Being Good at Market Research and Analysis Won’t Necessarily Make You a Good Trader:
There’s no question that most people have distorted views about what it takes to be a consistently profitable trader. They think the most important aspect of trading success is being exceptional at market research and analysis, which will then allow them to predict exactly what will happen next. And while these efforts can certainly help them have higher forecasting accuracy than the average person, the reality is that they will still be wrong a lot. But after pouring so much time and effort into analyzing the market, it gives them a false sense of confidence and an increased need of being right. Consequently, the possibility of being wrong is oftentimes unprepared for, which can be a catastrophic mistake within the uncertain and unforgiving domain of the market environment.
The truth is that the market won’t fulfill your wants and desires just because you feel like you “put the work in”. If you think the market owes you something because of your degrees, accomplishments, or IQ, then you’re in for a rude awakening. The characteristics of the market environment are completely different from what you’re probably used to, and as a result, it requires adaptation. In order to align your attitudes, beliefs and perspectives with the realities of the market, a paradigm shift has to be made. For starters, your current views on failure, perfection, and hard work most likely have to be unlearned. Because of the way society has conditioned you in regard to failure and perfection, you probably want to avoid being wrong and taking losses at all costs, but these exact attitudes will sabotage you within the market environment. There’s no possible way to avoid losses completely, so controlled losses have to be embraced.
Understand True Market Characteristics and Why You Must Align Your Mindset With Them:
As much as market participants tend to yell obscenities at their computer screens and blame the market for their trading woes when things don’t go their way, the truth is that the market isn’t out to get them. It doesn’t care about you, or me, or anyone else for that matter. It’s completely indifferent. It’s not out to hurt us nor comfort us. All it does is provide feedback in the form of information (price action, volume, etc.) and the way we choose to perceive that information is entirely up to us. If you choose to perceive certain market movements as “bad” or “threatening” – that’s your choice, but all you’re doing is fighting the market. On the other hand, if you choose to perceive market movements from an objective point of view, you create the conditions necessary to flow with the market instead.
When you decide that the market is completely indifferent to you, then you can stop blaming it for your trading problems. And when you stop making excuses and attributing blame to external forces, you give yourself the power necessary to succeed. Most traders fail because they immediately relinquish their personal power upon entering the market environment. But you don’t have to share that fate with them because now you know better. Once you take full responsibility for your trading operations, you have to establish structure and discipline for your own protection. Again, the market isn’t concerned about hurting nor comforting you, so it’s up to you to devise your own set of frameworks to avoid being hurt (by taking controlled losses) and obtaining comfort (by taking profits).
The One-Two Punch Required For Consistent Trading Success – System & Mindset:
There are basically only two core components required in order to achieve consistent profitability in the market: 1) a validated system, and 2) the proper mindset. Creating and consistently improving these two essential elements are the actions that matter for your trading results – everything else is just noise. They’re the critical inputs (system and mindset) that produce the outputs (profits/losses).
1. Validated System Based on Your Trading Preferences
Your system is a quantifiable edge in the market. In other words, it’s measurable and repeatable. Most traders tend to jump from strategy-to-strategy, acting impulsive and random, and then expect phenomenal returns. But that sort of inconsistent approach isn’t repeatable. Without a system that defines your “tradeable universe”, there’s no structure in place to not only control your behavior, but also be able to measure the expected return of your system, and refine it over time. Trading chaotically can certainly produce a huge win one or two times by pure luck or chance, but how can you repeat those winning trades in the future when you don’t have a clear understanding of how you did it? It’s not one big trade that matters, but rather consistency that lays the foundation for mastery.
It seems paradoxical, but two of the main concepts that you need to understand is that: 1) anything can happen, but 2) you don’t need to know what will happen in order to make money. When you truly accept that anything can happen, that means you fully accept the uncertain nature of every individual trade you take within the market environment, so you must have risk management measures in place in the event of unfavorable results. But over a large number of trades, however, you can develop confidence and trust in your system to produce profits for you, assuming it has a positive expectancy. So with an understanding that anything can happen – you know the importance of protecting your downside on every individual trade, and with an understanding that you don’t need to know what will happen in order to make money – you can fully concentrate on the execution of your system with conviction.
2. Proper Mindset That Aligns With Market Characteristics
The proper mindset is the glue that binds together your trading operations with self-awareness and self-control. With the wrong mindset, you’re highly-susceptible to numerous trading errors that will demolish the integrity of your validated system. With the right mindset, however, the execution of your validated system flows effortlessly and without hesitation, allowing your system to do exactly what it was designed to do. As critical as your mindset is as a trader, it’s an aspect that oftentimes gets completely ignored, or at least largely overlooked. People love to repeat the old ages like: “buy low and sell high” and “cut your losses fast and let your winners run”, but those simple sayings, while correct, don’t provide traders with enough information for real-life, practical application.
