You Cannot Be Serious!

Davide Accomazzo

Email: davide@cervinocapital.com

“You cannot be serious!!!!!” This was the sarcastic line John McEnroe used to lash out at referees and umpires every time he felt a bad call was made against him.  John was a master at channeling negative energy and leverage it to overcome the opponent; he throve on negativity….so much for all those self-help books teaching about channeling positive energy to succeed but what do they know about winning Grand Slams!

Traders find themselves in an environment similar to professional tennis: high pressure, confrontational yet isolating and possibly lonely, with a clear and direct relationship between action taken and negative or positive result. 

In these environments, a highly polarized flux of energy flows thru the body of the trader and his/hers ability to harness the power of positive or negative thinking becomes a great difference between winning or losing.  The game of trading is highly based on a foundation of confidence and everyone builds that foundation differently but not everyone consciously knows how to build it in a fashion that will be long lasting.

Quant oriented traders derive a lot of their confidence by the support of mathematics and computing power; they leverage the isolation factor to transcend all other external sources of confusion.  However, when the comfort of computing power fails they often find themselves unable of regrouping.  Discretionary traders, on the other hand, will take the rest of the world head on leveraging mostly negative energy – a la McEnroe – but when hit hard, maybe in an unexpected sequence, they will find their confidence utterly shattered.

The successful trader will be able to do the following at the beginning of his/her career:

-         build confidence based on a mix of scientific foundation and animal spirit

-         understand what really makes you stronger: negative or positive energy

-         deal with the isolation factor – either leverage it or mitigate it depending on your personal psychology

-         detach yourself from the process

There are many easier ways to make a living than trading but only very few will push you to fully discover who you really are…and if you end up not liking what you see, you can always look at yourself in the mirror and scream: “You cannot be serious!!!!”

Contact details:

davide@cervinocapital.com