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How good is your WHY?

I’ve been taking a minor natural break in trading over recent weeks, and in the meantime I’ve been pondering the power of the “WHY” I have when entering trades. You need a good why, no matter what you are doing in life, but especially when you walk into one of the toughest and most volatile markets in the world and put your money on the line.

What’s your WHY?

I can see looking back that the vast majority of my trading had a feeble why behind them; no wonder I lost cash hand over fist. Really my reason for entering was that I just wanted to enter, thats all. The second problem most likely is that even when I THOUGHT I had a good reason, the idea behind it was faulty.

So you can have no reason to enter, or you can have a wrong reason to enter.

Also I notice on the forums that the VAST MAJORITY of newbie / semi newbie traders there are trying to formulate their own personal why. Their own UNIQUE system, inventing unique indicators.

They think that the idea of the game is to outsmart everyone else in the market; to be unique. The obsession with system creation or inventing new indicators has being unique and outsmarting everyone else behind it as a hidden motivation. The thing with markets though is that its not about you, its about consensus. If you invent your own amazing oscillator and you are the only person in the world looking at it, then how good a reason is this to enter the market? How much consensus do you have behind you? Who supports your decision? Who agrees with you?

Probably nobody, except a handful by pure chance.

There’s more to say on this, but ponder your WHY when you pull the trigger. How good is that why?

How good is your WHY?

I’ve been taking a minor natural break in trading over recent weeks, and in the meantime I’ve been pondering the power of the “WHY” I have when entering trades. You need a good why, no matter what you are doing in life, but especially when you walk into one of the toughest and most volatile markets in the world and put your money on the line.

What’s your WHY?

I can see looking back that the vast majority of my trading had a feeble why behind them; no wonder I lost cash hand over fist. Really my reason for entering was that I just wanted to enter, thats all. The second problem most likely is that even when I THOUGHT I had a good reason, the idea behind it was faulty.

So you can have no reason to enter, or you can have a wrong reason to enter.

Also I notice on the forums that the VAST MAJORITY of newbie / semi newbie traders there are trying to formulate their own personal why. Their own UNIQUE system, inventing unique indicators.

They think that the idea of the game is to outsmart everyone else in the market; to be unique. The obsession with system creation or inventing new indicators has being unique and outsmarting everyone else behind it as a hidden motivation. The thing with markets though is that its not about you, its about consensus. If you invent your own amazing oscillator and you are the only person in the world looking at it, then how good a reason is this to enter the market? How much consensus do you have behind you? Who supports your decision? Who agrees with you?

Probably nobody, except a handful by pure chance. (more…)