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Academic achievers = Better traders?

  • #61
  • Jul 21, 2012 3:03pm Jul 21, 2012 3:03pm
Ohhh, Taleb. He was one of my hardest reads which is interesting because he's not native english if I'm not mistaken. It was quite exhausting, I had his book in one window and Merriam Webster in another, just to look up those words he felt necessary to use.
Wicked ones like episte...epistemology. WTF is epistemology?

Quoting olsen-yersen
Nassem Taleb says:

Statistical and applied probabilistic knowledge is the core of knowledge; statistics is what tells you if something is true, false, or merely anecdotal; it is the "logic of science" it is the instrument of risk-taking; it is the applied tools of epistemology.

So is there any correlation between academic grades and trading success?Yes ,success comes with knowledge.
forget about tomorrow, just steal away into the night
  • #62
  • Jul 21, 2012 4:09pm Jul 21, 2012 4:09pm
Quoting HiddenGap
Academic success is rooted in perfection. Some academic success comes from the ability to think in creative ways, but most academic success actually comes from the ability to regurgitate information perfectly. You are not going to have academic success if you don't pass tests. And you are not going to pass tests, if you get answers wrong.
Quoting HiddenGap
This may mean not challenging the person with the answer key, but let's take step back and focus on the fact that you don't get into Harvard with a "C" average. If you don't want a "C" average, then you need to focus on doing a perfect job on tests and assignments.
Quoting HiddenGap
Simply, high academic achievers have not been rewarded for being wrong. It is all about being right.
Trading the markets is the exact opposite. There is loss in trading. Period. Trading is a losing game; he who loses best, wins. One can be a very successful trader losing 6 out of 10 trades on average. In the academic world, 6 out of 10 is a "D" at best and usually an "F". Many high academic achievers try to compensate by believing the market is something that can be "solved"
Quoting HiddenGap
This is not the case. The fact is that there will always be losing trades. No method of trading yet undiscovered will change this. If you cannot handle being wrong most of the time, then trading isn't for you. And most high academic achievers only know being right all the time.
+1. Nailed it !
100 Fold Challenge->Interested? ->https://www.forexfactory.com/thread/32152
  • #63
  • Jul 21, 2012 10:49pm Jul 21, 2012 10:49pm
Quoting HiddenGap
Whilst it is true that the top banks/hedge funds only want to hire someone with an MBA from Harvard or one of the other top 2O schools in the country, it is also true that academic success is diametrically opposed to success in trading.

[color=black][font=Verdana]Academic success is rooted in perfection. Some academic success comes from the ability to think in creative ways, but most academic success actually comes from the ability to regurgitate information perfectly. You are not going to have academic...
This is a great post. Trading is an endeavor where perfection is unattainable, a 4.0 GPA is the exact opposite. Taking a 4.0 mindset into the trading world is a recipe for disaster.

I'm a golfer, and love trading for a lot of the same reasons I love golf. Ben Hogan, among the greatest golfers of all time, once said that in any given round he hit only four or five shots that were exactly how he wanted to hit them. Out of 60-70 shots, that's a failure rate above 90%. Playing golf, like trading, is about getting to a point where your less than perfect shots don't get you into trouble that you can't recover from.

People unwilling to accept anything less than perfection will never be successful traders. They'll abandon great trading methods with their first losing trade and constantly be searching for the holy grail. They'll ride losing trades because their fundamental analysis says the market should be going the other way. High academic achievers have built their life around rules and logical answers. Two plus two doesn't always equal four when it comes to trading, it does in academia.

If your world is built on knowing the right answers all the time, your world will come crashing down around you when you enter the world of trading. You very simply have to believe in imperfect success in order to trade for a living. The 4.0 mentality cannot believe in imperfect success because perfection is their only definition of success.
  • #64
  • Jul 22, 2012 12:07am Jul 22, 2012 12:07am
I have studied finance and even worked in the industry, but everything i learned from my college and employee does not apply to my system of price action and a lot of what i learned from college didnt even apply in the real business world!

Also i have a friend who barely passed high school and could not get his IT degree even though he is a genius. Long story but he showed Oracle a program he made and they gave him a job on the spot after seeing this guys has serious talent. He has won many internal awards and now gets flown to many countries to solve complex problems.

But i guess a big benefit of an employer asking for a degree as a requirement is it filters out hundreds/thousands of applicants. Instead of getting 2000 applicants for a job position, asking for a degree might reduce that to 500.
  • #65
  • Jul 22, 2012 1:54am Jul 22, 2012 1:54am
education is very important for this field.....I dont mean doctorate or some thing, but some college degree shud be there.
No place for mistakes
  • #66
  • Jul 22, 2012 7:34am Jul 22, 2012 7:34am
Quoting Soldier
education is very important for this field.....I dont mean doctorate or some thing, but some college degree shud be there.
Heh, this is an interesting quote because it is totally wrong. But I can understand why one would think that way.

Let me share this story about the singapore exchange (as told by my mentor)

Back in the early days of the sgx, they had a pool of local traders (some of us call them floor traders). In order to expand the liquidity, they took in people of all sorts. Some were guys with degrees and some were just ordinary people.

Some prospered and some didn't. The exchange wanted to bring in more locals but didn't want people to lose money as more than half of the locals eventually lost all their money. So they wanted to impose some conditions to be accepted as a local trader.

So they did a research to see which are the people who successfully made the millions and who are the ones that went bust. To their surprise, all the ones who went bust had degrees while all those who made millions only had high school certs.

Moral of the story: Academics don't mean much. It's obviously the other factors in play that make one a great trader.
  • #67
  • Jul 22, 2012 7:39pm Jul 22, 2012 7:39pm
Quoting greenpath
I'm a golfer, and love trading for a lot of the same reasons I love golf. Ben Hogan, among the greatest golfers of all time, once said that in any given round he hit only four or five shots that were exactly how he wanted to hit them. Out of 60-70 shots, that's a failure rate above 90%. Playing golf, like trading, is about getting to a point where your less than perfect shots don't get you into trouble that you can't recover from.
I think this is the best sports-related trading analogy (or is it trading-related sports analogy?) I've ever read.

Good stuff!
I'm not trying to convince anyone. I'm not in the "convincing" business.
  • #68
  • Jul 23, 2012 4:21am Jul 23, 2012 4:21am
Quoting skenobi
I think this is the best sports-related trading analogy (or is it trading-related sports analogy?) I've ever read.

Good stuff!
That was a great analogy.
  • #69
  • Last Post: Jul 23, 2012 4:31am Jul 23, 2012 4:31am
i don't think academic achievers are better traders. in a company, do you think managers are there because they are better than the others? academic achivements are required specially when you are after a job, but once you're in you will find out that it's not really required.

just my 2c
botsog
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