Monday Morning Quarterback and 马后炮

In trading communities, we use a negative word toward someone who gives advice in hindsight. Another phrase is "Monday morning quarterback", which is not exactly the same meaning, but whatever.

In Chinese, it is called "马后炮".

There are usually a variation of meanings.
I am going to use "I" below so my friends don't misunderstand me and think I am mocking at any of them.  By all means, we are more of less like what I am describing below...


1. I announce I have such and such positions. Then after market condition turns against me, I will claim I did certain things and safely took advantage of market and won, regardless of what the initial plan is.

2. I will often show off what I did in the past. But amazingly, when I start to publicly announce something, 80 percent of them if not all does NOT work. Believe me, that happens, at least to me. Maybe it is only 50 percent of time, but heck it feels like 100 percent.

3. I will give advice in hindsight. I talk about what I should and would have done in the past. Market is full of uncertainty. As Mark Twain said, history never simply repeat, they just rhyme.  Hindsight bias is the inclination to see events that occurred in the past as being more predictable than they were before they took place.

There are more variations. But let us look deeper behind all these for now. I am providing objective analysis to this, by the way. Each scenario has the virtue and the evil.


Scenario 1 above, what happens behind scene? What happens to me is, I am drawn to public attentions. Maybe I am good at trading and I need appreciation; Maybe I want emotional support in the lonely trading world; Maybe I just want success. Maybe I did not announce the full plan. Maybe market is too fast and I can not tell others in time.  Nothing much wrong with that... However, ego comes in and makes me more concerned about the result. I become less flexible.  That leads to performance anxiety, the same type of feeling like going for a speech in the 50k people stadium...  The worst that can happen is that we start going down to the path of "false pride and search for glory", the topic which I discussed in previous blog.

What happens to the audience is important to discuss too.

We watch good traders and we start to follow them in hope of making money at least, if not a fortune. Crap, they start to fumble? Even worse? They start to talk about their contingency plan? They start to tell contradictive things? They start to lie? Then the online trading communities become a stage for entertainment and discovery of all aspects of our weakness.

First thing to point out is, we might wrong ourselves in the first place. We should always be independent thinkers and be responsible for ourselves. The tendency to follow others and blame others are the worst habits for traders. Period.

Second thing is, if we just hate "Monday morning quarterback", we might be walking on the wrong path.  We all love someone calling sth right for us and helping us to make money. Yes. Make money! Now! We don't want to know how to fish... just freaking tell me where the fish is, and better catch it for me now.


I realized I have covered scenario 2 already, :) so I am jumping to scenario 3.  I give hindsight. I love to analyze market after hours, search for perfect plays, and learn how others made home runs.
Over the years it helped me to speed up the learning. I think that is the key to success.

So, I do like Monday morning quarterback. In the meantime, we have to be very careful not to overemphasize the things we learned. Market changes all the time and we have to evolve too. So a good Monday morning quarterback should do a good job.

L Analysis should include:

When:  what time and what context

What:  which instruments and sectors, what happened, what did I do and did not

How:   how it happen? How I managed? How I executed ...

Why: what is the hint and lesson out of this...

The list goes on.

I spend time to review major scenarios every day when I can. It is not an easy task. As far as prediction, I prefer the idea of what I call scenariao- based planning. This is widely used in all fields.
Every once a while, my friends will ask me what do I think about next day's market.
I will simply always say I DO NOT KNOW. What I really mean is, I think I know, I planned for  each possible major themes as I can, but I really have no idea.

I predict all the time, but with probability attached. And I especially work hard on the most unlikely scenario that might hurt me the most. Because I know, if I don't get proactive now, sooner or later, I will run into risk of ruin.

Deep inside, we all want an idol to depend on in the volatile market. It reduces our fear and responsibility.   We all want to become idol of others too. Man, it feels good to be idolized.  

The motives can help us to grow, if we channel our motives and turn them into the true inner strength, instead of false pride. 

Again, I disjointly went too far in this blog article. :)  But I meant well, my friends.