What Kind of Person is Best Suited to Trading?

Great traders have a few personality traits that do give them a natural advantage.  That’s not to say you can’t succeed without them, just that it’ll be an uphill battle and a greater degree of reflection and self-correction will be required.  The trader with the best chance of success will be –

Independent.  Being happy with a good deal of autonomy will allow you to confidently execute your plan without needing 25 people to concur with your analysis.  Trading is a solitary game, and you need to be able to thrive on your own, to a large extent.  Support is great but when it comes down to it, it’s all up to you.

Decisive.  If you take hours to do something simple like choose a burger off a menu, the odds of you being able to see a trade set-up and coolly pull the trigger are greatly diminished.  Especially if you trade short time-frames that can be the difference between success and failure.

Insightful.  If a trader can honestly look at their skills, motivations and short-comings and actively work to rectify them, they have the tools to over-come nearly anything the market throws their way.

Resilient and Optimistic.  These pretty much go hand in hand.  Being optimistic gives you a better chance of being resilient, and being resilient is a pre-requisite when it comes to success in the markets.  If you generally tend to give up at the first hurdle, trading is not for you.

Adaptable and Flexible.  If you struggle with change, you’re going to struggle in a market environment because the markets are characterised by change.  It’s will stress you out no end because just when you’ve finally made some sense of things, the market will shift and you’ll have to adapt all over again.

So if you’re really struggling as a trader and don’t possess any of these traits naturally, you will have a rough time making a go of it.  You might have a decision to make – do you give in gracefully now, recognising that trading isn’t ideally suited to your skill set and move on?  Let’s face it, people drop out of college or university all the time once they realise they’ve chosen the wrong course.

Or will you wait and persist in the hope of success, and risk struggling on and on until the market forces you to quit?