Three Things I'll Do in 2010 to Improve My Trading

Going over-budget on the Christmas shopping, eating too much food and participating in the the annual ritual of goal-setting for the next year. Ah, I love this time of year. But why fight it? Sometimes you need to acknowledge your membership in your current culture and simply participate in its collective practices. Today, I'm setting about three things I can do in 2010 to improve my trading. We're all going to do it soon, I'm just getting it out of the way before the onslaught of petty goal-setting lists and tips comes crushing down on our already over-sated body politic in January and renders the exercise banal. The three things I will do in 2010 to improve my trading is to 1) take 10 strokes off my golf game, 2) read four books and 3) learn to play the violin.

In golf as in trading, we keep score. Golf uses strokes to hole the ball unlike the more crude measure of PnL that we have in trading. I'm not being unrealistic in this goal (an important criteria for setting goals) and I have some idea on where I can improve. First, I need consistent drives. Yeah, I like the 280-yard drive but if I have to spray 10 slices to get it, maybe it would be more prudent to settle for a consistent 220-yard drive. Who knows, but I'm gonna try it. I also can improve on my short game, the one that's inside 70 yards. My tendency is to lose strokes in this area by either flubbing the shot completely (am I already thinking about the next hole?) or overshooting the green (am I already shooting for the next hole?). The third part of my golf game that I will focus on in 2010 is my putting game. The least sexy part of golf. It's something children can do. This is the attention-to-detail portion of my game that with consistent practice on the putting green, I know I can easily improve and get good results.

Next I'm setting out to read four books. And no, Deploying Multiple Regression Algorithms Across Volatility Arbitrage Strategies does not count. Neither does popular fiction. I consumed Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol in two days, as one would a bag of potato chips - satisfying yet feeling artificially sated. No, I'm talking about the sort of book that one could compare to a Filet Mignon with Bernaise sort of meal, complete with pre-dinner martini, robust red wine, after-dinner cognac and fine cigar. On my short list is Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov, Jean Beaudillard's Simulacra and Simulation, Musil's Five Women and a couple Shakespearean plays. Reading these sorts of books requires focus, dedication and a genuine curiosity. The satisfaction achieved after reading the last page is well worth the commitment.

Finally, I'm going to learn to play the violin. I have never played the violin but I know what one looks like and I know how one is supposed to sound when it is played properly. This falls into the I'm-not-scared-to-learn-something-knew category. Will I have to take lessons? Not sure. Being the autodidact that I am, I'll probably try to figure it out on my own at first, but I'm not adverse to taking some well-placed lessons along the way.

It comes down to getting better at my game, engaging meaningfully and learning to play music. Realistically, I know I'll lose a few golf balls, struggle to turn the next page and need to restrain myself from throwing a musical instrument out the window - but at least I know what I'm in for in 2010.