Have you ever noticed that in television cop dramas one detective always tastes the evidence?

Most of the time it is drugs. “Checks out for heroin Jack, let’s cuff him.”

Last week on an old Law and Order episode, one detective was checking a boat where a few victims accidently drowned. He scraped some stuff off the bottom of the boat and tasted it. “Ah ha partner. This is cake batter mixed with glue. They knew the water would dissolve the glue and the boat would sink when it was too far from shore for those people to swim back in the frigid waters. This was no accident. We have a murder!”

Ooooh! Cool!

But wait. When did that detective last taste cake and glue? Momma’s favorite holiday recipe? The Suffolk Police Academy never made me eat cake and glue.

We take it for granted that the TV cop is well experienced. They can substitute experience for normal CSI lab procedures. Amazing.

It may be drama on television, but trading is a bit like that.

We take trading setups. These setups are developed from other traders and are profitable OVER TIME. Just not every time.

In the beginning you take the trades every time it happens. As you develop experience you sometimes overrule the mathematics, and subsidize with experience. But beware, you have to master the basics before you can be skilled enough to accomplish this balance.

A skilled elementary school teacher knows that most often, she can explain a lesson the same way and the students will comprehend the topic. She was taught a setup for teaching this particular a lesson and follows it to a “t”. However, when she then recognizes that 1 or some of her students aren’t getting it, she must adjust. From her years of experience, she adjusts and uses an alternative method to fit the situation and meet the needs of all of her students. Adaptation = success. If she were to continue to keep using the same approach over and over again, she would lose her students- her inability to adapt to such a change could prove disastrous.

Conclusion. A trader must know their trading system well and be dedicated to it; but you must also be able to adapt. You have know how to meld experience & common sense and implement it when necessary. Don’t be a TV cop. There is a fine balance between trading robot-like and subsidizing good old experience in our trading systems.