Characteristics of a Successful Trader

TSGannGalt,

You have added three (worthless, immature and insulting) posts to this thread. In the future, please choose to contribute (what do <b>you</b> think are the characteristics of a successful trader?), or refrain from posting on this thread. Try to add some value for a change (even if that means taking a step back from the keyboard).

Thanks,
The OP
 
Quote from Cutten:

1. Successful traders usually have good pattern recognition skills.

2. Successful traders are paranoid about taking unbounded risks. This is the most important factor in trading. If you trade all your life, and lack this trait, you will probably become penniless at some point. This factor is what ruins many otherwise talented traders.

3. Successful traders must also be able to pull the trigger. If you aren't comfortable taking (limited) risks, and thus hesitate before putting $$$ on the line, you may eke out a living but you are very unlikely to become truly successful.

4. Successful traders have at least one profitable market strategy/edge/pattern.

I disagree that successful traders are always tightwads. Being a tightwad makes it easier to accumulate cash through saving, but saving is not trading. A guy who makes 7 figures trading per year and spends it all is a successful *trader* - he just isn't a successful saver.
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Excellent comments about taking unbounded risks. Many of the successful traders I know, for example, have read the LTCM book many, many times as a reminder. Paranoid is an excellent adjective to describe their fear of accepting even very small risks of a blow out.

Regarding the tightwad issue... I agree that successful traders don't need to be tightwads. But, I think <i>developing</i> traders that are tightwads put them in a much better position to succeed, and as a result, a large fraction of successful traders have that characteristic. Put another way, many of the free spending <i>developing</i> traders will not survive the learning curve. In addition, the more frugal traders will more quickly reach higher income levels (7 figures per year, or 8 figures per year), as their capital will compound more quickly, versus being spent.
 
Quote from EricP:

TSGannGalt,

You have contributed three (worthless, immature and insulting) posts to this thread. In the future, please choose to contribute (what do <b>you</b> think are the characteristics of a successful trader?), or refrain from posting on this thread. Try to add some value, for a change (even if that means taking a step back from the keyboard).

Thanks,
The OP
More...

I've actually be pretty serious with what I post. I guess you just can't look past the nuance of my poor English. Well, that make 2 shallow people, you (who judges something by the impression, not the content) and me (who's a worthless, immature and insulting kid).

Anyways, a serious reply would be...

A person who doesn't think about all the psychology stuff. We're all human, we all have good days and a bad day. Markets don't care. Just because your close friend passed away, it doesn't make anything up for the losses you made.

Once a person gets over-sensitive, it obsesses their mind. Look at a hysterical chick getting all pissed off about how you never close the toilet cover or other stupid shit. Yes... I'm calling you a hysterical chick. You get obsessed with a stupid thing and lose focus. As you think about the close friend who passed away, distracting you from trading.

My driving example. When you first drive, you're all nervous. You keep on obsessing about the rules, being scared and the rest of the useless that has nothing to do with driving. As a result your perpetual vision is narrowed down. As you get used to it, you're more relaxed and your vision is more broad and perceive things flexibly.

Is what I'm writing about psychology? Yes, it actually is. But the true value about psychology is when you don't give a crap about it. Psychology works best when you don't think about it.

I can go on about this but I'll end it here...

Hope you understand shallow moron... or are you going to take this last sentence, get offended, obsess, and lose focus of what I wrote above?

Eric, I'm very sure that you're a newbie or a wanna-be trader. You just seem to act on what "feels" right , losing focus of the rest of the stuff. "Psychologically", it's interesting how you started this thread...

What made you start this thread? Are you actually re-assuring yourself of who you "have to be" or "want to be"?
 
<i>"I guess you just can't look past the nuance of my poor English. Well, that make 2 shallow people, you (who judges something by the impression, not the content) and me (who's a worthless, immature and insulting kid)...."</i>

Actually, we just consider the source. Fact that EricP made more money in his single best day this year than you ever have and ever will in your entire career pretty much sums it all up on what needs to be looked past.
 
Quote from austinp:

<i>"I guess you just can't look past the nuance of my poor English. Well, that make 2 shallow people, you (who judges something by the impression, not the content) and me (who's a worthless, immature and insulting kid)...."</i>

Actually, we just consider the source. Fact that EricP made more money in his single best day this year than you ever have and ever will in your entire career pretty much sums it all up on what needs to be looked past.
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Being humble and no joke, I doubt it. I've made more than "most" of the guys in ET. But do we really have to get into a bragging session? I really don't think so. I've wrote this a few times but I've been trading in a different environment from most people.

Anyways...

Eric, READ the CONTENT and reply what ever you like.
 
im glad austin got to that point before I did.

Quote from austinp:

<i>"I guess you just can't look past the nuance of my poor English. Well, that make 2 shallow people, you (who judges something by the impression, not the content) and me (who's a worthless, immature and insulting kid)...."</i>

Actually, we just consider the source. Fact that EricP made more money in his single best day this year than you ever have and ever will in your entire career pretty much sums it all up on what needs to be looked past.
More...
 
Quote from TSGannGalt:

Hope you understand shallow moron... or are you going to take this last sentence, get offended, obsess, and lose focus of what I wrote above?

Eric, I'm very sure that you're a newbie or a wanna-be trader. You just seem to act on what "feels" right , losing focus of the rest of the stuff. "Psychologically", it's interesting how you started this thread...
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This is the equivalent of bumping into Tiger Woods at a bar, calling him an idiot and telling him he's probably never played golf.
 
honestly man im totally happy you made it without having to work on your mind. not everyone is the same. this thread is to help one another and thus people add the things they feel revelant to help each other.

I for one know that your mental game is more than 95 percent of your entire game once you get to a certain point. after I had moderate success I tried to recruit friends to trading to share my success with them. it never really worked. but what did work was taking aspects of my mental game and transferring them to other tasks. I now have a friend who is a professional pool player and another who is a professional poker player.
 
Quote from austinp:

<i>"I guess you just can't look past the nuance of my poor English. Well, that make 2 shallow people, you (who judges something by the impression, not the content) and me (who's a worthless, immature and insulting kid)...."</i>

Actually, we just consider the source. Fact that EricP made more money in his single best day this year than you ever have and ever will in your entire career pretty much sums it all up on what needs to be looked past.
More...

I agree -- Eric is a trader who's been quite successful. In the past I often posted on his Daytrading thread over on SI. Fortunately there we rarely had immature nonsensical posts that were non-value added.

Why there are so many people on ET who seem to have nothing better to do that attempt to ruin decent threads is beyond me. Hopefully this guy will get the hint and go away.
 
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