oilfxpro
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Undaunted Cowardice - GoldSeek.com
CRB Trader Archive
Bill Lipschultz | TurtleTrader
CRB Trader Archive
artnet.com Magazine Features - The Perfect Home
"1998: Volume 7, No. 3
The Mind of a Trader: The Most Profitable Trading Tool of All
By Alpesh B. Patel
"You made how much?" I screamed down the phone to the calm voice on the other side of the Atlantic. Tapping away at my calculator, I continued in disbelief, "but that means you earned for Salomon Brothers an average of $250,000 each and every single trading day for eight years!" I resisted the urge to faint, or swear.
I had spoken to many successful traders, but the conversation with Bill Lipschutz, with whom I had had the above conversation, former global head of foreign exchange and managing director at Salomon Brothers, stuck in my mind for the size of his trading successes.
This was my point of arrival, after having spoken and interviewed, even cross-examined and interrogated, the world's leading traders. The original quest was to find what, if anything, they had in common despite their differences. I did not want the trite and over-used "cut your losses short, set stop-losses, etc., etc." type of insight. Traders know to cut their losses short, they want to know they are cutting it short and not cutting a potential profit short. Too often the trite rule has missed the real difficult issue.
Nor did I want advice which only the professional trader could use or understand. I wanted to discover something for professional and private traders alike. I wanted to rip out and hold in my hand for close inspection the very heart of trading success.
Any conclusions would be irresistibly and irrefutably strong (as well as hopefully being insightful and original ) because it would relate to trading itself, not just one product, or technique or tool or country. I was not disappointed.
The common element that linked them all, and separated them from their less successful colleagues was their frame of mind; their attitudes to trading, to losses, to open positions, to profits, to success and failure. Indeed, they redefined success and failure itself. Their perspective was unlike that exhibited by any less successful traders. They had a way of viewing trading such that if you were to force them to trade according to a particular system, they would still be more profitable than their colleagues using the same system. They added a value to any potentially profitable trading technique and tool to turn it into a superior profit maker.
A list of the main traits these leading traders exemplified follows:
Opportunity Knocks the Door Down
Since kindergarten each of us is taught to grab opportunities for they do not knock twice. It is precisely that type of advice, which is so useful in other walks of life, but detrimental in trading.
Many traders, armed with their trading plan or strategy, will often hastily and prematurely enter a trade. Their decision is often driven by fear; the fear of the missed opportunity. Their mind will be screaming, "quick get on the trade, you're going to miss it, so what if all your criteria for entering a trade have not been met? Most of them have, so get on the trade. The big traders wouldn't hang around."
The inevitable result is that the trade will not be profitable or as profitable as it would have been had the trader waited for the precise moment to strike.
In trading, the fear of the missed opportunity leads to many avoidable losses. And the game of trading is as much about avoiding losses as about capturing profits. The leading traders have a different perspective on opportunity. Counter-intuitively they know opportunity knocks once, twice and then kicks the door down. They know that if this trade does not feel absolutely perfect, there will be another one along in a short while. That knowledge alleviates and over-rides any fear. That knowledge is the key to unlocking greater profits by waiting for all the trade entry criteria to be met and not cutting corners.
Bill Lipschutz summed it up when he said, "Out of 250 trades in a year, it comes down to five, three of those will be wrong and you will lose a fortune and two will be right and you will make a fortune; for the other 245 trades-you should have been sitting on your hands."
OILFXPRO
Undaunted Cowardice - GoldSeek.com
CRB Trader Archive
Bill Lipschultz | TurtleTrader
CRB Trader Archive
artnet.com Magazine Features - The Perfect Home
"1998: Volume 7, No. 3
The Mind of a Trader: The Most Profitable Trading Tool of All
By Alpesh B. Patel
"You made how much?" I screamed down the phone to the calm voice on the other side of the Atlantic. Tapping away at my calculator, I continued in disbelief, "but that means you earned for Salomon Brothers an average of $250,000 each and every single trading day for eight years!" I resisted the urge to faint, or swear.
I had spoken to many successful traders, but the conversation with Bill Lipschutz, with whom I had had the above conversation, former global head of foreign exchange and managing director at Salomon Brothers, stuck in my mind for the size of his trading successes.
This was my point of arrival, after having spoken and interviewed, even cross-examined and interrogated, the world's leading traders. The original quest was to find what, if anything, they had in common despite their differences. I did not want the trite and over-used "cut your losses short, set stop-losses, etc., etc." type of insight. Traders know to cut their losses short, they want to know they are cutting it short and not cutting a potential profit short. Too often the trite rule has missed the real difficult issue.
Nor did I want advice which only the professional trader could use or understand. I wanted to discover something for professional and private traders alike. I wanted to rip out and hold in my hand for close inspection the very heart of trading success.
Any conclusions would be irresistibly and irrefutably strong (as well as hopefully being insightful and original ) because it would relate to trading itself, not just one product, or technique or tool or country. I was not disappointed.
The common element that linked them all, and separated them from their less successful colleagues was their frame of mind; their attitudes to trading, to losses, to open positions, to profits, to success and failure. Indeed, they redefined success and failure itself. Their perspective was unlike that exhibited by any less successful traders. They had a way of viewing trading such that if you were to force them to trade according to a particular system, they would still be more profitable than their colleagues using the same system. They added a value to any potentially profitable trading technique and tool to turn it into a superior profit maker.
A list of the main traits these leading traders exemplified follows:
Opportunity Knocks the Door Down
Since kindergarten each of us is taught to grab opportunities for they do not knock twice. It is precisely that type of advice, which is so useful in other walks of life, but detrimental in trading.
Many traders, armed with their trading plan or strategy, will often hastily and prematurely enter a trade. Their decision is often driven by fear; the fear of the missed opportunity. Their mind will be screaming, "quick get on the trade, you're going to miss it, so what if all your criteria for entering a trade have not been met? Most of them have, so get on the trade. The big traders wouldn't hang around."
The inevitable result is that the trade will not be profitable or as profitable as it would have been had the trader waited for the precise moment to strike.
In trading, the fear of the missed opportunity leads to many avoidable losses. And the game of trading is as much about avoiding losses as about capturing profits. The leading traders have a different perspective on opportunity. Counter-intuitively they know opportunity knocks once, twice and then kicks the door down. They know that if this trade does not feel absolutely perfect, there will be another one along in a short while. That knowledge alleviates and over-rides any fear. That knowledge is the key to unlocking greater profits by waiting for all the trade entry criteria to be met and not cutting corners.
Bill Lipschutz summed it up when he said, "Out of 250 trades in a year, it comes down to five, three of those will be wrong and you will lose a fortune and two will be right and you will make a fortune; for the other 245 trades-you should have been sitting on your hands."
OILFXPRO
