ROTFLMAO! You have to watch that the empties don't roll under the brake pedal especially if you are driving through the Alps to the next stop (cans are safer than bottles in this respect). :eek:
IMO it's having an edge. Without an edge, you could be a master of all the other techniques, but you will still lose money. You absolutely cannot trade profitably in the long-run without some inherent advantage over the people on the other side of your positions. Cutting losses, psychology, guts etc are all useless if your strategy has a negative expectation. It's like playing roulette - you are going to lose in the long-run no matter what you do, because the house has a mathematical advantage. Just look at a lot of the traders from the dot.com era. They did very well then because they had an edge over the public in terms of execution speed, seeing order flow, transactions costs etc. This allowed large profits in those volatile high volume markets. But in the last few years, almost all the internet daytraders have made no way near what they made back then. Presumably it wasn't their psychology that failed? It wasn't their ability to cut losses (they did that in the bubble too). It wasn't their ability to pull the trigger, since they were expert at that. Yet most of them flamed out and made nothing from 2003 onwards. Why? Because their edge disappeared.
This is a dangerous and misleading question in my humble opinion. Like in any system, the weakest link is limiting factor. The pieces of the system have to work together properly for the system to do it's job. So, what is the most important thing in Driving. Steering? Vision? Gas pedal control? Brake control? Keeping emotional control? Even if you have any one of these by itself, you will still likely end up in the ditch without the whole system being intact. One man's thoughts - fwiw
When it comes to driving the only thing that matters is looking cool. You are absolutely correct in my opinion. There is no "most important thing" you need to be very good at a lot of things to be successful trading. great edge + bad money management = no money great money management + negative probability edge = no money Its the same with every other item you think is important, if you have a weak link like Lar mentions you are screwed in the long run.
"So, what is the most important thing in Driving. Steering? Vision? Gas pedal control? Brake control? Keeping emotional control? Even if you have any one of these by itself, you will still likely end up in the ditch without the whole system being intact." Good points. My thought. The market has no rules (in the sense everyone can drive however they like), no roads, no traffic control devices. The edge would be -not getting into an accident under these conditions.
There is still always something that tends to be more important than other things. Being good at one thing does not mean you stink or don't have the others. But I agree with Cutten. If you have no edge, nothing else matters. If your money management is average, or your psychology is shoddy, but you have a strong edge, you have a shot.
Most critical aspect in trading is the trade entry itself. Without making that happen, everything else is a complete waste of time. There can be no positive exit of trades when entries are wrong more often than not. Before we can get the exits right, entries must be perfected. That includes knowing when and knowing when not to trade of equal importance. "Something bought right is already half sold". That aged axiom exists for a reason. Reverse the order for shorts and it's equally valid to traders. Having an "edge" encompasses everything. An edge includes all aspects of trade management AND emotional management. No single person has any edge over the markets without making that package complete.
Intuition is knowledge/experienced based, Act on your instincts a few times and get it wrong and your self confidence crumbles. Women have been conditioned to act on intuition and are better at it than men. Men have a gut feeling about a situation (flight or fight) and often choose to ignore it.