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PUT TO BED: Trading VS GamblingIt’s a big debate that runs the financial market. Is trading gambling? Well I’m going to try put it to bed in just a few sentences. There are two types of gambling. Gambling by chance and total randomness like slot machines, lotteries, Bingo, Wheel of Fortune and flipping coins. And strategic gambling which allows you elements of control of coming out with a probabilistic chance of winning. I believe trading is a form of strategic gambling. Let’s talk about the similarities between certain strategic gambling games and see how we can learn from them with trading. Game #1: Trading and Poker: Skill, Strategy, and a Bit of Luck In poker, each player gets a unique hand of cards. To win, players must devise a strategy based on their understanding of the game, their observation of their opponents, and their willingness to take risks. Players can choose to play, bet or fold. The same principles apply to trading. Traders have their ‘hand’ in the form of markets to choose to trade. To yield profit, they must understand market trends, observe competitors’ behaviours, and manage risks. In poker, one needs to know when to fold and when to bet aggressively. In trading we have stop losses to get us out of the trade. We have take profits to bank our wins. We have volume choices of how much to buy or sell. And we have the choice to stay out completely. Poker also teaches the importance of emotional control and patience, which are crucial in trading, where emotional decisions can lead to significant losses. Game #2: Trading and Roulette: Understanding Probabilities Roulette is largely a game of chance where players bet on numbers, colours, or sets of numbers. You choose whether you want to bet on red, black, even, odd, specific numbers and so on… Although the outcomes are random, players can use probability to guide their decisions. In trading, while certain market movements can’t be predicted with absolute certainty, we rely heavily on technical, fundamental, statistical analysis and probabilities to make trading decisions. Trading, much like roulette, is where you need to diversify your positions and bets. But instead of placing chips on certain numbers, we place deposits (margins) in the hopes of a probable outcome. Game #3: Trading and Blackjack: Playing Against the Market (House) Blackjack involves strategic decisions, where players decide to ‘hit’ or ‘stand’ based on their current hand and the dealer’s visible card. The main goal is to try and get the cards we’re dealt to hit 21, be close to 21 or be closer to 21 than our opponent’s hand. Bet too high past 21 and you burn. In trading, technical analysis serves a similar purpose by predicting future market movements based on past data. Bet too high with trading and you stand to lose a lot more. And if you can’t count with Black Jack, then you have a much bigger disadvantage to the game. If you don’t have strong and stringent money management principles, then good luck trying to maintain, preserve and protect your portfolio. Game #4: Trading and Horse Racing: Know your horse! Horse racing involves choosing the right horse based on its: Form Characteristics Conditions of the race Weather on the day and other factors. This is like trading. You need to understand each market you trade. It has its own personality, form, movements, and style. You also need to know which market is conducive for your trading portfolio. And you need to choose the right stock or asset to trade based on its performance history, current market conditions, and other factors. In horse racing, experienced bettors also diversify their bets across multiple races and horses to spread risk. With trading we diversify our portfolios over different accounts, markets, sectors, instruments and types. Game #5: Trading and Sports Betting: Predictive Analysis and Risk Sports betting also works similar to trading. You need to know how to analyse a team’s or player’s form, weather conditions, home and away records, and more to predict an outcome. Whether it’s football, rugby or cricket – you need to know your team players, strategy and likelihood of who is to win what game. Traders also conduct similar analyses, studying companies’ financial health, market trends, and technical indicators to predict market movements. And as always, there are both risks that need to be calculated and managed for high probability successful outcomes. So next time when someone tells you trading is just gambling. You tell them, they are right but it’s strategic gambling rather than gambling by chance.
