止損心理學兼駁 “止損是毒藥說”

止損心理學兼駁 “止損是毒藥說”

正確的看待止損非常重要。 請大家讀一下下麵的文章，Dr. Steenbarger的如何止損。 誰都不願意看到自己的股票虧損， 關鍵是如何對待這個虧損，才是成功的關鍵因素。 誠然，止損不代表成功，不代表就能賺錢， 止損隻是你整個投資策略的一個環節。 要賺錢還要有正確的投資方法。 可以說正確止損是你成功的必要條件，但不是充分條件。 你如果不止損，就是把自己的投資命運交給市場， 你就失去了主動權，失去了改正錯誤的機會。 如果因為僥幸的成功就認為我沒有止損，結果證明我是正確的。 無數的投資者都掉入了這個陷阱。 大的如LTCM，小的如無數中國的散戶投資者。 市場的不確定性導致沒有人能永遠正確。 如果沒有正確的止損策略， 隻要一次大的失誤， 你可能被市場淘汰。 我喜歡下麵一句話: If you lose all, you can not bet"
www.zztrend.com

How to Take a Loss
Brett N. Steenbarger, Ph.D.



There are quite a few books written on how to make money in the market. Some
of them are even written by people who have made money as traders! What you don’t
see often, however, are books or articles written on how to lose money. “Cut your losers and let your winners run” is commonsensical advice, but how do you determine when a position is a loser? Interestingly, most traders I have seen don’t formulate an answer to this question when they put on a position. They focus on the entry, but then don’t have a clear sense of exit—especially if that exit is going to put them into the red.

One of the real culprits, I have to believe, is in the difficulty traders have in
separating the reality of a losing trade from the psychological sense of feeling like a loser. At some level, many traders equate losing with being a loser. This frustrates them, depresses them, makes them anxious—in short, it interferes with their future decisionmaking, because their P & L is a blank check written against their self-esteem. Once a trader is self-focused and not market focused, distortions in decision-making are inevitable.

A particularly valuable section of the classic book Reminiscences of a Stock
Operator describes Livermore’s approach to buying stock. He would sell a quantity and see how the stock responded. Then he would do that again and again, testing the underlying demand for the issue. When his sales could not push the market down, then he would move aggressively to the buy side and make his money.
What I loved about this methodology is that Livermore’s losses were part of a
grander plan. He wasn’t just losing money; he was paying for information. If my
maximum position size is ten contracts in the ES and I buy the highs of a range with a one-lot, expecting a breakout, I am testing the waters. While I am not potentially moving the market in the way that Livermore might have, I still have begun a test of my breakout hypothesis. I then watch carefully. How are the other averages behaving at the top ends of their range? How is the market absorbing the activity of sellers? Like any good scientist, I am gathering data to determine whether or not my hypothesis is supported. Suppose the breakout does not materialize and the initial move above the range falls back into the range on some increased selling pressure. I take the loss on my onelot, but then what happens from there?
The unsuccessful trader will respond with frustration: “Why do I always get
caught buying the highs? I can’t believe “they” ran the market against me! This market is impossible to trade.” Because of that frustration—and the associated self-focus—the unsuccessful trader does not take any information away from that trade.

In the Livermore mode, however, the successful trader will see the losing one-lot
as part of a greater plan. Had the market broken nicely to the upside, he would have
scaled into the long trade and likely made money. If the one-lot was a loser, he paid for the information that this is, at the very least, a range-bound market, and he might try to find a spot to reverse and go short in order to capitalize on a return to the bottom end of that range.

Look at it this way: If you put on a high probability trade and the trade fails to
make you money, you have just paid for an important piece of information: The market
is not behaving as it normally, historically does. If a robust piece of economic news that normally sends the dollar screaming higher fails to budge the currency and thwarts your purchase, you have just acquired a useful bit of information: There is an underlying lack of demand for dollars. That information might hold far more profit potential than the money lost in the initial trade.

I recently received a copy of an article from Futures Magazine on the retired
trader Everett Klipp, who was dubbed the “Babe Ruth of the CBOT”. Klipp
distinguished himself not only by his fifty-year track record of trading success on the floor, but also by his mentorship of over 100 traders. Speaking of his system of shortterm trading, Klipp observed, “You have to love to lose money and hate to make money to be successful…It’s against human nature what I teach and practice. You have to overcome your humanness.”

