Could you have done it without the commercial accounts? I would hope that I could have done it without them; that it wasn't a self-fulfilling prophecy. But if it was,
fine. I don't know.
When did that streak end? From a trading standpoint, I never had a losing year until 1986, although I did struggle in 1985 during the
mid-stages of the bull market in bonds.
Was your trading success a matter of being able to read the tape? Yes. I was attentive and had good instincts.
It sounds like you are saying that either you are born to be a good trader or you are not. Well, to a certain extent, that may be true. My feeling is that you don't have to be, but it helps.
Is it a matter of having a sixth sense about the market? Yes. Your gut often tells you what to do.
Are people who don't have the natural instincts for trading wasting their time? Or can almost anybody be successful if he or she works at it hard enough? Working hard has nothing to do with it. About two weeks ago, a very bright fellow who works forme said,
"This is a very frustrating business. It doesn't matter how hard I work; it has no bearing on whether I make money or
not." You have to know yourself and put that knowledge to work in the market.
That sounds like a cliche. What do you mean by "know yourself"? I'll give you an example. I think I'm a good trader, but there is a guy working for me who is better. I could go
out there and beat my head against the desk and try to outdo him, or I can just be myself. Let him make whatever
he can, and I'll make whatever I can.
This is my view of a year in the life of a trader: Four out of twelve months you are hot. You are so excited
that you can't sleep at night. You can't wait to get to work the next day; you're just rolling. Two months out of the
year, you are cold. You are so cold, you are miserable. You can't sleep at night. You can't figure out where the next
trade is going to come from. The other six months out of the year, you make and lose, make and lose. You can't
sleep, because you are trying to figure out how you are going to make money.
The net result is that you never sleep, because you are constantly thinking too much about trading. It is an
all-consuming thing. That is why you need to know yourself—to moderate your emotions. If you don't, then after a
big success, you are high as a kite. You are not prepared when just around the corner, the market suddenly brings
you back to earth. Or, in the opposite situation, when you are consistently losing, you might end up jumping out of a
window. Why did I leave the floor? Again, because I know myself. I need to interact with people and that doesn't
happen there.
