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10 Trading Lessons

  1. Trading affects psychology as much as psychology affects trading.
  2. Emotional disruption is present even among the most successful traders.
  3. Winning disrupts the trader’s emotions as much as losing.
  4. Size kills.
  5. Training is the path to expertise.
  6. Successful traders possess rich mental maps.
  7. Markets change.
  8. Even the best traders have periods of drawdown.
  9. The market you’re in counts as much toward performance as your trading method.
  10. Execution and trade management count.

10 Lessons for Traders

1. Trading affects psychology as much as psychology affects trading – This was really the motivating factor behind my writing the new book. Many traders experience stress and frustration because they are trading poorly and lack a true edge in the marketplace. Working on your emotions will be of limited help if you are putting your money at risk and don’t truly have an edge.

2. Emotional disruption is present even among the most successful traders – A trading method that produces 60% winners will experience four consecutive losses 2-3% of the time and as much time in flat performance as in an uptrending P/L curve. Strings of events (including losers) occur more often by chance than traders are prepared for.

3. Winning disrupts the trader’s emotions as much as losing – We are disrupted when we experience events outside our expectation. The method that is 60% accurate will experience four consecutive winners about 13% of the time. Traders are just as susceptible to overconfidence during profitable runs as underconfidence during strings of losers.

4. Size kills – The surest path toward emotional damage is to trade size that is too large for one’s portfolio. We experience P/L in relation to our portfolio value. When we trade too large, we create exaggerated swings of winning and losing, which in turn create exaggerated emotional swings. (more…)