Quote from Girlpower:
"I am thinking of starting to trade ES (insert any instrument's you like here), and have $x available to do this. What kind of average daily return can I expect to achieve?"
And so there answer comes out one way or another.
Now the question I am posing is this.
Suppose you answered this question by saying that the long term average daily return is (unsing the ES model 0.5 points perday, and that adds up to a lot of money over a long time. This is in itself a good and valid answer.
They then go away and work hard and reach the level where they consistently make 10 point profit over 20 trading days. They are achieving success, and are profitable.
Would those traders who have started out with the blief that 10 points made every 20 trading days, and worked everything out so this is a successful winning formula for them then simply increase size to increase the $ return and so be more successful in the belief that they are now achieving the nrom for successful traders?
Suppose that instead of .5 points perday or 10 points per month (ish) they were told 2 points per day or 40 points per month. Would they continue to refine and develope systems to achieve those levels and then increase size accordingly to create more returns?
How about 4 points per day or 80 points per month?
At each of those levels would they try to increase the monthly points return as well as size or just merely the size in the belief that they are on the pace with the points return?
Would it be difficult for them to get past the belief that (taking the 2 point example) 2 pts pd 40 pm is the level to achieve? or would they be able to automatically shift to working on ways to double the points return on the same capital usage?
How much will percaption have played a part in where they draw the line having started without prior knowledge of what can be achieved?
Even the highest number in those examples above. would they also be come a stopping point?
Just more to add into the mix of limiting/non limiting beliefs and to discuss.
Okay, let's discuss that.
I look at this issue quite differently to you.
Here's the question you suggest the enterprising newbie asks:
""I am thinking of starting to trade ES
(insert any instrument's you like here), and have $x available to do this. What kind of average daily return can I
expect to achieve?"
If we're to be honest, the reasonable answer to that question is that, good sir, you can
expect to achieve the glorious result of losing the following: your entire trading capital, any notion of a good night's sleep, 30lb weight, your friends, your wife.
(Ok, going a bit far, but you get the point.)
Now, the way you've chosen to answer that question is the answer that I would give to "what do the most successful ES traders make?".
Although, I disagree with you on just how much of a delimiting factor your answer would be on the prospective trader's mindset. You seem to be suggesting that simply because you answered "1pt a day", that this person will simply then, as a result, go ahead and realize the long run result of 1pt a day. Or that if you had, instead, told him 4pt/day, he would then go ahead and realize that.
I don't think it follows at all that simply because you told someone he can expect Xpts/day that he will actually be able to do it. In reality, the most likely result will be that he will lose all his money. So, what you're really talking about is the effect that the answer to what he can "expect" to achieve affects and limits the
successful trader. But even there, once a person has actually become successful, he would have a far better idea about what he considers possible for the future than what someone once told him before he began trading. So the whole direction of this questioning, I think, is simply too far removed from reality.
With respect to successful trading results, I'd like to reiterate on a point made by Candle.
What myself and Alfonso are getting at is that we don't 'expect' anything in particular, per se, from the market, so there are no mental ceilings on daily performance...
That's really far more representative of what goes on in the mind of a trader, I think. (Not what goes on in the mind of a
prospective trader -- that's something else entirely.) But for a trader, it's the current trade, the current day, the present time, that is the focus of attention. It's about trying to extract from the market all that you can using all that you know about price action, risk, reward, money management, etc.
It's not about "expecting" anything from the market, it's about taking what's available according to your best understanding of what is occurring.
I can understand that if one believes that a long run average of 2pt/day is the best that one can expect, and when you review your performance, you find you've been averaging 3pt/day for the past year, that then, yes, pyschologically, subconcsiously, certain behaviors may emerge that begin degrading trading performance.
However, I'm not speaking about Candle here, but I am inclined to believe he thinks the same as me about this, the belief that 2pt/day is all that is possible is not really THAT much of an iron-clad belief that our world would be absolutely rocked if we found either ourselves or someone else achieving better than that. Far from it. Really,
it's just an expression of opinion about what constitutes good trading. Calling it a "limiting belief" gives it far too much significance than it deserves.
EDIT
A couple of other points.
I believe a lot of the newer traders take offence at 1.5pt/day because it runs against the BIG DREAMS they had about trading, probably influenced by whichever YourTradingDreamsComeTrue.Com chat room they joined.
And with respect to "limiting beliefs" in general, I think expressing an opinion that 1.5pt/day is crackerjack trading is quite different to a "limiting belief" that no way, under no circumstances can a man run a mile in under 4 minutes.
The four minute mile is a one time event; you run it, time it and you either did it or didn't. The limiting belief bears direct relationship to the event at hand.
The 1.5pt/day is
indirect. It is the cumulative result of many, many individual events -- trades. So if the "limiting belief" does not affect the individual trades, then, as I said earlier, its effect on the long run average is either non-existant, or so insignificant, that there is little point at all in calling the 'belief' of "1.5pt/day is a great trading performance" a "limiting belief".
