You know Dr. Alexander Elder wasn't too far off when he compared losing traders to alcoholics.
Hi my name is R2R and I am a loser. I have it in me to do serious damage to my account. I've done it before. My only goal today is to follow my trading plan and not suffer a meltdown.
Weakness: trying to anticipate the direction of a breakout during a consolidation, moving my stop too close after the breakout doesn't materialise, getting stopped out and then watching a 100+ pip move in the direction I originally anticipated. Feeling frustrated and wanting to break the monitor
Solution: set and forget orders where the breakout will be confirmed - letting the market come to me instead of 2nd guessing. Laughing at how emotional I can feel over prices bouncing up and down on a screen. Expecting each trade to be a small loss but knowing that 1 will turn out to be a big winner. Knowing that there is always another opportunity in the market if I am patient.
Regularly re-reading useful advice I have encountered such as the following:
Quote:
Originally Posted by forexbee i have been in a mentality that everyday i should be in trade (though its learning process demo trading), if i didnt get a trade then i feel that iam not worth to do trading
trader_dante
Veteran Member
Many traders, including me, have thought like this. And almost all of them end up losing money.
Your reason of not feeling worthwhile is likely down to the fact that society has taught us that unless we are extremely fortunate, we are rewarded for how hard we work.
For most of us it is a natural thought process to connect hard work with time spent working.
A new trader takes this attitude into the marketplace.
It seems fairly logical - A trader makes his money being IN the market. Therefore the more I trade, the more time I am in the market and the more chance I have of making money.
HOWEVER, this thinking is, in most cases, fundamentally flawed.
Traders don't work for a living. They take risk. There is a subtle but very important difference.
For most traders, the WORK we put in is in the time we are NOT trading. In the time we spend studying the markets past movements to gain an edge, reading up on the market to improve our understanding, analysing any trades we may have taken, constantly thinking about how to improve ourselves.
When we ARE trading, the WORK we will do is WATCHING and WAITING. CONCENTRATING and being PATIENT.
Actually entering the market by buying or selling is the reward for the work we have done.
JUST LIKE those that work in almost every other career (for example an IT technician gets paid by the company he works for) we make our money from other people when we trade (the party that assumes our risk by taking the other side of our trade).
BUT UNLIKE those that work in almost every other career, we risk something.
As traders, we bring more to the table than your average worker who brings a skill to a job that enables him to do the job.
In addition to our skill we also bring our capital. And for most of us that is our hard earned money.
If a skilled worker loses his job (unless it is due to something like an injury) he STILL has his skill but NOT his income. Anotherwords, he STILL has a means of making money but has to find another job.
If a trader loses his capital, he loses his MEANS of making money.
