"Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn't one today." -- Phil - Groundhog day
You may remember the 1993 movie "Groundhog day" where Bill Murray wakes up every day the same day. After a while, he takes advantage of the situation and gets insights about everybody's life, screws women (including Andy McDowell), steals money, learns piano, ice sculpting, French,... A lot of people, particularly in the Orc race, feel they are to some extent in a similar time loop, that everyday they live the very same day as the day before - unfortunately for most of them, it IS the same day and it will be the same for the next 40 years. Now, even in such an "exciting" activity as trading, daily routines and repetitive tasks are necessary and days after days, trades after trades boredom can eventually creep in. One step further, I'm convinced that these repetitive daily routines executed tenaciously over years are precisely one of the keys to the Kingdom of the Lord of Trading. Like the chap in the movie, I believe the trick is to try to take advantage of my routines to learn more and more about the trading game, become an Uber-trader and more generally the perfect guy: smarter, healthier, fitter, more cultivated, a better husband, better father, richer,... This is my trading ultimate hedge : even if you screw up as a trader and go broke, TLofT forbid, you can still end up an escort...I'd been looking for a while for the right daily routine that would allow me to achieve my ambitious purpose and that meets my lifestyle targets. Earlier this year, I came up with one I've been experiencing for a few months now and I'm pretty happy with. This is what my current "Groundhog Day" looks like:
Around 6.00am : wake up
No clock alarm, no wake up call, I try to wake naturally but generally my 3-year old child is helpful : "Daddy, wake up ! Daddy !!!"
6:30 am : gym
On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I have a 45-minute-to-1-hour weight training session. I try to lift heavy, not many reps but a few ultra loaded ones. Doug Mc Guff even recommends in Body by Science only a single 12-minute session per week based on this"high intensity-low frequency" method.
8.00 am : breakfast
I have a full breakfast everyday enjoying my time with family during which we are all exposed to the mood enhancing blue light of a Philips goLITE Light as recommended in The 4-Hour Body. For breakfast I generally have eggs (not more than 6 per week), a wholemeal bread toast with peanut butter, a smoothie -perfect to stuff tons of healthy food that taste too bad to be eaten, for example baobab powder- or a whey protein shake and a few supplements : multivitamins, fish oil, acai berry, green tea, gingko baloba, garlic.
8.30 am : heading to the City
I use my time on the Tube to read books on my e-reader or old good paperbacks, very rarely fictions, often trading or finance related books... This said, I'm currently reading a History book, A Little History of the World, a great read I'd really recommend. Then I have a 10-minute walk near the Bank of England, the Old Lady, during which I daydream about how I will spend my future zillions: mansions, yachts, sport cars and high class whores. Classical.
9.00am : beginning of the trading day
You'll notice I don't have any markets update before 9. I used to monitor them constantly, almost 24-5, but as I got more experienced, I realized that the fact I watch them constantly doesn't influence the direction of the prices and the events that occur overnight. Monitoring them from home is just a source of stress (and divorce). It's just useless and not worth. This said, I keep on receiving on my mobile phone the margin calls and forced closures at the moment they are triggered, ie anytime, and tweets from plenty of guys I follow with the last markets updates. Maybe I should fix this one day and unplug these too at home.
Now with years of experience, I manage to log in Bloomberg anywhere in less than 15 minutes despite the bloody fob that attempts to recognize my digital print to give me a second passcode to log after I input my first password : Bloomberg engineers are quite creative to make sure all the users pay their access, so creative that even those who pay struggle to access... On my screen are displayed the news flow, the forex main pairs, the main stock indices and futures, the futures on govies, lately the European CDS spreads though a "crisis" screen, gold -I always have my long position purchased when the price was at $700 :-)- my favourite Asian mutual funds (not really the best year for them) and the intraday charts of the instrument I have positions on or I consider to trade.
First thing once connected is the check of the opened positions, finding out on the best days that the take profit orders have been filled overnight -always a good way to start the trading day-. I then catch up with the markets, try to read the sentiment, do some chart and technical analysis, define the trading strategies for the day and the potential entries levels and put the relevant orders, if any...
