The NBA playoffs are here and listening to elite coaches coach can help us as traders. The best coaches gloss over who led the team in scoring (P&L?) and stress “hustle plays”. These hustle plays can make the difference between a win or a loss at this highest level of competition. That got me to thinking about our game. What are our hustle plays as a trader? What stats are most important to our game? It is not trader P&L.
P&L is the byproduct of skill development. P&L is not the byproduct of your IQ, athletic prowess, family wealth, undergraduate diploma, or personal attractiveness. Skill development is the byproduct of good daily habits repeated over time, considerable time. In One Good Trade I wrote that it is the thousand little things done well daily that determines your trading fate. In this hyper-connected technology age, where we hardly spend a second disconnected from our preferred content, it can be a challenge to practice and rehearse for delayed gratification. From Billy Joel’s Vienna:
Slow down, you’re doing fine
You can’t be everything you want to be
Before your time
In a perfect world, if I had a staff of eight assistant coaches like some NBA teams, I would discard praising trader P&L and keep these stats on a trader’s daily activity:
1) Trader chats with other traders
2) Call outs for the rest of the desk
3) PlayBook trades archived
4) Time spent reviewing tape of their trading
5) Charts ripped thru before the next trading session
6) Charts ripped thru during the trading session
7) SMB AM Meeting attended
8) Trade review completed
9) Chats with trading mentor and/or partners
10) Number of One Good Trades
11) Number of A+ trades with 30 percent risk
12) Time spent thinking about their trading
13) Time spent learning new technology tools
14) Times stopped out but found a way back into a good position
15) Percentage of day focused on his screens
16) Times where the trader found an edge on the tape by closely watching the prints
These are the things that matter. If you want to win our game you must focus on your hustle plays.
Mike Bellafiore
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