One of our traders had a great trading day.   He finished negative.  The market was up 500 points as the Obama administration unveiled its plan to remove toxic assets from the books of the nation’s banks.   BTW we now have traded up 1300 points since the day I left for vacation.  This trader did not make many trades after 10AM.  Today he was a role model that we all can learn from.  Today he planted a lot of seeds.  Huh? Let me explain.

This trader has been underperforming of late.  He is better than his previous results.  He knows it.  I certainly have let him know this.  I have challenged him to step it up.  His results are unacceptable commensurate with his ability.  Lately he has been fighting the trend and becoming frustrated too easily.On the Open I heard him cussing under his breath.  A few minutes later I noticed he went for a walk.  Very nice response.  The only way to alleviate your frustration is to leave the desk, breathe until your state is relaxed, and then return.  You cannot will yourself to calm down.  You are frustrated.  You will remain frustrated until you change your mental state through relaxation techniques.  This trader was aware of his frustration and then reacted.   

Later during the trading day he missed an excellent trading opportunity.  I heard him cuss under his breathe.  And then I saw him start writing.  He did not pick his head up for ten minutes.  He made notes of this excellent trading opportunity.  By doing so he reinforced a set up that works for him.  Next time he will be more likely to catch this trading opportunity.I like what I saw from this trader.  On a day where almost everyone on the desk was very profitable, he lost money. But his actions were very encouraging.  His actions were those of a consistently profitable trader.   For this trader, continuing with this type of quality work, it is just a matter of time.

I call it planting seeds.  When you consistently work like the trader above you are planting seeds that will grow later.  In this case your reward will be cash as opposed to tomatoes.  In college planting seeds meant something different, but that is a different discussion.  In college this meant talking to as many pretty co-eds as possible with the hope that in the near future there would be a payoff.  And I have to explain this because I know too many on our desk (think CMU and GDI) would think this is what I meant by planting seeds.   Get into the habit of judging your trading day based upon your development and not your P&L.   Better to plant some seeds and be negative today then to make money and not improve as a trader.  

Best of luck with your trading!