After a Sunday shut in during awful storms on Long Island (two days worth actually), I was hammered constantly by sportscasters over and mis-use of the word legendary. This a sore spot and pet peeve.
A legend is a story or collection of stories and according to the dictionary (not Wiki) but a real dictionary, "a nonhistorical or unverifiable story handed down by tradition from earlier times and popularly ( accepted as historical." Simply urban fiction becomes tomorrow's fact. A legend is just that....a story. A lengendary running back is a much storied running back whose story may not have much real fact in it.
In this day of blogging and 24 hour news, emails and text messages we play a constant variation of the game of telephone, creating legends right and left. Some are purposeful and others are just whole cloth. Trouble is that truth is in short supply and usually so obscured by legend and spin that one can't find the the pony in the proverbial pile (but it must be in there somewhere).
What does this have to do with trading? A lot. How to find the pearl in the oyster is a never ending challenge and actually the best traders are usually the best research scholars. They are satisfied when they can sort out fact from legend.
I come away with one over riding observation as an historian. The amount of fact that is around us is small but constant. The amount of legend that clouds our field of view has never been greater. The work needed to find fact from legend is in ration to fact:legend.
A legend is a story or collection of stories and according to the dictionary (not Wiki) but a real dictionary, "a nonhistorical or unverifiable story handed down by tradition from earlier times and popularly ( accepted as historical." Simply urban fiction becomes tomorrow's fact. A legend is just that....a story. A lengendary running back is a much storied running back whose story may not have much real fact in it.
In this day of blogging and 24 hour news, emails and text messages we play a constant variation of the game of telephone, creating legends right and left. Some are purposeful and others are just whole cloth. Trouble is that truth is in short supply and usually so obscured by legend and spin that one can't find the the pony in the proverbial pile (but it must be in there somewhere).
What does this have to do with trading? A lot. How to find the pearl in the oyster is a never ending challenge and actually the best traders are usually the best research scholars. They are satisfied when they can sort out fact from legend.
I come away with one over riding observation as an historian. The amount of fact that is around us is small but constant. The amount of legend that clouds our field of view has never been greater. The work needed to find fact from legend is in ration to fact:legend.