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ANDREW: You started trading futures and stocks back in 1968. Could you
share how you got into trading?
ANDREW: Right, okay. So what type of trading was he doing back then?
JAKE: He was mostly trading shell egg futures, which was a market at the
time, no longer traded now. He traded basically on seasonal patterns, mostly
on weather. Had a very good weather forecaster so when they knew that the
weather was going to change, which would affect the supply of eggs, he would
buy or sell egg futures accordingly and then close the position out when the
weather actually happened. So it was very much of a fundamental type of
approach but certainly very profitable and attracted all of my attention.
JAKE: Well, when he told me that the-- of course, I knew nothing so when I
saw these account statements coming in and saw that he was making money,
time after time after time, I approached him. I said, "Dan, how do you do
this?" He said, "Well, we've got a weather forecaster. The eggs are a seasonal
ANDREW: Excellent. So did you find that seasonality was just a result of the
JAKE: Yes. In fact, seasonality is most likely, for me, the primary driving force
behind stock prices, currency prices, bond prices. In fact, the absolute best
seasonal that we have is in the stock market and that begins approximately
ANDREW: Right, okay. That's a very well published behaviour that one with
the stock markets.
JAKE: Yes.
ANDREW: So a lot of people are actually skeptical about seasonality. They say
it's too simple, it has no value, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy because everyone
knows about it, it's data mining. There's plenty of criticisms, what do you say
to these critics about their arguments?
JAKE: Well, let's look at it from the point of discipline. One of the things I've
discovered is that many people can know something is going to happen, that
doesn't necessarily mean they're going to act on it. In fact, when it comes to
knowing something and doing something, that's the large chasm, the large--
the vast expanse, between knowledge and action. So knowing that something
is going to happen, doesn't mean something will be done about it, which
means it will not become a self-fulfilling prophecy. As far as data mining is
concerned, you couldn't find something in data if it wasn't really there. The
question is how do you mine for that data? If you do it the right way, you're
not creating an artifact of the data but you're actually finding-- you know
what's been said if you give 1000 monkeys 1000 typewriters and let them
JAKE: Great value to those people in the business who need to buy or sell,
hedge their production so that if we know-- right now, for example, we're
entering one of the most bullish times of the year for energy prices,
particularly crude oil. Most people are very negative on the market so this is a
classic example of how knowing the seasonality is very strong and putting
that seasonality together with a trigger can give you an opportunity to buy
when most people are willing-- are not willing to buy or rather willing to sell.
So the most important thing, and I want to make sure I make this point before
we-- we're out of time, is this: It's not just the existence of seasonality.
Remember, even a seasonal at 85% accuracy for 80 years is still 85%. We're
still going to be wrong 15% of the time. Is there something we can do with
that seasonal pattern? The answer is yes, and that's what I call a trigger. So if I
ANDREW: That's interesting that you can also use seasonality as additional
filter or condition before entering a trade based on a trigger.
JAKE: Absolutely.
JAKE: They should read about it. I'm not going to do self-promotion here, I
have a seasonal website if you want to put that in there, you can, but I think
the beauty about seasonals Andrew is this: Anyone can find them. Anyone
with a computer can research them. Anyone can use them, they don't need
me. They don't need to buy an expensive service from anyone and that's the
beauty of it. I would say that's why so many people in the business are angry
about it because it reduces the dependency of the average trader on the so-
called expertise of the professional. So my seasonal website,
seasonaltrader.com, but there are others as well and they all do a good job.
ANDREW: Okay, great. Thanks a lot for that, Jake. I'd like to move onto trading
psychology now. You've written a very good book on trading psychology and
JAKE: Sure. Andrew, the thing that never ceases to amaze me is this: People
will go to medical school to become a good doctor. They will go to business
school to run a business. They will develop certain procedures, whether it's a
grocery store, whether it's a taxi business, or whatever, and they will apply
themselves. Architect or otherwise, they have certain rules. But when it
comes to trading, most people think it's just going to happen. They don't need
a structure. They feel they don't need anything in the way of rules. They don't
feel they need procedures but it's really like all other businesses and if it's
rule-based and it's procedural and it's process-oriented, it will increase the
probability of success. So it's a business like anything else, you have to learn
it, you have to gain some experience, you have to understand the dos and
don'ts, you have avoid the novice errors that people make all the time. I
would respectfully submit that most people know where markets are going to
go, even intuitively. Most people with a mediocre trading system can make
money but they're not managing the two most important aspects, one of them
of course, minimize the risk. The one that most people don't pay enough
attention to is maximize the profit. It's all going to be a function of the big
move and most people aren't getting the big move and that's really the
bottom line.