10.00am : a bit of reading
Every morning I read at least Bloomberg "read" (the most read news), ADVFN morning round-up,
10.55am (I have a reminder on my phone): snack
A handful of nuts and a glass of semi skimmed milk
11.00am : running the Orc race
I happen to claim that I managed to quit the Orc race, but it's only partially true : I still have to run it, just a few hours of work per month, but still. I have to work notably to justify the investment banker salary I keep on receiving every month. Maybe I have to justify it only to myself because some days I feel like I'm robbing the bank, some rare days I really feel sorry for my colleagues who earn less and work like dogs, running after a carrot they'll never get. How I managed to reduce my work to a few hours per month while I earn more than when I used to work 15 hours per day is a long (and incredible) story I keep for another post (maybe). Now, back to my daily routine, I have a maximum cap of 1 hour of work for my "day job" per day, but most of the days I work no more than 5 minutes. I even manage to take some days "off" at office when I don't do a thing for my dear employer the for weeks.
Noon and 1.30pm (reminders on my phone) : contractions
That's another trick I got from The 4-Hour Body, contractions trigger GLUT4. I don't understand a thing to all this but they allegedly help the carbohydrates you eat to feed the muscles, not the fat. To do so I hold a kung fu horse stance for 2 minutes then do 40 wall presses (push up against a wall) in the toilets.
Between noon and 1.30pm : lunch
I'm French: I need to spend at least 1 hour at lunch everyday whatever happens. I just make sure I'm back for announcements. A few more supplements when I'm back: odourless garlic, acai, alpha lipoic acid and a green tea thermos for the afternoon.
2.30pm GMT: Wall street opens
I monitor carefully the markets for half an hour after Wall Street opens, the SPX particularly.
3.00pm : standing meditation
I used to try to do a 20-minute power nap in the praying room of the building but I never managed to fall asleep. Now I'm doing a 20-minute standing meditation instead and it works well: the more I practice the more I manage to empty my mind and find it helpful.
From 3.20pm onwards : "free" time
When I have open positions I can spend hours watching at charts, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, Fellow Trader, but I guess it's a pure waste of time. Alternatively, I can read e-books from my computer, write some posts for this blog, learn some new stuffs or take care of administrative crap.
4.30am (reminder): snack
A handful of nuts generally
Between 5.00-6.00pm : Ciao Markets!
Time to go home and spend time with family. The best moment of the day is the bed time story with my child at home.
8.00pm : movie time
Most of the evenings, as we watch a rented dvd with my wife, I'm reminded of a cost of opportunity of a few hundreds grand. A few years ago I was proposed to invest in lovefilm.com, but rejected as I lacked funds (as always...). The investment would have returned something like 10x in 2 years and even more after the company was purchased by Amazon. If only... OK, stop, no time for back trading
10.30pm: Shaolin Warrior
I end the day with 1 hour of Shaolin workout in my living room, I alternate between Kung Fu and Qigong. I believe a mix between cardio (Kung Fu) and more cool stuffs (Qi Gong looks a bit like Tai Chi Chuan and includes breathing exercices) are the secret for a health and longevity.
11.45pm bed time
A last few supplements before bed time : creatine (Kung Fu days only), protein shake, acai, garlic, Gingko Baloba, ginger root and 75mg of aspirin with a glass of milk. That's it for the day.
I've been following this routine for a bit more than 3 months now and guess what? I've had my most profitable trading quarter so far. Now I can't be sure it's totally correlated but the thing is I feel greater than ever. A few years ago, I managed to reduce the time spent on my day job in the Orc Race from 15 hours per day to a couple of hours per month. Now after almost 4 years of trading for my own account during which I'd been under pressure and monitoring the markets like 15 hours per day, I have managed to reduce the trading-related tasks to a couple of hours per day and it looks like it works! Now I have a dilemma: should I allocate more time to trading, for instance the afternoon's "free" time and try to push even further or should I use it to focus on new business ventures and exploration of more ways to make money? The thing is I know that my current trading system I've spent years to develop will allow me to end the trading game one day, even with the few hours I'm currently spending on the markets. It's not (only) wishful thinking, I did the maths. But the (slight) problem is I don't know when this Day will come and, believe me or not, my Investment Wanker income + the profits from trading I've cashed in so far are just enough to cover the expenses of my lifestyle in London (OK, I really can't complain about it) and a minimum of savings. This said, for now, I guess I will chose the easy option : don't change anything and keep on doing what seems to work.
Merry Christmas and TLofT be with You.
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