Mark Cuban & Forex Trading

Not sure where I am going with this but just felt like sharing these thoughts. If you haven’t seen the video from a few weeks ago, Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks along with lots of other things went “all in” in his rebuke of ESPN commentator Skip Bayless. Here’s the official ESPN video, plus a link to the Yahoo Sports story

I’ll admit, I really don’t know much about Skip Bayless. His Wikipedia page is pretty impressive in regards to his earlier pre-ESPN days. He also got to do a cameo in Rocky VI, so that’s pretty cool.

In any event, while watching Mark Cuban destroy Skip Bayless’s basketball analysis, it got me thinking on two things. First, Cuban’s main complaint against Bayless and sport’s media as a whole was its use of generalities. Secondly, did you catch what Cuban said about their in-game data being generated? That was really crazy how Cuban stated that they have 5 stat guys going at it during games to break down what Is working and what isn’t.

Being a Cuban fan and enjoying his articles that get posted among the entrepreneur and business websites, I kept thinking about what to take out of what he was saying and how to apply it in my own trading and SwiftTick.

In regards to the media’s uses of generalities. Its true, this is a big problem. Personally, I will often get lazy and write things like the Euro “looks” weaker or something is outperforming without backing it up with proof. In the same way that Skip Bayless should have said “Lebron looked nervous last year” by backing it up with something conclusive like,” in 75% of such and such situation he will shoot, but last year it was only 25% of the time” he simply made a general assumption about Lebron’s mood.

While I like to go with my “gut feeling” about things, Cuban got me thinking about the importance of backing up what I am talking about and thinking. If one can’t but still feels pretty confident about the idea, than at least throw off the statement off of others to canvas other opinions.

Stats

Secondly, that statement about the stats just below my mind away. While it goes without saying that sports teams are dissecting video and situational data to find strengths and weakness of themselves and their opponents, I wasn’t expecting to hear such an emphasis on in-game data analysis. This is especially important for Forex trading or any trading for that matter. Forget about back testing strategies, do we actively review our trade ideas after the fact to see if statistically taking such and such trade in such and such trading environment makes sense.

I personally rely too much on that “gut feeling.” While that gut feeling can be a boon, it’s still worth analyzing. Knowing when I am more prone to making mistakes could be the most important piece of information I have (for that matter, trading when I can’t commit a solid six hours consecutively in front of the screen is my Achilles heel. While I will still trade in those instances, after reviewing my trades and discovering this weakness, it is making me much less likely to trade in that instance).