JAKE: I'm going to give you an answer that probably will make my publishers
mad, probably make other people mad, but here's what I've learned. Forget
about my book. Forget about psychology. Forget about all of that because
psychology is really all about discipline. Discipline is all about having some
rules, which you can get almost anywhere but the rules aren't going to work
unless you have confidence in the methodology. If you don't have confidence
in the methodology, you won't have discipline, so discipline comes from
confidence, confidence comes from having methodologies that work. If you
don't have something that works and you continue to have discipline, then
you need to see a psychiatrist. The bottom line is find things that work. Well
how do you do that? Scientific procedural research. We have computers, all
we have to do is find a systematic approach and back test it. Once we've back
tested it, we experience it on paper, hypothetical trading. Gain discipline with
it, discipline will lead to confidence, confidence will make you money, money
will give you more discipline, discipline will give you more confidence, you'll
make more money. So all of that information is all over the internet but here's
the bottom line: No offence intended to anyone's trading system, if the rules
cannot be specifically, operationally defined. Buy this, buy that, on such and
such a date, at such and such a time, at such and such an indicator, at such and
such a level. Use the following risk, exit in the following manner. If the rules
can't be specified so that even a computer can understand them, it's not going
to work unless through sheer, dumb luck or intuition, or being psychic,
which-- none of which are good ways to make money. So I have issues with
certain methodologies, without mentioning names. I don't understand the
ABC correction of the fifth wave, of the fourth wave because if I put five
people in a room and say, "Tell me what the ABC correction is here" and they
ANDREW: No, that's a great answer. So what I got from that is basically you
need to have systematic rules and from that you can build up discipline and
confidence.
JAKE: Sure. You know, Andrew, I've seen good traders make money with bad
systems because they know what the draw down is. They know the number
of consecutive losses. They know that the system's only going to be right 37%
of the time. They're prepared for nine or ten consecutive losses. I've seen
terrible traders lose money with great trading systems because they don't
follow the rules and it's really all about the rules but you can't follow the rules
unless you understand the internal workings. You need to know how the
sausage is made, so if you understand what the system is all about, if you
understand that the system at its best has lost money five times in a row and
you're not prepared for that? You will lose your discipline.
ANDREW: Is there an idea that trading systems should suit the type of
personality of the trader?
JAKE: I would say if you consider that the personality is a description of the
individual's strengths or weaknesses, yes. If you have someone who can't sit
through a losing position of two or three thousand dollars, it's not the right
system for them. If you have a person who is very happy with high accuracy
and they're trading a low accuracy system, it's not the right system for them
so if that indeed is a reflection of their personality, then you're absolutely
right.
JAKE: I'd say to people, don't trade anything that scares you and that's my
first rule. So if you have a trading system and you say, "Oh my God, this is the
most incredible trading system I've ever seen. It's been right 83% of the time.
I'm so happy. I'm going to start using this." You undress the system, you look
at the statistics and you realize that it's had a 83% draw down and you have a
$25 000 account. That's not for you. On the other hand, if you have a system
that's been right 50% of the time, you've got a $20 000 account, it's had a
draw down $850, which would be a usual, that system would be for you. It's--
and let me say one more thing. I always tell people to do three things: Number
one, don't begin trading a system until it's had three consecutive losses. At
that point, you're past most of the draw down and you're ready to make
money and you'll reduce the pain. The bad news is you may be waiting for six
months before that happens but you need patience. Number two, I tell people
to take the 10 Trade Challenge. Can you sit through 10 consecutive losses of
$2000 each? Will that wipe out your account? Will it wipe out your discipline?
Take the challenge and sit through 10 trades. If you can't do that, this
system's not for you and in fact, trading may not be for you. The third thing I
tell people is, "Don't look at the system. Go with the system completely
mechanically. Don't try to understand why it does certain things. Understand
what it does but not why and don't dig into it too deeply to understand and to
overanalyze it." In other words, don't go through everything and say, "Well,
this one would have made money if I had done something differently." That's
not the way it works. So those are the three things I like to look at.
ANDREW: There's something you've already touched on but in your book you
also say "a good system in the hands of a fool is a worthless system." What do
you mean by that statement?
