Rev Shark:
Patience Is Even More of a Virtue in This Mad Market
4/5/05 8:38 AM ET
"Genius is nothing but a great capacity for patience."
-- Georges-Louis Leclerc Buffon
Market participants tend to be an impatient group. They put their money at risk and want immediate, if not instant results. Unfortunately, they sometimes do see an immediate payoff, but that only makes it harder for them to deal with the more normal times when they have to wait for a payoff.
This impatience often manifests itself in an inclination to try to call turns in the market. They don't want to wait a minute longer than necessary to start making money. That is especially so after a long and nasty downtrend like we have had recently.
There are a lot of justifications about why it is so important to try to catch the bottom the instant it occurs. The most troublesome is the myth that if you aren't in at the early stages of a move you will miss most of the gains. What isn't discussed is how much money you will save by not chasing failed bounce attempts. I contend that more money is lost trying to catch the exact bottom than is made in catching the early stages of a move.
Too many market participants are more concerned about being right than they are about having the odds in their favor. It feels very good when you make a market prediction and get it right, but it is easy to forget the other times you were wrong. Good traders don't worry about being the hero who calls every move in the market; they focus on the odds and press their advantage when they have an edge.
Stay patient and wait for that edge to emerge. Focus less on predicting market gyrations and think more about finding a situation where you have a high level of confidence that a move will play out. That means you may have to suppress your ego and not engage in the serial bottom calling game but if your goal is to make money, that is the way to do it.
The market is particularly tricky right now because of the acute sensitivity to crude-oil prices. Traders are obviously reacting to the moves there and it can spark some very quick and unpredictable moves as oil prices gyrate.
This morning we have a positive open as crude is trading lower. Overseas markets were generally positive and the dollar is trading down.
Be careful out there.
Gary B. Smith:
