Self Honesty
My stubborness and refusal to be honest and admit to a trading loss when it was small . cost me some big and expensive lessons. Perhaps I am not alone. If you are reading this and feel you were like me before , own up and share your thoughts !
As human we always tend not to admit to our own mistakes immediately. This is defensive behaviour by nature. As trader , this self deception is also self destruction to our own profession. The simple fact of the matter is that cutting losses and letting profits run is a fundamental truth about the stock markets. This seems to be an unwritten rule. However , how many of us are really cutting losses when we realise we were wrong ? There is always excuses and special case or exception we think we can give as a reason to hang on to a losing trade. Admitting we are wrong or admiting to a failure is hard to swallow. We must end this self deception and …
My comments : Jesse was perfectly right. As a beginner trader wanting to learn as much as possible from professionals or trading gurus , I personally signed up for couple of trading seminars. Seminars are not only costly , many came with promises of high chances of success that never materialised. Most of these gurus are traders themselves and making a living out of trading. They taught the seminar students what they did in their actual real life trading. Unless they preach what they are not doing themselves , what happened then to the trading performances of most students ? Percentage of success stories in every seminar is surprisingly low !
My comments : I love playing pool and would agree that positioning the next ball is as important , if not more important , as getting the immediate ball into the pocket. In trading , this same strategy applies. Sometimes short term gain could be very tempting and it lures us into making a silly trade decision , for example getting into a trade too early ; trading is all about timing and strategies … HenryTeo
