簡易股市心法-- 直覺 (完成於1998.9)
Trader 常會有所謂的直覺。讓我們探討 Trader的直覺是甚麼。股市作手回憶錄第VI章中可看到這位喜歡靠直覺操作的高手Jesse Livermore 對於一檔股票「就是認為一定要跌」，文中透過他與他的朋友的對話鮮活有趣地描繪了 Trader 的直覺這件事:
“What are you doing?”
“I’m selling it! (A thousand UP)”
“Why? What did you hear?”
“Nothing.”
“You didn’t?”
“I didn’t hear a thing.”
“Then why in blazes are you selling?”
“I don’t know, I just feel that something is going to happen.”
“What’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know. I can’t give you any reason. All I know is that I want to sell that stock. And I’m going to let ‘em have another thousand.” (and he sold another thousand)
“What could possibly happen?”
“A million things could happen. But I can’t promise you that any of them will. I can’t give you any reasons and I can’t tell fortunes.”
“Then you’re crazy, stark crazy, selling that stock without rime or reason. You don’t know why you want to sell it?”
“I don’t know why I want to sell it. I only know I do want to, I want to, like everything.” (The urge was so strong that he sold another thousand.)
That was too much for my friend. He grabbed me by the arm and said, “Here! Let’s get out of this place before you sell the entire capital stock.”
“I had sold as much as I needed to satisfy my feeling…”
“I have told some of these stories to friends, and some of them tell me it isn’t a hunch but the subconscious mind, which is the creative mind, at work. That is the mind which makes artists do things without their knowing how they came to do them. Perhaps with me it was the cumulative effect of a lot of little things individually insignificant but collectively powerful. Possibly my friend’s unintelligent bullishness aroused a spirit of contradiction…” 次日他又賣了2000 shares。
又過一日，三番市發生地震(1906年), 但股市與 UP沒有大跌。他們又對話了：
“That was some hunch, kid. But, say, when the talent and the money are all on the bull side what’s the use of bucking against them? They are bound to win out.”
“Give them time. I meant prices… But it was exasperating to see the blindness of the Street.”
“Give ‘em time and your skin will be where all the other bear hides are stretched out in the sun, drying.”
他並未理會朋友給他的警語，反而建議他的朋友也放空一些 UP 股。 次日他加倍又空出 5000 shares. 又過一日又加倍空出 10000 shares. 數日內他全部平倉賺了 250,000. “The Street paid no attention to the earthquake the first day or two…but I think it was because it took so long to change the point of view of the public towards the securities markets. Even the professional traders for the most part were slow and shortsighted.”
“I have no explanation to give you, either scientific or childish. I am telling you what I did, and why, and what came of it.”
類似的精采描述在書中不勝枚舉。由此例可知，敏感而經驗老到的trader 明察秋毫的習性會不知不覺地累積許多看似不起眼的小小徵兆，加總起來卻足以形成一個警訊。但由於形成的徵兆逐一皆微不足道，故一般上又很難具體的說出一個能夠說服別人的理由，但自己的經驗卻又是值得信賴的執友，往往不依照直覺做的話以後總是後悔的機會較大，所以對自己瞭解很深入很透徹的 trader，會知道每次的直覺是多強多可靠。
那麼落實到 Trader 機械式的工作架構中，直覺又是歸屬在哪裡呢? 可以這麼說：點點滴滴的徵兆逐漸地、不知不覺地對 Trader 的機率分配表做調整，且是朝越來越集中到某一可能性的方向去調整。到了一個臨界點，機率分配強到某個程度時，就會產生像上述 trader 的強烈情感，強烈到不得不一次又一次地加倍加碼強化其賭注以宣洩其情感。(“I had sold as much as I needed to satisfy my feeling”)
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