Based on what? You're playing a zero-sum game against a bunch of other wannabe winners who want to win every bit as much as you do. This isn't some kindergarten game where everybody gets a blue ribbon just for showing up. There are going to be winners and there are going to be losers and chances are high that the latter will greatly outnumber the former. So yeah it should be hard to win, otherwise the market is rigged or some other shenanigans are going on. The only question is, do you make it hard on yourself in the preparation or in the execution of your trading? The smarter move is to exhaust yourself in the preparation stage of trading.
Why do we need luck, if all we have to do win is just let go? I think you're confusing trading with poker. Trading doesn't care about your self-esteem, it's all about KNOWING what to do and doing it. There is no bluffing in trading. You aren't looking for your opponents' tells. There is only knowing and not knowing, everything else is dross.
Well, it may be a semantics point, but there are no absolutes in trading. You don't "know" what's going to happen 5 minutes from now, much less 5 hours or 5 days or 5 weeks or 5 months. The only traders that "know" are the ones I saw on the PBS Frontline special about Stephen Cohen, et al. And that's no trading system that you or I are ever going to develop ( i.e., inside information on a massive scale ). The OP makes a cliché but valid observation about having the guts to follow your trading system win or lose.
no offense intended kut, just using your post as an example, it's full of absolutes, beliefs ,they may or may not be true, but whatever one believes becomes his truth, trick is to eliminate as many absolutes as possible, since most of us either love ourselves or loathe ourselves, thats a good place to start i lke to remove myself and look at him as a vessel carrying a soul thats been around for 1000's of years think of any god and st pete were sitting on a cloud watching the monsignor golfing ...joke...now imagine your there with them and the joke is about kut or ammo, and the soul says hows the new guy carrying my soul, dealing with the potato famine or the depression or ww1 or ww 2 or desert storm, iraq,israeli/palestinian war, russian/ukraine war and the list goes on as does this too much babble of a post.. point is you are removed from yourself, can put yourself in the drawer or another room while trading and only react to what the market is doing,getting rid of the interference, then the only absolutes are the numbers on your screen
You're misrepresenting what he said. He made trading success all about emotional control rather than trading knowledge, which is nonsense. There are traders who 'suffer' through many trades but they are net-profitable because they knew what to do. Having a positive attitude means little or nothing if you don't know what to do. And chances are good that the better your trading plan, the less you'll be emotionally derailed by your trading results in the first place.
+1 great post! For a long time I closed my edges before point of maximum profits. Taking that cloak of disbelief (that it can in fact go further) and hanging it on the hooks; this is good trading.
This is a nice idea, although how can you learn about yourself when a machine trades for you? My trades are and (I hope will always be) discretionary setups.
Dude you are calling the OP an idiot.. CLEARLY we all know trading knowledge is a pre-requisite. If the ideal trader were to be designed I would take care of the emotional part first because it is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to teach. Trading knowledge can be learned/taught. I believe THE source of 99% of human suffering is an attachment of some sort.
If one has a thoroughly-tested and consistently-profitable trading plan, there is no "emotional part" unless one won't follow it. If he won't follow it, then he very likely has little business trading in the first place.