The most important thing is to have a method for staying with your winners and getting rid of your losers. By having thought out your objective and having a strategy for getting out in case the market trend changes, you greatly increase the potential for staying in your winning positions. The traits of a successful trader: The most important is discipline – I am sure everyone says that. Second, you have to have patience; if you have a good trade on, you have to be able to stay with it. Third, you need courage to go into the market, and courage comes from adequate capitalization. Fourth, you must have a willingness to lose; that is also related to adequate capitalization. Fifth, you need a strong desire to win. You have to have the attitude that if a trade loses, you can handle it without any problem and come back to do the next trade. You can’t let a losing trade get to you emotionally. If a trade doesn’t look right, I get out and take a small loss.
Archives of “attitude” tag
rssThe Secret to Success in Trading
People that are more likely to find success in trading, or any endeavor, tend to be those who take the initiative. Without that belief in your own ability to take action to insure progress, i.e.: initiative, you will never transition from having a vision — hope –to implementation of a plan to achieve that vision – goal. Your belief and confidence need to get stronger with each step toward the goal. This is what will feed your thought process and attitude.
The most difficult part of the journey to successful trading is learning the basics thoroughly. You will know you are on your way when each step starts to get easier.
The real secret is understanding how simple trading is. The hard part is getting out of your own way to get to that point.
Twenty ‘Ifs’ for a Winning Attitude
- If you have the desire, you are halfway there.
- If you do your best, don’t mind the rest.
- If you can’t control the wind, adjust your sail.
- If you are headed in the wrong direction, God allows U-turns.
- If you can imagine it you can achieve it. If you can dream it, you can become it.
- If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.
- If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.
- If you have much, give of your wealth; if you have little, give of your heart.
- If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got.
- If you depend on others to make you happy, you will be endlessly disappointed. (more…)
12 Quotes From ‘Trading In The Zone'
1. Attitude produces better overall results than analysis or technique.
2. Positive winning attitude = expecting a positive result from your efforts, with an acceptance that whatever results you get are a perfect reflection of your level of development and what you need to learn to get better.
3. Winning in any endeavour is mostly a function of attitude.
4. Losing and being wrong are inevitable realities of trading.
5. The market has no responsibility towards the individual trader. Taking responsibility means acknowledging and accepting, at the deepest part of your identity, that you – not the market – are completely responsible for your success or failure as a trader.
6. If you perceive the endless stream of opportunities to enter and exit trades without self-criticism and regret, then you will be in the best frame of mind to act in your own best interest and learn from your experiences.
7. You will need to learn how to adjust your attitudes and beliefs about trading in such a way that you can trade without the slightest bit of fear, but at the same time keep a framework in place that does not allow you to become reckless.
8. Trading is an activity that offers the individual unlimited freedom of creative expression.
9. The unlimited characteristics of the trading environment require that we act with some degree of restraint and self-control, at least if we want to create some measure of consistent success.
10. The hard reality of trading is that, if you want to create consistency, you have to start from the premise that no matter what the outcome, you are completely responsible.
11. One of the principal reasons so many successful people have failed miserably at trading is that their success is partly attributable to their superior ability to manipulate and control the social environment, to respond to what they want. (Unfortunately) the market doesn’t respond to control and manipulation (unless you’re a very large trader).
12. The tools you will use to create this new version of yourself are your willingness and desire to learn, fuelled by your passion to be successful. Successful traders have virtually eliminated the effects of fear and recklessness from their trading.
Psychological
The goal of any trader is to turn profits on a regular basis, yet so few people ever really make consistent money as traders. What accounts for the small percentage of traders who are consistently successful is psychological—the consistent winners think differently from everyone else.
The defining characteristic that separates the consistent winners from everyone else is this: The winners have attained a mind-set—aunique set of attitudes—that allows them to remain disciplined, focused,and, above all, confident in spite of the adverse conditions.
Those traders who have confidence in their own trades, who trust themselves to do what needs to be done without hesitation, are the ones who become successful.They
no longer fear the erratic behavior of the market. They learn to focus on the information that helps them spot opportunities to make a profit, rather than focusing on the information that reinforces their fears.
You don’t need to know what’s going to happen next to make money; anything can happen, and every moment is unique, meaning every edge and outcome is truly a unique experience.
The trader that it’s his attitude and “state of mind” that determine his results.
Winning Qualities of Successful Traders
Discipline is the key factor towards the success of trading/investing. Lack of discipline will result a bigger loses when you hesitate in cutting lost or when you enter a trade too early. Discipline no doubt is the bigger key deciding factor in any kind of field.
