Anticipation

It has always frustrated me that every indicator is a lagging indicator.  I think that's why automated systems never work.  Every tool available to the robot builder lags price action, and robots don't think (yet).

I once transcribed every strategy recommendation/nugget of knowledge/kernel of wisdom I thought was worthwhile in Market Wizards into a notebook that contains only those transcriptions.  I created the following categories for them: Learning, Money Management, Psychology, Selection, Strategy, Systems, and Timing.  There were 225 of them, and I probably missed a lot.

Here are the ones that have to do, in some way, with anticipation:

1. Successful traders tend to be instinctive rather than overly analytical.  -- Joe Ritchie
2. Any investment opportunity that everyone else is doing is by definition a bad idea.  -- Mark Ritchie
3. Know when to break the rules.  -- Ed Seykota
4. The nerve and skill required to step on the accelerator at the right time is certainly one of the elements that separates good traders from exceptional traders.  -- Michael Steinhardt
5. To some extent, to be a good trader, you have to be a contrarian.  -- Paul Tudor Jones
6. Good systems tend to violate normal human tendencies.  -- William Eckhardt
7. Many people think that trading can be reduced to a few rules.  Always do this or always do that.  Trading isn't about always at all; it is about each situation.  -- Bill Lipschutz
8. When nobody wants to touch the market, that's the time you have to step up.  -- Blair Hull
9. It's better to have the wrong idea and good timing than the right idea and bad timing.  -- Linda Bradford Raschke
10. Missing an important trade is a much more serious error than making a bad trade.  -- William Eckhardt
11. The market usually leads because there are people who know more than you do.  -- Bruce Kovner
12. You don't have to know a lot about the physics of tides, resonance, and fluid dynamics in order to catch a good wave.  You just have to be able to sense when it's happening and then have the drive to act at the right time.  -- Ed Seykota
13. Anticipate and plan, rather than react.  -- Tony Saliba 

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