THE COLD HARD TRUTH
If I was all about generating hits to my website, I could easily publish trading setups, volumes of poorly based research reports, and chart analysis that simply doesn't matter. I would be publishing all of these useless tools just to create volume. I know from experience that those who frequent financial blogs love volume. They want the trading setups. They want new stock ideas. They want constant analysis. It matches very well with the attention deficit disorder type mentality that has developed in the trading world over the past several years. Unfortunately, traders and investors seem to think that jumping from idea to idea is the most efficient creating capital gains. They learn over time that this is far from the truth.
The problem is I don't care about hits. My goal here is not to have advertising revenue. I don't want to be the most popular guy, I want to be the most effective guy. I want to be the one that changes the way you look at small-cap investing and technical analysis. That is why I go out of my way to provide analysis that you won't find elsewhere. Analysis that opens your mind to possibilities.
The purpose of this experiment in communication and information is to demonstrate what I've learned through 18 years of experience. And perhaps to shorten your learning curve by a bit.
While on the subject of length of experience, allow me to drop some hard, cold truth on those of you who haven't been doing this for very long. This game that we play is not to be learned overnight. I have come to realize, at the ripe old age of 37, that it takes a minimum of a 10-15 years just to BEGIN to get it right. The foundation that is built after 10-15 years of constant trial and error will allow you to be great in your 20th year and beyond. That is if you make the correct adjustments, modifications and possess the proper mindset.
You don't really begin to learn about yourself in relation to trading/investing until after the ten year mark. Before that point, most are jumping around from strategy to strategy. Most are too short-term in focus. There isn't any substance or originality that allows the methodology to give a defined, necessary edge. Most importantly, even if it does, there isn't enough emotional and technical experience to even recognize an edge if it drops right on your lap, gift wrapped with a card saying "YOUR EDGE." You don't know yourself well enough to know where your edge lies.
It takes time. It takes a lot of time. In that time, you will lose. Some of you, may lose big, as I did in 2004-2006 when I lost an entire hedge fund and the lifestyle that went along with it. Some of you may manage to lose small. I will tell you that losing big, at some point or another, creates such an indelible impression in your mind that it causes your learning curve to accelerate substantially as a result. You become greater, faster. It is as if the lessons of that period where you experience substantial, life changing defeat become such a deeply ingrained aspect of your subconscious mind that you simply have no other choice but to progress.
Back to my original point: If you are disappointed by the lack of volume in new ideas I have then realize that it is not because I am not looking. It is because I have learned what works and what doesn't after many years of wins and losses. By sticking to a few good ideas and being selective in new partners for capital creation (investments), I create one component of my edge.
Now back to my research.
