|
Confessions of a Neanderthal Trader
 I
wasn't always this way. I used to be intelligent, suave, persuasive. I knew
which snifter to use for which brandy, and could charm a dog off a meat wagon.
Women gave me a second look. Men marveled. Then I discovered Forex. That's when
things started to go downhill and life has never been the same.
It started with my grooming. I used to be a clothes horse. I would spit shine my
shoes until they blinded passersby. I never had a hair out of place. A lint
brush was as indispensable as a Colt .45 to a high school guidance counselor.
But after just one week of Forex currency trading I found myself wearing the
same sweats all day. And then the next day. And sometimes the day after that.
Then I stopped wearing shoes altogether and traded in my socks. Then I was down
to my undershirt. Gosh it's warm in here. Must be the anxiety. So I was down to
my shorts. Man, I need some fresh air.
And what happened to my intellect? It seemed to be shrinking. I could swear I
noticed a distinct new slope to my forehead. I heard the president explaining
America's policy in Iraq and found I could actually understand him. Slowly, my
vocabulary shrank. I no longer used words like 'splendiferous' and 'avaricious.'
I now said 'nukular,' 'liberry' and 'Americuh.'
And my personality... Where once I was a great humanitarian, now all I cared
about was ripping out the other trader's guts out and handing them back to him
on a stick. All I wanted was the pips. Nothing else mattered. I could picture
myself back 10,000 years ago, huddled just inside a small cave on the edge of a
great snow covered mountain, a club in my hand and a small fire crackling next
to me. A band of homo sapiens was hunting on the precipice below and I was going
to provide them with a little one-man welcoming party.
Snap out of it!
After an entire day spent staring at the charts I was morphing into a currency
caveman. I found my hearing had become so acute I could almost hear the market
moving. Although it hadn't yet been a week since my last shower I noticed that I
could no longer smell myself. But I couldn't tear myself away from the screen.
Five o'clock shadow turned into a hairy face that would frighten my own mother.
But I didn't care.
I was living on raw beef jerky now and making grunting sounds as the candles
lurched up and down on the screen. I pictured a herd of red and blue gazelle
feeding in the prairie outside my window and clutched my imaginary spear so
tightly I was beyond carpal tunnel, I was developing rigor mortis of the mouse.
I threw all those currency trading courses I bought on the Internet into the
fire and used the embers to toast some venison. Candlesticks? MACD? Pivot
points? Who needs that stuff? Price can only go up and down and the less I
thought about it, the better I instinctively knew what to do.
Two million years from now I'd be working the trading desk at a top Wall Street
investment house and stealing money from babies and little old ladies -- from
their IRA's anyway -- but for now, back here in the Mesozoic, I was the king of
my kingdom.
I owned the Forex. And I wasn't about to evolve.
|
