What are the things that a trader shoud not do under any circumstances.
community, teach me how to trade.
- Thread starter ashantt
- Start date
A trader under no circumstance should ever lose too big on a single trade. That is one cardinal rule that will keep you around. The trader should always remember one trade is a statistical anomaly and he should just continue to plug away taking the best probability trades according to his system.
That is it, that's why everyone that trades successfully mentions it.
Trade small, take your setup over and over when it presents itself and don't ever lose your head. That is the holy grail. You go and try to make that one life changing trade when your account is not able to handle it and you are in the dog house.
Great questions.
For some reason I thought my personality suited day trading. I did not want to hold positions overnight, although in the beginning I bought stocks and randomly held them for a couple days before I puked for a loss - had no clue what I was doing. But once I discovered futures, I knew I would day trade them and also because I read a lot of successful traders who day traded futures and I followed down that path.
The learning process was f***ing murder. If I told you how much I lost overall you'd fall from your chair. Not to mention the psychological damage and the emotional pain. My goodness I would not wish this journey on my worst enemy.
Over the 13 years I have learned what it takes to be a profitable trader. These traits are - as I mentioned above in my previous answers - having a system that you built yourself which consists of a setup and rules, being able to execute over and over when the setup appears, understanding probability and the uncertain nature of the markets and never losing your head because your system is losing money - which is different from YOU the trader losing money. When the TRADER loses money outside of his system then you are not trading but revenge trading or gambling.
I don't think there is a way to speed up the learning curve at least not that I know of. Your mind has to graduate from one level to another but once you learn how to trade you will realize you simple it always was.
And this is what I mean. Have a system that you built yourself that you trust. Take that setup over and over when it appears, nothing else and don't do dumb s**t like revenge trading or trying to make your money back. Also read Trading in the Zone by Mark Douglas that book changed my life.
Words of wisdom, congrats.
I was hoping you could speed it up by telling us the mistakes that you made and how you managed to correct them.
Every one says to learn from your mistakes but no one gives examples of how they did it.