trading strategy is only as good as
your research process. You have to identify robust estimators and develop
a process to continually adapt the systems based on these reliable
estimators…. You have to be disciplined in executing both trading and
research strategies, in good periods and bad. A CTA has to be committed to
their strategy whether it is in or out of favor.”
- Liz believed
that the markets, traders, money managers and investors, need to adapt.
The ability to adapt to change is the key to long term success in trading.
It’s relatively easy to develop a profitable trading strategy over a short
time frame. It’s far more challenging to develop a reliable method to
continually adapt the strategy to future market conditions.
Conclusion: There
are things you need to overcome or give up before you can attain permanent
success in the markets. Joe Ross, quote above, says traders have to give up
themselves. They’ve to become different entirely, by overcoming pride, lack of
patience, greed, selfishness, fear, intolerance, discontent, anxiety, and lust
for money. They need to replace those things with self-discipline,
self-control, humility, faith in themselves and what they’re doing, willingness
to help others, being content with what the market gives them, joy in place
of anxiety, and love of trading in place
of lust for money (adapted from TRADERS’ magazine, October/November 2015).
This piece is ended with a quote from Liz:
“Go for it. Today the physical advantage of men [in the trading
pits] is inconsequential because trading is virtually 100% electronic. I give
the same advice to both men and women seeking entry level jobs in managed
futures. Technical skills are mandatory. Great thinkers and idea creators need
technical applications to test and execute trading strategies. Having those
skills is a great way to gain entry or to build your own business.”
Source: www.tallinex.com
What Super Traders Don’t Want You To Know: Super Traders
Buy and sell Neteller here; get funded quickly: www.ituglobalfx.com.ng
No comments:
Post a Comment