TVC:SA40Education
by Timonrosso
Is Trading Like Playing Poker? Is trading a form of gambling? With hesitance, I would say yes. However, I would rather call trading a form of strategic gambling as both require elements of risk, reward, strategy and decision making. In the next two weeks or so, I’m planning to publish a new online FREE book called “Poker Vs Trading”. Who knows, by the end of it all you may take up professional poker playing as well as trading… Let’s start with the similarities. SIMILARITY #1: We can choose when to play (Strategy) Traders and poker players don’t play every hand that is dealt to them. With poker, when a hand is dealt, we can choose to either play the hand, based on how strong it is, or we can choose to fold and wait for the next hand… With trading, we wait for a trading setup based on the criteria of our strategy i.e. MATI Trader System. You’ll then have the exact criteria and money management rules to follow in order to take a trade or wait for the next trade. SIMILARITY #2: Amateur poker players and traders tend to go the ‘tilt’ (Emotional roller-coaster) Emotions are a main driver which leads to traders losing their cash in their account or poker players losing their chips very quickly. With poker, you get players who let their emotions take over where they start betting high with an irrational frame of mind. These emotions lead them to losing their chips very quickly. This is when they enter the state of what is called ‘going the tilt’. With trading, amateur traders also tend to act on impulse and play on gut, instinct, fear and greed after they’ve undergone a losing streak or a winning streak. This often leads them to: ~ Taking a series of losses. ~ Losing huge portions of their portfolio. ~ Holding onto losing trades longer than they should. ~ Entering a mindset of revenge trading. SIMILARITY #3: We know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em (Cut losses quick) We have the choice to reduce our losses when it comes to betting a hand or taking a trade. With poker, if the players start upping the stakes and you believe you have a weaker hand in the round, you can choose to ‘fold’ and lose only the cost of playing the ‘ante’. With trading, if you’ve taken a trade and it turns against you, you have a stop loss which will get you out at the amount of money you were willing to risk of your portfolio… SIMILARITY #4: We know the rake (Costs involved) There are always costs associated with each trade we take or each hand we play, which eats into our winnings. With poker, it’s the portion of the pot that is taken by the house i.e. the blinds and the antes. With trading, it’s the fees charged by your broker or market maker, in order to take your trade. These fees can be either the tax, spread and/or the brokerage. SIMILARITY #5: Aggressive trading and betting before the flop (High volatility) There will always be a time of strong market moves and high betting. With poker, you get times where players like to bet aggressively and blindly before the flop is revealed. It’s these times that lead to the amateur poker players losing their chips very quickly. With trading, you get economic data i.e. Non-Farm-Payrolls, black swan events and Interest Rate decisions when big investors and traders like to drive the market up or down before the news even comes out. NOTE: I ignore both forms of hype as it is can lead to a catastrophic situation. SIMILARITY #6: We bet and trade based on the unknown Every bet and trade we take and play is based on incomplete information of the future. With poker, we are dealt hands then bet on decisions based on not knowing what cards our opponents have and/or what is shown on the river. We then have the options to call, bet, raise or fold during the process.With trading, we take trades based on probability predictions without knowing where the price will end up at. This is due to new information which comes into the market including (demand, supply, news, economic indicators, micro and macro aspects). SIMILARITY #7: We lose A LOT! (Losses are inevitable) Taking small losses are part of the game with both poker and trading. With poker, it is important to wait patiently until you have a hand with a high probability of success. Some of the best poker players in the world, fold 90% of the starting hands, they receive. Some professional poker players can go through weeks and months without a win. With trading, we can lose over 40% to 50% of the time. In general, I expect around two losing quarters a year. I know that when there are better market conditions, it will make up for the small losses. SIMILARITY #8: You must learn to earn (Education is vital) You need to understand and gain as much knowledge as you can about poker and trading before you commit any money. With poker, you need to understand: • The rules of the game. • The risk per move. • The amount of money you should play per hand. Once you know these points, you’ll be able to develop some kind of game plan with each hand you play. With trading, you need to understand: • The MARKET (What, why, where are how?)NB* • The METHOD (What system to follow before taking a trade). • The MONEY (Risk management rules to follow with each trade) • The MIND (The frame of mind you must develop to succeed) SIMILARITY #9: Perseverance is the key ingredient to success You need to take the time and have the determination to become a successful trader and poker player. With poker, you’ll need to keep at it and apply strict money management rules with each hand played. With trading, you’ll need to know your trading personality, know which trading method best works you and understand your risk profile… I’ll leave you with a quote from Vince Lombardi (American football player, coach, and executive): “Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect” Do you think trading is like poker? If you enjoyed this daily lesson follow fore more! Trade well, live free. Timon MATI Trader
