would love advice from already successful infp traders. what advice would you give to your younger self? how did you find success in trading? am an infp-(assertive) part-time trader, extreme (i) & (f) scores, just under 60% for (n) & (p). infp-a describes what i fit best. it's a long shot, seeing infps are rare in the population, & even rarer in the successful trading committee. infp-s are not the best for trading seeing some success trading futures part-time after work. taking daytrading entries for smaller stops, looking for targets off daily charts. keep a detailed stats journal & a periodically updated psychological journal. best & worst trading both come from using my "feel". before realising so few are infp/j-s, was always surprised why others do not understand the concept of "trading the loser in you", at attempts to explain. am clear that the 'art of interpreting' market action is a strength, & clear that systematically identifying trend vs range is a weakness. currently working on weakness by building a structured approach how to embrace risk? current problems are looking at ways to embrace the 'true risk' ~$1k (1% of 100k) to be taken per trade. have scaled up from a measly 50dollars to 500 so far. on a 1 month break, after scaling to 500 & blowing 90% of profits made this year. have done both zen & risk-taking activities to grow in this area; kite-flying till the line runs out, to try to crash it (happened once), consecutive bungees till fear was zero, lots of solo hiking (& a night most recently.. still scared & have to go back till i can let go of fear) balancing full-time job + other responsibilities & trading how did you guys transit from trading part-time to full-time? working out the numbers, even with a 100k account & a decent year making 20%, profits are just 20k. it's not enough to sustain full-time. perhaps i am thinking too small @20% profits? have strong conviction & self-belief to succeed, even without validation from family/close ones. also have a dependent to raise & understand family comes before trading trading own account vs going to prop/fund? there's some conflict for infp-s preferring to work alone vs working in an environment that may help. i have tried prop for 1yr very early in working life, but didn't find success then. returned to a normal job. my natural preference is to trade a 200k account, taking 2k risk/trade (thou will need more work embracing this risk), over joining a prop/fund environment. am very interested to hear other infp experiences in this area
You have good reflection. Most of us are not born with ability to neutralise negative emotions effectively. Our subconscious minds are generally contaminated and we might not be centering our thoughts consciously and mindfully. I think the Psychology session in ET has some good nice articles. Before I became full time trader, I spent tremendous amount of time practising and also did live trading. Just before I became full time trader , my average sleeping hours per day was 4.5 hours (average over 365 days including weekends). It was damn hard work. some people prefer trading own account. Some can't and have to go prop/fund. So it is up to individual.
Maybe infp types are rare in the population but surely the number of traders who've had any sort of psychological profiling is tiny? On transitting from part-time to full-time, this is not at all a given as you improve your trading skills and extend experience. I trade long-term and never look at intra-day charts. I spend about an hour updating a market snapshot spreadsheet at the weekend, maybe 15 minutes reviewing daily progress each evening, when I enter new orders/adjust stops. I don't think this level of activity would even register as "part-time", I would regard transition to full-time screen-watching as a life failure. You must find the trading style and risk tolerance that best meets your character. Along the way, its too much to lay any burden of character improvement on trading.
Once you have sufficient knowledge, successful trading is about logic and discipline. However emotion or emotional makeup affect discipline, it's detrimental.
Strong INs are common/over-represented in activities that benefit from introspection, from distance running to programming languages to screen trading. Risk is made more palatable by knowledge. Prior experience, whether directly related (prior trading) or un-related (parachute jumping), may provide useful knowledge or perspective, but it's no guarantee. Until you gain a lot more knowledge about the specific trading that works best for you, leave the risk-acceptance stuff aside, and concentrate of sampling different trades. [trade duration, trade quantity, different markets, etc.] Full-time employment as a trader should be a notion considered well after you've built an account. A first dictum in trading is 'capital preservation' -- perhaps "Dictum Zero" is 'capital accumulation' -- let that full-time job accumulate trading capital, while you learn learn learn about your own trading proclivities, and leave off quitting a full-time gig until you have a LOT more knowledge. (Restatements of the posts of maxinger, tomorton, and scatman, is my guess...)