Futures Trading Philosophy
My father taught me many of life’s lessons through stories and analogies. There are two stories he taught me that have served me extremely well in my trading philosophy.
Story 1
My father was born and raised in the Mississippi Delta. One day he was working in the north field picking corn. It was hot and very humid, as it usually is in this part of the country. He paused for a moment to wipe the sweat from his brow. As he removed his hat to wipe the sweat, a mule came walking by. He then noticed a truck speeding down the road. He figured that the mule belonged to the driver of the truck, so he corralled the mule and began to walk over to the truck.
After the dust had settled from the dirt road, a man appeared from the truck and thanked my father for corralling the mule. The man explained to him that he was trying to train the mule and that the mule had ran away from him, so he was very frustrated with the mule. After the man vented for what seemed to be an eternity, my father handed the man the reigns to the mule. As soon as the man grabbed the mule with his left hand, he pulled out a .45 caliber pistol with the other hand and hit the mule right between the eyes. The mule's knees buckled, and he shook his head several times before he regained composure. After the mule came to his senses the man tied the mule to the bumper of the truck. My father stood there in shock after witnessing the act of the man. The man noticed my father’s shock, turned to him and said “Don’t fret none, I won’t kill him or hurt him, but I have to get his mind right to train him”. The man then got in his truck and drove away slowly with the mule walking behind the truck.
Story 2
My father’s best friend, Joe, was an avid coon hunter. He worked an entire year to save his money to buy a coon hound from the best, prize winning coon hound breeder in the county. After purchasing the coon hound, Joe trained the dog for three solid months night and day. Finally the dog was ready for a hunt.
Well everyone in the Delta knows that the best coon hunting occurs in the early morning hours, before dawn. So Joe asked his neighbor, Mr. Robinson, for permission to hunt on his property. Mr. Robinson agreed but told Joe to be very careful.
At 2 A.M. the next morning, my father and Joe went out to hunt. They released the coon hound and immediately he caught a scent and got hot on the trail of a coon. That hound chased that scent for the next four hours. My father wanted to give up, but Joe believed in that dog and wanted to keep going. They had been following the dog for so long that sun started to come up. Right about this time Mr. Robinson and another man pulled up to my father and his friend. The hound had treed the coon and he was barking and yelping non-stop. The other man turned to Joe and said “I don’t believe that there is a coon in that tree and I got a coon hunting monkey in my truck to prove that I am right.” Joe replied, “I believe in that hound. If he is barking there is a coon in that tree”. The man with Mr. Robinson said “ok,” then he went over to his truck and released his monkey. That monkey went up in the tree and came back down and shook his head no. Joe still would not listen and insisted that there was a coon in that tree. The man sent the monkey up again and the monkey came down and shook his head no. Joe still believed in his hound dog and convinced the man to send the monkey one more time, this time with a flash light. The monkey went up to the tree and looked around, then the monkey came back down and went back to his owners truck. Next, he pulls out a 12 gauge shot gun and shoots the hound dog. The monkey turns to my father's friend and replied “I can’t stand a lying ass dog”.
Those two stories are the foundation of our trading systems. It took us ten years to get our minds right and we have found that there are a lot of “lying ass dogs” out there trying to sell their systems. We only use three things in our forecasting, we clearly define support and resistance, we use Algebra, and we use Geometry.