JSE:J200Education
by Timonrosso
24
Poker Hands Relating To Trading (((FTM APRIL 2022)One major similarity between poker and trading is that they both involve incomplete information. A poker player may have a strong hand, but he or she is still not 100% sure of what cards other opponents hold. The same thing applies to an investor/trader who may predict a good return but may not be 100% of it. So, decisions in poker and trading are often based on incomplete information. Once the market has dealt the hands (provided us traders with information of market behaviour) we can play the hand, stronger the hand the higher the probability of the trade becomes. How much do we want to risk ?? With due diligence, we need to know the EV+ ( Positive Expected Value) and RMultiple expectancy and with this information we can assume a 60-70% chance of making money and now its up to how much we are willing to risk on the trade. Risk Management Position size of £100 with a 10x leverage = £10.00 Risk Per Percentage With a 2/1 RR, the Reward Per 2% = £20.00
BITFINEX:FTMUSD
by LuxTradeVenture
Want To Improve Your Trading Game? Play Poker!In virtually any field of athletics it is advised that you should cross-train in order to both avoid injury and increase performance . For example, Football players are encouraged to take up pilates, yoga, and swimming. Runners can reduce injury and increase performance by incorporating Rollerblading, Barre, and Zumba into their routines.  So what should traders do in order to "cross-train" that will make them better traders, to help them "avoid injury" (as in lose money ) and "increase performance" (as in make money )? My answer: Play Poker! Yes, Poker and Trading are both "sedentary" activities where you are sitting at a desk or table. It is the brain that needs to be toned, limbered up, and made flexible, not the body. (Though you need to make sure your body is healthy too!) So it is safe to say that the peak performance trader needs a mental cross-training routine, not necessarily a physical one. So why is Poker the ideal cross-training exercise for traders? 1: Poker Teaches Risk Management Unless you're a novice or not seriously playing in a virtual poker App, there's little chance you will go "All In" at the poker table. I can count on one hand the number of times I went "all in" and I won every time. Such opportunities rarely happen. When I did move my pile of chips to the center of the table it was because I knew what was in my hand. I "managed my risk". Likewise, the trader or investor should almost never go "all-in", putting their entire account into asset X, Y, or Z because "the market will market" on you and you will lose it all. In trading terms, you can very easily "blow up your account."  As Kenny Rogers says, "You've got to know when to hold'em... and know when to fold'em." Good risk management requires that even if you lose say, 5 times in a row, you will live to trade another day. I frequently talk about never risking more than 1% of your account on any single trade . A 5% loss is easy to recover from with two 3-R wins, or one 7-R win. Likewise in poker, with a $100 buy-in, you usually have $1 antes, allowing you to play up to 100 hands (even if you were the worst poker player in the world) risking only 1% per hand. In poker, only if the "odds are in your favor", that is, you have two-pair, or you have three or four-of-a-kind, or a straight, would you consider raising the stakes to 2, 5, or even 10% of your bankroll. If you can make 20R from a 4R "risk" with the odds in your favor, you are now thinking like a professional trader where Risk Management is "Job One". 2: Poker Teaches Emotional Management I like to teach that our goal as a trader is to be totally mechanical - totally rules-based. Our goal is to "Trade like a Vulcan" or "Trade like Spock: Trade long and prosper!" What's the poker analogy? Having a " Poker Face ". Or as the old antiperspirant commercial said, "Never let'em see you sweat."  We may have an awesome hand, but we can't display a "woo-hoo" face because no one will bet against us. We may have a terrible hand, but we can't put up a "oh, good grief!" face and let others know that they have even the slightest chance of beating us. We have to play every hand waiting for the last card drawn (the river) because that last card can make or break what we are holding in our hand. And very often it is that last card dealt, "the river", that can make or break a poker hand. 3: Poker Teaches You to Play the Probabilities Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, I remember the famous slogan from the New York Lottery: "You gotta be in it to win it!" They threatened (coerced?) every New Yorker with "fear of loss" if they didn't play the lotto... "Well, yeah, we all know the odds of you winning are are actually close to zero, but of you don't play then they really are zero so you better play or you will feel more like the loser than you already are!" Thankfully, the odds in winning at Poker are much higher than winning a set of numbers printed on ping-pong balls, which teaches you that when you have an "edge"... when you have a "system" that has the odds in your favor (a winning trading system) you can't try to outsmart the system – you need to play every hand that meets the criteria of your system.  