What Makes You Unique As A Trader?
So we're walking in the old section of Bergen, Norway (Bryggen) and come across a Mexican restaurant advertising its food in a unique manner. From the looks of it, the sign was bringing people in.
Whether it's in marketing or in trading markets, uniqueness counts for a lot. It's not always easy to predict who will make money as a trader, but it's not hard to predict who won't. The ones who won't succeed are the ones who are like all the others. They look at the same things and trade the same ideas. I've worked in many trading firms, from prop shops to hedge funds. Across settings, the correlation of returns among traders is disconcertingly high. When given the freedom to make their own decisions, many traders decide to abdicate critical thought and follow others.
Of course, being unique does not guarantee being successful; it's simply a way of generating more and different hypotheses. Some of these will fall flat; others will bear fruit. Being a trader is not so different from being an inventor. The great find often follows scores of disappointments. If you can't look at new possibilities and keep innovating, however, the successful invention will never follow.