You must master the art of defense first to stay in the game. But once mastered, you must have an offense and continually work at improving it, or your results will be mediocre at best.
Sucre, it is an important point. Could you elaborate about the offense. Are you talking money management, position sizing, leverage ? Also what do you define mediocre ? Thanks.
spooz makes a great point. I just started truly persuing a trading education this year- and I have learned so much. Probably, the most important thing being that I have so much more to learn. Lifelong education!
By offense I mean constantly working on finding more edges and maximizing your exploitation of those edges. Do more of what is working and have the confidence to gradually keep upping your size on strategies that work, because you know your defense (loss cutting discipline, discipline to avoid all but the best setups, discipline to constantly evaluate what you are doing and stop doing what is not working) is rock solid. By mediocre, I mean you won't be showing constant improvement.
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=82395 I had a little revelation myself recently and decided to start a journal to document my progress. Take a look!
Relearned patience.........again. Do not get in and anticipate the market direction. Wait for it to move first, then you have something to work with.......Retracements.
Never underestimate the number of idiots passing themselves off as "traders"... And do not take anyone seriously... Unless they can provide several years of ** Audited ** Financial Statements.
...to revisit old strategies, and that there are so many ways to skin a cat. Also, the power to trade well and make quick decisions can turn a losing strategy into a winner. To never give up. Strategies die all the time, which is why you can never stop looking for new ones to exploit.
Politicians come and go. So do Fed Chiefs. But the Plunge Protection Team is always there for the longs, at least until next crash.