The biggest advantage of trading

J

Jzwu2017

I was watching a TV discussion about Olympic competitions suddenly I realized that a big advantage of trading is that you can control the pace of trading, namely you can stop trading anytime. That’s if you are trained for it.

This unique trading characteristic doesn’t exist in any other competitive activity. When you’re in a tennis tournament for example, you have to stick to the game even when you’re on a losing streak until the end of the match. You either recover from the losing or not while still in the competition 100%.

In trading, on the other hand, you can stop it anytime, anywhere and for whatever reason or no reason at all. Unfortunately, many amateur traders do the opposite when they are losing. They keep trading more and often bigger when losing, digging themselves into a deeper hole. That’s human emotion at its worst. If you can overcome it you will be in a different league to take advantage of this beneficial trading characteristic.
 
Trading is NOT A COMPETITION!

You are the player AND the opponent.
CHOICES (when, where, how, why) as a (funded)trader are not based on others.
Perception and interpretation of (real-time) activity is either aligned, counter, or misaligned.

A GOAL to earn $1/net or magnitudes of $1/net within a specified or unspecified period of time are EXACTLY the same thing...
Not achieving a goal is not the same as "losing" a competition.
In fact, it is opposite. A goal that does not challenge is not a goal at all. It is stagnation.

If you want to be persnickety, rules and regs associated with a given trading vehicle/instrument
have an effect on choices. For instance, today is MLK day in the US. Certain venues
have abbreviated trading sessions or are closed. Trader can CHOOSE alternate trading
vehicles/instruments if/as available. Profit, loss or no change are outcomes of a CHOICE to take a trade, or not.
Maintaining a "trading is a competition" stance IMO,
is a blame game for misunderstood and-or unrecognized personal traits and beliefs.

The "biggest" advantages of trading as a profession are time freedom and self-reliance. YMMV
 
You should watch "The Big Short"...

You see two types of traders...Be the Dr. Michael Burry and Brad Pitt's character. Do not be those wired up guys.

Get some perspective...Close positions. Stop and smell the roses, go for a walk/bike ride.

Reevaluate and move on to the next trades...
 
Jzwu2017 said:
I was watching a TV discussion about Olympic competitions suddenly I realized that a big advantage of trading is that you can control the pace of trading, namely you can stop trading anytime. That’s if you are trained for it.

This unique trading characteristic doesn’t exist in any other competitive activity. When you’re in a tennis tournament for example, you have to stick to the game even when you’re on a losing streak until the end of the match. You either recover from the losing or not while still in the competition 100%.

In trading, on the other hand, you can stop it anytime, anywhere and for whatever reason or no reason at all. Unfortunately, many amateur traders do the opposite when they are losing. They keep trading more and often bigger when losing, digging themselves into a deeper hole. That’s human emotion at its worst. If you can overcome it you will be in a different league to take advantage of this beneficial trading characteristic.
More...

Same is true for the ultimate competition: life.
 
Jzwu2017 said:
I was watching a TV discussion about Olympic competitions suddenly I realized that a big advantage of trading is that you can control the pace of trading, namely you can stop trading anytime. That’s if you are trained for it.

This unique trading characteristic doesn’t exist in any other competitive activity. When you’re in a tennis tournament for example, you have to stick to the game even when you’re on a losing streak until the end of the match. You either recover from the losing or not while still in the competition 100%.

In trading, on the other hand, you can stop it anytime, anywhere and for whatever reason or no reason at all. Unfortunately, many amateur traders do the opposite when they are losing. They keep trading more and often bigger when losing, digging themselves into a deeper hole. That’s human emotion at its worst. If you can overcome it you will be in a different league to take advantage of this beneficial trading characteristic.
More...
I thought the biggest advantage of trading (day trading) is you make money independent of whether there is a down day or an up day.

In buy and hold, you only make money if what you bought goes up in price.
 
Jzwu2017 said:
I was watching a TV discussion about Olympic competitions suddenly I realized that a big advantage of trading is that you can control the pace of trading, namely you can stop trading anytime. That’s if you are trained for it.

This unique trading characteristic doesn’t exist in any other competitive activity. When you’re in a tennis tournament for example, you have to stick to the game even when you’re on a losing streak until the end of the match. You either recover from the losing or not while still in the competition 100%.

In trading, on the other hand, you can stop it anytime, anywhere and for whatever reason or no reason at all. Unfortunately, many amateur traders do the opposite when they are losing. They keep trading more and often bigger when losing, digging themselves into a deeper hole. That’s human emotion at its worst. If you can overcome it you will be in a different league to take advantage of this beneficial trading characteristic.
More...


The biggest advantage is trading is highly scalable.

Whether you trade

1 lot,
10 lots,
100 lots,
1000 lots etc etc


you use the
same hardware,
same software,
the same amount of effort,
the same amount of time.

But it is only for a few people.
 
Scalability and customization.

Customization here refers to time/schedule, personality (deep thinker, etc), capital size, trading system, etc.

I have not found anything in this world comparable to trading in term of scalability. Yes, you may at one point starting to move the market when your capital has grown to a certain size. But at that point, you already can retire from trading.
 
The analogy doesn't work.

Tennis players can quit, just not during a match.

Same with a trader while in a trade.

Either can quit while not in a match/trade.
 
SunTrader said:
The analogy doesn't work.

Tennis players can quit, just not during a match.

Same with a trader while in a trade.

Either can quit while not in a match/trade.
More...
One very important difference:

As a tennis player, it is considered un-sportsmanship to quit in the middle of a match and almost no one does that. In trading, it is not bad etiquette to quit.
 
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