JAKE: Andrew, I drive a very fast car. I love driving fast. I would never give
that car to one of my children because they will kill themselves. I would never
give that car to a friend who doesn't know how to drive it. So a good trading
system in the hands of a reckless individual, doesn't know how to drive that
system, is a waste of time, waste of money, and a losing proposition. On the
other hand, you can take a bad trading system and give it to an expert, and in
the hands of an expert, that system will make money. So there are two sides
to that coin. If someone is a fool, you can give them anything and it won't
work. When I say a fool, I don't mean foolish. I simply mean lack of discipline,
lack of confidence, lack of knowledge, lack of experience. But the good news is
that all of these are easy to get if you look in the right places and you follow
the right procedures.
ANDREW: Right, okay. Thank you. In your book you have 10 psychological
stock trading principles. One of them is avoid overconfidence, which can be
difficult when you're on a string of winners. How can a trader avoid
overconfidence?
JAKE: You have to recognize your weakness. Everyone has their own
weakness or several weaknesses and my weakness is I become too
ANDREW: So I'd just like to finish up with trading psychology now and move
on to some closing questions
JAKE: Sure.
JAKE: My biggest lesson learned through trading is-- let me think about that
for a minute because I've learned so many of them, Andrew. Don't listen to
anyone else, including me. Don't believe anything that anyone tells you,
including me, until you've seen it for yourself. I get emails, I get proposals, I
get people coming into my office with charts with 40 different colours and
lines on them. They look really good. Some of these things are utterly
fascinating. I don't believe any of them. I won't believe them until I see them
myself. And so my greatest lesson is I don't care how great a trader is, I don't
care how great their reputation is. I've been associated with some of the best
traders in the world but I will not believe anything they say, anything they do,
anything they show me until I see it myself and that holds true for me or
anybody else in the business. Find it yourself and then, if you believe it, use it.
Can I say one more thing about that, Andrew?
ANDREW: No, that's great. That's a good point. What's the hardest part of
trading?
JAKE: Doing your homework. Whatever your system, whatever your method,
whatever your technique, you've got to do your homework. The tendency is
that once the trade is making money you say, "Oh, it no longer needs my
attention. It's doing well." Once the trade is losing money, you say, "I don't
want to look at it. I don't want to admit to the fact that it's losing money. I
don't need to look at it, it's going to take care of itself. It's a good investment,
I'm going to keep it." For me, that's always been the hardest part. For other
people, it may be other things but that one is the hardest part for me.
ANDREW: Right, okay. And what's the best trading advice you've ever
received?
JAKE: My best trading advice was not advice but an experience. I had the
pleasure of meeting Larry Williams, world famous trader, about 35, 40 years
ago. I've done many seminars, real time trading with Larry, many, many
years. The first time I met Larry, we went to a Chinese restaurant in Chicago.
He ordered a glass of wine. They said it would be $7. He said, "Why should I
buy a glass of wine for $7 if I can buy a whole bottle for $10? Can I buy a
bottle?" The waiter said, "No, we're not permitted to sell bottles. We have to
sell it by the glass." He said, "Jake, let's go find a liquor store and buy a bottle
of wine." The man said, "There are no stores where you can buy liquor in the
bottle in here, in Chicago Chinatown." So Larry said, "Let's go anyway." He
said, "Let's go to a bar and find one in a bar." He went into the first bar, came
ANDREW: That's a fantastic lesson, thanks for sharing. Can you share one of
your personal habits that you strongly believe contributes to your success?
JAKE: I do the same thing every day. As boring as it may seem, I'm up at 4 in
the morning here. I go to the gym, from the gym I'm at the office at 5 in the
morning. I have the same routine. I look at the same markets, I look at the
same indicators, I do the same thing every day. It would be no different for me
than it would be for an airlines pilot and by the way, I find that airline pilots
make the best traders as a secondary profession because they have a
checklist. They don't want their plane to crash. I don't want my plane to crash.
So I have my list, I look at my list every day. I have a checklist I follow and that
checklist, that's the most important thing to me. I would say more than
research, more than methodologies, more than relationships in terms of
prices, more than systems or anything, that has been my greatest underlying
cause for success.
ANDREW: Okay, thanks for the recommendations. So what's the best way for
listeners to get in touch with you, Jake?
JAKE: No, I've enjoyed it tremendously. You asked some extremely good,
probing questions and I appreciate your questions and everything that you're
doing.
ANDREW: Thank you very much, Jake. So I highly recommend everyone here
to head over to Jake's website, jakebernstein.com. There's wealth of
information for you to check out more of his work. Jake Bernstein, thanks so
much for your time.