These surface-level sayings are about as deep as most stock trading educational services go on the topic of trading psychology, which is probably why many of them aren’t nearly as effective as they potentially could be. The reality is that almost every single person entering the market environment for the first time is ill-equipped to do so. The attitudes, beliefs, and perspectives that you must adopt in order to be successful aren’t something you can just be born with. In fact, you most likely developed a number of conflicting attitudes, beliefs, and perspectives throughout your life that will only work against you within the market environment. Thanks to years of prior conditioning, it takes real effort and dedication to go from the person you are right now to the trader you want to be. And the bottom line is that you’re not currently capable of achieving consistent profitability until you make the appropriate paradigm shift.
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As solid as The Trading Psychology Mastery Course is at helping traders develop an effective trading mindset, however, it’s one of the few legitimate trading psychology courses I’ve come across in nearly eight years as a trader. This is an unfortunate set of circumstances for practically all traders because the main reason why they’re struggling to become consistently profitable, whether they realize it or not, is because they lack the appropriate mindset for the environment they’re operating within. Everywhere they turn is a new “hot stock pick” or “foolproof system” to distract them, but nobody ever mentions the importance of mindset. As a result, most traders unintentionally put themselves through substantial emotional and financial agony learning the hard way. Luckily for you, if you choose to build the proper foundation first, you can avoid that unpleasant path by taking full advantage of this course.
Anybody can learn various systems and strategies, but then it comes down to execution – and you need the proper mindset for that.
Learn More in the Trading Success Framework Course
Written by Matt Thomas (@MattThomasTP)
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I’ve been searching for where to learn how to trade stocks, and I really like the focus on mindset and choosing a limited number of strategies at a time. The Trading Psychology Mastery Course provided me with some great advice. Thank you for spreading so much light and information. Highly recommended. Once again, thank you
This is an excellent post in that it doesn’t deal with the specific mechanics of the trading process, but more importantly looks at the person behind it. We are all inclined to concentrate on processes and fail to neglect the mindset needed.
I agree that it is important to choose one strategy at a time and prove it to work, or not and then decide on whether to stick with it or not. Jumping between systems will not allow this development to occur, nor for you to find the system that works best for you.
Self awareness and self control is essential in all aspects of life, but in trading it is even more crucial.
Hi Geoff – thanks for sharing your thoughts! The reality is that there are many basic/rudimentary trading systems that work, but the main problem traders have is actually having the self-confidence, trust, and control to stick to them.
There are limitless opportunities in the market, so I understand how difficult it is to focus on just 1 or 2 specific strategies, but impulsively bouncing all over the place from strategy-to-strategy doesn’t allow for proper testing. It’s hard to acquire legitimate data on a system/strategy when the rules of it are constantly being violated or it’s not even being followed at all. It’s impossible to make progress that way. All bouncing around does is produce random wins and losses, which isn’t repeatable.
In the end, if we don’t know how we produced a winning trade then we don’t know how to repeat it, and if we don’t know how we produced a losing trade then we don’t know how to avoid it in the future. There’s no doubt that an improper mindset can quickly and easily compromise any system/strategy that should theoretically produce profits.
I am glad to have found your article because I have been hearing of a few friends who are looking into trading courses. In this case foreign exchange training. Can I ask, does the Trading Psychology Mastery Course have applicability to Foreign Exchange and also Bitcoin/Crypto’s or is it only applicable to stocks?
From my stock market investments, can see a lot of my errors in the market in the past have come from the amateur or not properly “formed” – lets call it professional trader mindset. I personally have found it hard over the years to be working full-time and then to apply the mental energy to trading during your work day. That’s why I have never pursued them because trading clashes with the working day. However I agree with what you are saying in the article about the need for a validated system and the proper mindset. So perhaps upon retirement, I will have the time and focus to look more into trading.
Hi John – I appreciate your comments and questions! To answer about the application of The Trading Psychology Mastery Course, it applies to all markets – stocks, options, bonds, forex, crytocurrency, etc. Throughout the site I typically generalize by saying the “stock market” or just “market”, but having the proper mindset applies when interacting with any financial market – the underlying dynamics/characteristics are the same.
To comment on the part about work getting in the way of trading, that’s definitely an issue a lot of people have to deal with, and it’s not always easy. Years ago, I started swing trading, which means I wasn’t looking to buy-and-sell anything the same day, but rather give my trades at least a few days or weeks to pan out. This type of approach is attractive to many individuals with busy schedules during market hours when they can’t really monitor the market very closely. These days, I have more availability to monitor the market during the day, so I day trade some SPY options with a completely technical approach – and I always close my positions the same day. But of course, day trading isn’t really realistic for somebody not available during market hours.
It all depends on the individual’s schedule and preferences. Sometimes people have one or two free days during the week when they can dedicate some time to trading, sometimes they have a couple hours in the morning or afternoon each day to trade, or sometimes they have close to no time at all. It can also be helpful to make use of alerts using your brokerage platform to let you know when certain events occur (like when a security hits a certain price or percentage gain/loss on the day) and also conditional orders can be used to control entries, stop losses, and targets. But again, it all depends on schedule and preferences. Day trading shouldn’t really be multi-tasked with other things, swing trading is much more flexible as far as hold times go, and then of course there’s long-term investing. In any case, attaining the proper mindset applies to all of them.