You Need To Bigger Risks To Grow

I had an interesting experiences yesterday and today while trading the local index futures market (Bursa Malaysia Composite Index Futures*).

After the last drop, the local stock market had since recovered and was trading at higher levels. And it has been going up continuously the last one week. A few days back, as my partner and I were reading the charts, we noticed that there might be a chance of a pull back in the flow.

We started to trade the stocks more cautiously and we also started to “short” the index futures market. The futures market basically dictates the stock market. We observed that the futures market was having difficulty to rise and seemed to have
hit a resistance level; hence, we started to “short” the futures a bit more aggressively.

Towards yesterday evening, I was having my usual maximum “shorts” size in the futures and the market was sliding down. I was smiling to myself as my partner and I felt that we made the right decision in shorting the futures market.

Just then, something occurred to me. I was trading at my current contract maximum size for quite some time that I was feeling quite comfortable with it. My heart was telling me to increase the size. I told myself that it was about time to increase my
trading size.

Just as I increased my position, the market slid down further. It felt good as I was in tune with the market. As I continued to increase my position, I was now trading two times my usual size! Suddenly, I felt fear! Right at that time, the market rebounded a little and I got worried.

In my mind, I kept focusing on my goals and kept repeating to myself over and over again that I was feeling the fear because I was trying something “new”; that is, I am moving into a new territory that I had never ventured before!

Just as in Star Trek, “..to boldly go where no man has gone before”, the famous quote! Slowly, my nerves calmed down and I started to look at the market objectively. As it was close to the evening, most day-traders would want to close out their positions; as such the market was basically doing a mild rebound. Just as I thought, toward the close of the market, it plunged and closed at the lowest.

I was already feeling a bit jittery because I realized that I would have to hold the position until tomorrow morning to know whether I would make big money or not. Anything could happen. The US markets and the European markets could just suddenly
bounce up and the local market could open much higher.

This would translate as losses for my futures positions! If they went down, it would be good for my positions. These were the thoughts present in my mind. Just then my partner who had been quietly watching me said, “Nervous, my friend?” and laughed.

As I have written in my previous article, my partner is very experienced in the markets and to him the situation that we were in at that moment was pretty normal. By the way, he was holding a much bigger short contract positions than I was.

He said that he was happy that finally I took a bigger position and dared to take bigger risk. “It is about time, my friend”, he said. I smiled. As I continued to focus on my goals, and explained to myself again and again the need to take the risk in order to grow, and that it was a calculated risk, my jitters slowly faded away.

That night I slept peacefully. By this morning, I noticed that there was not much movement in the US markets. And when the local markets opened, it plunged about ten points. Then it held there for about fifteen minutes.

My partner started to close off his short positions and I followed suit. At this level, we were already making handsome profits. At the same time, I felt it in my heart to hold on for a while, but I decided not to push my luck too far! Just as we finished closing all our positions, the market just dived!

Ten minutes later it was THIRTY points lower! We shook our heads in disbelief! We could have easily made at least THREE times the profit if we had just held on to ourpositions for another 10 minutes! We were definitely frustrated!

After about twenty minutes, we found out that the plunge was due to the plunge in Shanghai Stock Exchange. Just then, I laughed to myself. My partner noticed and asked why the laugh. I said that I felt truly silly. Eyebrows raised, he waited for me to explain.

Here I was feeling frustrated that I could not make more money, where just yesterday, I was worried about losing. Nature has been kind enough to give me profits for the risk I took, so I should just be grateful for it!

My partner, who truly is a wise man and was calm throughout yesterday and today, simply said, “Absolute TRUTH, my friend! What is yours will be yours and what is not, will simply not be! We just keep doing our best and let God decide the returns for our efforts!”

I smiled and nodded!

Love & Light
The Uneducated One
Nature's Laws Of Success