Hence why I thought undertaking the 20 Trade exercise live whilst minimising the potential loss.
Trading plans invariably become egocentric. A few traders get past that and move on to a different level, but most of those who begin the process of developing a trading plan do not (most traders, of course, don't begin at all). Because the process is egocentric, the chief concerns are where do I enter, where do I exit, what should my target be, what should my stop be, how much risk can I tolerate, and so on. The character of the market itself is a secondary issue at best. What is paramount is how the market can serve the ego rather than the other way around.
The market couldn't care less about the trader's entries and exits and stops. The market couldn't care less about what the trader wants. The market couldn't care less about the trader's personality. The market functions in a certain way. It has a certain structure. If a trader is to be truly successful, i.e., more than just "getting by", he must understand these functions and this structure, neither of which have anything whatsoever to do with him.
One begins, of course, again, by observing the market, characterizing it, then formulating hypotheses that tentatively explain its movements. One then tests those hypotheses in order to determine whether or not they are true, i.e., predictable and reliable. Only after all this do the matters of how to take advantage of what one has determined come into the picture, i.e., entrances, exits, stops, etc. It is at this point that the process becomes almost entirely egocentric, e.g., how much risk can I tolerate, and the market itself becomes largely ignored except insofar as it serves the trader's needs and wants. But the market couldn't care less about the trader's needs and wants. And this results in a perpetual frustration among those who focus on themselves rather than on the behavior of price (which is the aggregate of the behaviors of everyone who is participating in the market). If, for example, the trader is focused not only on breakeven but on getting to breakeven as quickly as possible, he is focusing not on the market but on himself. One of the more obvious consequences of this, particularly if the trader is "stopped out", is that the trader dwells or even obsesses over his "failed trade" and completely ignores what the market has told him by having come back to or exceeded his entry point, thus preventing him from evaluating the situation and preparing for the next trade, especially if it happens to be in the opposite direction.
I suggest, therefore, that those who are serious about developing trading plans focus on the market and on price behavior rather than on themselves, unless they want to spend years trying to reconcile two forces which are in many ways mutually incompatible. If one enters correctly, for example, issues of stops and breakeven and size and "targets" become irrelevant. If one doesn't enter correctly, then of course he has to exit. But his doing so has nothing to do with his hopes and needs and wants and desires. Rather it has to do with the fact that he read the market incorrectly. One should, in fact, once he has entered a trade, forget about the fact that he entered the trade at all and instead focus on the market. Only in this way will he become "available" to profit from what the market has to offer.
Nearly all traders except for beginners are in a quandary: they are eager to trade yet are afraid to trade. Thus they seek to exploit the market while simultaneously insulating themselves from any negative consequences of attempting to do so. That's what the bulk of these millions of posts here and elsewhere are all about. Only an infinitesimally small number of them are focused on why price moves as it does. Which is why there are so many millions (billions?) of posts.
