Why do traders fail?
- Thread starter Tradester123
- Start date
Excellent posting!
yup i totally agree
I have noticed certain common elements in the behaviors of people who are "losers" and I do not refer solely to trading.
1. They do not see or admit their own mistakes. Everything is someone else's fault. The deck is stacked against them.
2. Although they may not see or admit it, they believe they are entitled to something. They should not have to work so hard, or for so little, or with such difficult people, or under such humiliating conditions.
3. They give up easily when things do not go the way they had hoped.
1. They do not see or admit their own mistakes. Everything is someone else's fault. The deck is stacked against them.
2. Although they may not see or admit it, they believe they are entitled to something. They should not have to work so hard, or for so little, or with such difficult people, or under such humiliating conditions.
3. They give up easily when things do not go the way they had hoped.
I'm certain that this is the case. That sort of violates my rule of not risking more than 2% of TLNW on any one trade/idea for how would one calculate that on a negative liquid net worth.
.02*max[ 0, TLNW ]
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False comfort. Unless one is capable of determining direction, this 2% risk business does nothing more than postpone the inevitable.
Good if you always stick to the rule. Problem with trading is possible development of addiction, which leads to catastrophic results. Same result is possible in any business of course, but buying and selling tomatoes (as an example) does not have emotional base as fertile for addictions as trading has.
My former stepson when he was sixteen tripled his account in two months trading t-Bonds, he quit cause he said it was too easy and boring, I gave him the entire rules and capital. He is trying it again at age 37yo, has already lost his own 5k, has asked for no verbal help and I have offered litle help. Now he says he never realized that trading is so hard this is to do. One day each month, I hook his account into mine and trade it like I normally trade-crazed maniac. I record my voice and I email him that, he says I am crazed maniac. He can't understand much of what I am saying cause I am not trying to teach him, but it is a mixture of what I am seeing and feeling, am describing possible answers to ongoing price action that my brain is thinking. THAT's what trading is all about, having a list of answers memorized. That is what surgeons has done, they will know what something most likely is before they see it to confirm.
Back testing, studying, manual back testing, studying over and over the same charts, that's how I got answers. Learning what doesn't work and keeping what does. Takes many years to memorize the right stuff, much re-testing. Testing so much so subconscious actually believes.
Traders lose cause they unaware just how much time and study it takes to make very little progress every month, it is so depressing to keep at it and seem like nothing works, you compare yourself to others and you think you doing the same work but "they" are winning, what are they seeing that I am not. And it is the small events that a lite bulb comes on and ever inching you way to being breakeven trader.
Back testing, studying, manual back testing, studying over and over the same charts, that's how I got answers. Learning what doesn't work and keeping what does. Takes many years to memorize the right stuff, much re-testing. Testing so much so subconscious actually believes.
Traders lose cause they unaware just how much time and study it takes to make very little progress every month, it is so depressing to keep at it and seem like nothing works, you compare yourself to others and you think you doing the same work but "they" are winning, what are they seeing that I am not. And it is the small events that a lite bulb comes on and ever inching you way to being breakeven trader.