What role does strategy play in trading?Sunzi begins by establishing the importance of strategy. Although the word bing has been translated as "war" in most works in the west, once you approach the original Chinese manuscripts and the sense of Sunzi's work, you immediately come to understand that he was not talking about warefare, instead, Sunzi wants us to appreciate how important it is to develop strategic skills to avoid our own destruction when competing.
Of course trading is man-made, but competition is a natural process. We are all the products of evolutionary competition, however, the true skill in competition—that is, an understanding of strategy—is not inborn. For most of us, competition creates problems, but only in the sense that if we don’t understand strategy, life is unnecessarily difficult. We earn our livelihood, love, and everything else through strategy.
When we say that skill in strategy is important in our lives, we are saying specifically that strategy is a skill. It isn’t inborn any more than the knowledge of mathematics is inborn. We must learn strategic skills. We develop these skills by working at them. Some people are more comfortable competing than others are, but to become successful at any level of competition we all have to work.
Competition in trading brings out the best in us. It enriches the world in which we live. It replaces less effective methods with more effective methods. The trading world competes for every single dollar. In doing so, traders constantly improve their operational choices and decrease the costs of their operation. Competition eliminates poorly developed traders and and leaves only the best in each category.
So, do you really have what this vast compettition arena requires?