You need passion to drive you towards the success that you are hunger. You need the passion to do the boring job yet very rewardable at the end of the trading journey.
Tough time come you need to press it on. Never say quit attitude!!! Most of the Good Trader or Investor will experience a major downfall before they succeed in this business. If they did not fight back again then they will never succeed. Once again tell yourself press it on till you succeed.
Many people including me lack the virtue of patience. Trading and investing require plenty of patience as most of the time we are waiting at the sideline and let the newbies to kill each other. Once the market decide to go in the trend then we as a professional trader and investor will act upon it very fast. Being Patience alone will save you plenty and tons of money.
The more sweat you put in the greater reward you will get. Then again if you are doing the wrong thing every time again and again, this mostly likely tell you that your system of trading is not working and thus you need to change. There are a big different between hardworking and just stubbornly sticking to the failed plan. If the system of yours is CLearly not working after you put in months of efforts then you should just change your strategy.
Last but not least you need to strongly believe that you will be able to take money out of the market consistently. Believe that your Tested system will be able to last as long as the market condition do not change much.
King of Turtle Traders
I’m currently rereading “Complete Turtle Traders“ and if you’re not familiar with the story, I highly recommend this book. There aren’t many books that I reference often and this is one of them due to the psychological insight of trading and it’s impact on your performance. And what you’re going to read below is just a snippet from the first 27 pages of the book.
Richard Dennis is fast becoming one of my trading icons as I learn more about his attitude and methodology on trading and life. Here are a few quotes from the book that will offer some insight into what type of person and trader he was at that time:
His emotional attachment to dollars and cents appeared nonexistent.
He thought in terms of leverage.
You’re much better off going into the market on a shoestring, feeling that you can’t afford to lose.
Reacting to opportunities that others never saw was how he marched through life.
….you had to be able to accept losses both psychologically and physiologically.
I’m an empiricist through and through.
….the majority is wrong a lot of the time. The vast majority is wrong even more of the time.
He was an anti-establishment guy making a fortune leveraging the establishment.
Dennis read Psychology Today to keep his emotions in check and to remind him of how overrated intuition was in trading.
I think it’s far more important to know what Freud thinks about death wishes than what
Milton Friedman thinks about deficit spending.You have to have mentally gone through the process of failure.
He has the ability under tremendous pressure to stand there with his own money and pull the trigger when other people wilted.
When he was wrong, he could turn on a dime.
One man’s volatility is another man’s profit.
SUBJECT: What makes a frustrating market?
I wanted to end with a quote from one of the most famous Turtle Traders of all, Curtis Faith, that very much resonates with my methodology of zentrading. This comes from “Inside the Mind of the Turtles”which is another book I recommend. Do not buy his second book “Way of the Turtle”. It was absolutely horrible and very poorly written. I’m still reading his new book (very promising) and I’ll let you know how that one goes. Anyhow…here’s the quote and pay special attention to the phase in italics and if you found this post especially useful please retweet and share with your networks. I look forward to reading your comments and any particular insight you may have.
Winning traders think in the present and avoid thinking too much in the future. They look at the future as unknowable in specifics, but foreseeable in character. To win you need to free yourself and your thinking of outcome bias. It does not matter what happens with any particular trade.
10 losing trades + sticking to your plan = bad luck.
Winning Attitude
One of the most important tools that a trader possesses is his or her mind. Attitude can either make or break you as a trader.
To become a successful trader it begins with believing in yourself and having a winning attitude.
Everyone wants to be a winner, at least they think so. Unfortunately, most are not willing to perform the tasks necessary to become a consistent winner.
Winners generally achieve success by being focused on a goal. Being focused allows winners to remain committed to the tasks at hand. Most winners perform a lot of hard work, including a willingness to deal with sometimes mundane duties. Most of all, winners perform with an “I am responsible for both my failures and successes” attitude. (more…)
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE CONSISTENT WINNERS AND EVERYONE ELSE
I don’t think I could put the difference between the consistent winners and everyone else more simply than this: The best traders aren’t afraid. They aren’t afraid because they have developed attitudes that give them the greatest degree of mental flexibility to flow in and out of trades based on what the market is telling them about the possibilities from its perspective. At the same time, the best traders have developed attitudes that prevent them from getting reckless. Everyone else is afraid, to some degree or another. When they’re not afraid, they have the tendency to become reckless and to create the kind of experience for themselves that will cause them to be afraid from that point on
This should be your attitude towards trading… If not, you're either gambling or chasing.