As hockey great Wayne Gretzky said, "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." So as Poker players and as traders, we have to play every hand, or every trade that appears that meets our trading plan's criteria, otherwise if we try to "outsmart the market" we will lose every time. And more often than not, even with a terrible hand, say a 2 and 4 of spades, you might find that if you don't fold, every once in a while three spades will appear on the table giving you one of the high-probability hands: the flush . So play every hand . And in trading, take every trade opportunity that appears that qualifies under your rules-based trading system. 4: Poker Teaches You To Stay Humble My poker buddies and I play every month or so. Early in my tenure when I learned to play poker I realized "Hey, I'm pretty good at this.... I'm gauging the probabilities, I'm keeping my risk-per-hand low, I'm taking small profit after small profit and leaving with twice the money I bought in for or more. Drinks are on me!" Then I got cocky... Walking into game four I thought to myself "I'm the Vulcan, emotionless, rules-based, odds-calculating poker player, right?" And that night my proverbial hat was handed to me. It was one of the worst games I'd played to that point. I over-bid, I bluffed (something I had never done before and my opponents knew it!), and I raised bets on hands I know I should have folded. I re-bought in after losing my original buy-in and lost all of that! And I went home with a valuable lesson: Don't think you can out-smart the probabilities.  The reason we win at poker is the same reason we win at trading. We must always play the odds, we must never play the low probability hands, we must always keep our emotions get the best of us, and when it's time to fold, it's time to fold!" Last week our poker group met again. I bought in for $50 and left with $135. In trading parlance, that was a 170% return. I was grateful. I learned my lesson. I've got to stay humble and let the hand come to me, let the trade come to me, and never think I can out-smart the table or the market. 5: Poker Teaches You To Set a Financial Target One of the reasons that casinos give their players free drinks, free upgrades to already expensive suites, and free food is they know that "the more you play, the more you'll pay." You can be up $5,000 for the night, then go get yourself some free lobster tails paired with filet mignon, a bottle of wine, and a decadent dessert. Then you return to the tables all fat, happy, and lubricated and proceed to hand all your winnings back to the House.  I know more than one poker player who has a rule: "When I double my money, I'm done . I may walk in with $500, and when I'm $500 to the positive, I quit and go on to enjoy the rest of my night, otherwise I'll just give it all back." Similarly, I know many a trader (yours truly included) who may have been up a sizable amount wonderfully early in the trading session, then proceed to give all those winnings back to the market an hour or so later. Setting a daily "win" will prevent you from getting mentally "fat and sassy" where you will become overconfident and then hand your winnings back to the market.  As a Poker player, you may want to make a certain amount of money per game. As a trader, you might want a daily amount of "R" or dollar amount to the positive. In either case, when you hit your goal, even if it's in the first 20 minutes of the trading session you need to close all open trades and enjoy the fact that you did what 90% likely did not do that day: end the day in the green! On other words, "Quit while you're ahead!" 6: Poker Player Are Part of a Vibrant Community Full of Fun People! Like traders, the number of people who are committed to improving their poker game are few. We need to belong to a strong community of passionate poker players to perfect our craft just as we need to belong to a strong community of passionate (and profitable) traders in order to continually perfect our skill at taking money from the markets each and every day. There are online poker communities you can join (think: Simulated Trading) and there are global in-person Poker communities that can link you up with other players once you're ready to "go live". These communities are generally free to join and will help you build up the skill to become a proficient and profitable Poker player which, more importantly, will help you become an even more proficient and profitable trader.  Is there anything else about Poker that you think needs to be added to the list? Leave a comment below.  As always, Trade well! (And maybe I'll see you at the table!)
NYSE:GEEducation
by ocaptain
3
BTC - Time to place your betsThe bigger symmetric triangle broke down leading us to where we are now. Target of the symmetric triangle, which also coincided with the maximum extension of Elliot's corrective Wave C (which is 1.618 time wave A or "beyond"), was the thick red line below @ 7.4k. Now BTC has formed yet another symmetric triangle trying to break upwards, which if succeeds could reach the target @ 12.3k (target is an approximation, depends on where the triangle breaks). You also notice a falling wedge forming, and BTC has only been scratching the upper resistance and it never moved anywhere near the lower support. Also it is said that Elliot Corrective Wave C occurs in 5 impulses and 2 are still missing. Now there is another important trendline (denoted in green) from my other ideas which hasn't been touched yet (though there is high probability that it will be violated leading to newer lows, it's important and it has to be touched and BTC isn't going anywhere up without visiting it) All of this leads me to the bias that there is more of downside than upside for now. But all of this, which is logical and practical, said and done, BTC can choose to be illogical and impractical and do the exact opposite!!! So, raise or fold??? Absurdity or common sense???
BITSTAMP:BTCUSDShort
by TulpenFieber
1