Trading Is Unfair Play

Is trading really like poker?

In both cases, the player makes decisions with incomplete information, reacts with strategies and risks important resources for rewards or losses.

There are many similarities – the player must know when to fold, when to push on with larger stakes, and maintain a sensible composure in the most exhilarating and daunting of times.

In a way,  it is much like life where competition for limited opportunities is common place – a student invests his time and energies in hopes of getting a place in a good school, a career executive invests his resources in hopes for the next promotion, policy maker decides the sectors to invest valuable resources to increase a country’s competitive stance, a mother deciding which brand of milk powder is better for her baby.

But imagine if you are an athlete in the Olympics, competing in the 100 metres. When everyone lines up at the starting point, you realize the host nation has moved its athlete 1 metre ahead of the rest, will you not cry foul?

Where you play makes a difference.

Unlike a competitive game with like-minded peers, the market place, like a casino, is an unfair place. Trading is a game played with rules and odds stacked against the player. So play only when you have the best possible odds in your favor.  When perplexed with tension and uncertainties, the market sometimes exhibits a totally untradeable environment.  On such days, just stay on the sidelines.  Have faith, the right opportunities will come by on other days.