Klipp’s system was quick to take profits (hence the idea of hating to make
money), but even quicker to take losses (loving to lose money). Instead of viewing losses as a threat, Klipp treated them as an essential part of trading. Taking a small loss reinforces a trader’s sense of discipline and control, he believed. Losses are not failures.

So here’s a question I propose to all those who enter a high-probability trade:
“What will tell me that my trade is wrong, and how could I use that information to
subsequently profit?” If you’re trading well, there are no losing trades: only trades that make money and trades that give you the information to make money later.
Brett N. Steenbarger, Ph.D. is Director of Trader Development for Kingstree Trading,
LLC in Chicago and Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY. He is also an active trader and
writes occasional feature articles on market psychology for a variety of publications.

The author of The Psychology of Trading (Wiley; January, 2003), Dr. Steenbarger has
published over 50 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on short-term approaches to behavioral change. His new, co-edited book The Art and Science of Brief Therapy is a core curricular text in psychiatry training programs. Many of Dr. Steenbarger’s articles and trading strategies are archived on his website, www.brettsteenbarger.com


附 反對止損的帖子

我對技術分析的看法是，一對我沒用，二如果沉迷其中就成不了大器。
　　我不能說技術分析沒用，這樣太托大了，大的道理我也不想說太多，就舉一個例子，說一說技術分析的主流之一形態分析。我剛入行的時候，和現在大多數年輕人一樣，覺得技術分析神奇有效，值得好好學習，而且也樂此不疲，如饑似渴。後來有一次，我們在討論一個股票，從a點要拉到b點，怎麽個走法。然後我就在紙上畫了許多可能性。畫著畫著，我覺得無論我怎麽畫，最後一筆總要畫到b點，而且看看我畫好的幾幅圖，什麽旗型突破，楔型突破，三角整理突破，上升通道，箱形整理突破，或者往下做個雙底再突破，等等，都被我畫出來了。怎麽都是教科書上的經典圖形阿？至此我明白一個道理，形態分析裏的各種形態都沒錯，凡是上漲的股票都會走出其中一種形態來。但是哪個是本？哪個是標呢？不是因為走出這樣的形態才使股價從a點到b點，而是因為股價必然會從a點到b點，然後其運動軌跡出現經典形態。形態是必要條件而不是充分條件。而想通過形態分析，得出股價會從a點到b點，邏輯上就是錯誤的。實際上效果也不好。效果好的時候是因為你正好碰上了。其實很多評價技術分析的文章都談過這個問題，我隻不過是說一個實際的例子，現身說法。形態分析是如此，那波浪理論呢，太高深了，不敢評論。
　　其實我想告訴一些年輕朋友的是，如果你把投資當作一項事業，那沉迷於技術分析是成不了大器的。經過嚴格的技術分析訓練，我相信你會變得敏感，對細節把握很好，但無論你怎麽去縮小k線，或者換成周線、月線、年線，你都無法跳出其中的起起伏伏，以更大的氣魄和眼光去看市場。你對技術分析運用的越純熟，你對投資的認識越接近自身的局限，你可以成為一個很好的“匠”，但成不了“師”。這說的還是好的情況，糟糕的情況就是你浸淫幾年後，腦袋裏越來越迷糊，最終被市場淘汰，你最後發出的感歎是，我不適合做股票。這些東西要靠你自己領悟，還有些話，我在後麵的內容中會補充。

　　從技術分析延伸開去，再說點別的。
　　近幾年散戶受到的專業化教育中，最深入人心的我覺得是兩個字，“止損”。這兩個字被不斷強調，重要性日益提高，最後儼然成了投資中頭等重要的大事。有一次我麵試一個學生，他說，隻要做好止損，做股票掙錢很容易，我虧了10次都止損了，一次掙個夠。cut the lose shor,let profit run。中毒太深。
　　我不否認止損的重要性，但要時刻牢記，止損隻是一個輔助的手段。如果你買一個股票，讓你心安的是，大不了我止損，那你最好不要動，你這是給人送錢去了。
　　還是舉一個例子。有一次，我給幾個交易員每人500萬的額度，讓他們自己做做看。後來都虧了。我看了看他們買的股票，不應該虧損阿。原因是他們都在波動中止損了。問他們為什麽止損，他們說心裏沒底，對這個股票又不了解，單純從技術分析的角度看，破位就應該止損。
　　所以，投資中最重要的事情是什麽，不是止損，是選一個好股票。要在深入了解這個股票的基礎上再來談風險控製，談止損。否則你會越止越瘦。