One cold winter morning a young man walks five miles through the snow. He knocks on the Jademaster's door. The Jademaster answers with a broom in his hand.
"I want to learn about Jade."
"Very well then, come in out of the cold."
They sit by the fire sipping hot green tea. The Jademaster presses a green stone deeply into the young man's hand and begins to talk about tree frogs. After a few minutes, the young man interrupts.
"Excuse me, I am here to learn about Jade, not tree frogs."
The Jademaster takes the stone and tells the young man to go home and return in a week. The following week the young man returns. The Jademaster presses another green stone into the young man's hand and continues the story. Again, the young man interrupts. Again, the Jademaster sends him home. Weeks pass. The young man interrupts less and less. The young man also learns to brew the hot green tea, clean up the kitchen and sweep the floors. Spring comes.
One day, the young man observes, "The stone I hold is not genuine Jade."
* * *
I lean back in my chair, savoring the story. My student interrupts.
"OK. OK. That's a great story. I don't see what it has to do with making money. I come to you to find out about the markets. I want to learn about the bulls and the bears, commodities, stocks, bonds, calls and options. I want to make big money. You tell me a fable about Jade. What is this? You ..."
"That's all for now. Leave those price charts on the table. Come back next week."
Months pass. My student interrupts less and less as I continue the story of The Trader's Window.
- from The Trader's Window, by Ed Seykota
[start of notes]
Original source: The prologue (pages xv-xvi) of this book:
The New Market Wizards
Conversations with America's Top Traders
Jack D. Schwager
Published in 1992 by HarperBusiness in New York.
Transcribed from a paperback copy in my possession.
Changes from the original text:
- The initial "O" in the first word "One" was much larger than normal in the original text. This is a commonly-used style at the start of a chapter or section.
- I have removed word-breaking hyphens.
- I have not preserved page divisions or page numbers.
- I have replaced the original indentation at the start of each paragraph with an empty line after each paragraph.
- The reference "- from The Trader's Window, by Ed Seykota" was originally aligned to the right of the page. Also, I have replaced the em-dash with a hyphen and a space ("- ") and the newline with the word "by".
[end of notes]