Thursday, October 25, 2012

Improving Your Trading Results

I understand how easy it is to get excited when you come across a new strategy, tool, technique or money management, thinking that it will turn your trading around. Sometimes, it feels so real that we feel compelled to purchase something thinking that it would improve our trading. I wish it did but we have all experienced this and end up in the same state as before - losing money.

Until you accept the fact that creating a trading mindset is the key to your success and that none of those mention above is actually really going to turn your trading around, I can almost certainly guarantee that you would not become a consistent and profitable trader.

Below are the questions adopted from "Trading In The Zone" by Mark Douglas that is designed to find out about your attitude towards trading. Although he did state that there are no correct or wrong answers, I do believe that if you were to read his book many times over (back to back), you will certainly discover there is the "right" answer if you want to become a consistent and profitable trader.

I have the "right" answers to most of them (which I think accounts for my success as a trader). Now, how about you?

1. To make money as a trader you have to know what the market is going to do next.
Agree Disagree

2. Sometimes I find myself thinking that there must be a way to trade without having to take a loss.
Agree Disagree

3. Making money as a trader is primarily a function of analysis.

Agree Disagree

4. Losses are an unavoidable component of trading.

Agree Disagree

5. My risk is always defined before I enter a trade.

Agree Disagree

6. In my mind there is always a cost associated with finding out what the market may do next.

Agree Disagree

7. I wouldn't even bother putting on the next trade if I wasn't sure that it was going to be a winner.

Agree Disagree

8. The more a trader learns about the markets and how they behave, the easier it will be for him to
execute his trades.

Agree Disagree

9. My methodology tells me exactly under what market conditions to either enter or exit a trade.

Agree Disagree

10. Even when I have a clear signal to reverse my position, I find it extremely difficult to do.
Agree Disagree


11. I have sustained periods of consistent success usually followed by some fairly drastic draw-downs
in my equity.

Agree Disagree

12. When I first started trading I would describe my trading methodology as haphazard, meaning some
success in between a lot of pain.

Agree Disagree

13. I often find myself feeling that the markets are against me personally.

Agree Disagree

14. As much as I might try to "let go," I find it very difficult to put past emotional wounds behind me.

Agree Disagree

15. I have a money management philosophy that is founded in the principle of always taking some
money out of the market when the market makes it available.

Agree Disagree

16. A trader's job is to identify patterns in the markets' behavior that represent an opportunity and then
to determine the risk of finding out if these patterns will play themselves out as they have in the past.

Agree Disagree

17. Sometimes I just can't help feeling that I am a victim of the market.

Agree Disagree

18. When I trade I usually try to stay focused in one time frame.

Agree Disagree

19. Trading successfully requires a degree of mental flexibility far beyond the scope of most people.

Agree Disagree

20. There are times when I can definitely feel the flow of the market; however, I often have difficulty
acting on these feelings.

Agree Disagree

21. There are many times when I am in a profitable trade and I know the move is basically over, but I
still won't take my profits.

Agree Disagree

22. No matter how much money I make in a trade, I am rarely ever satisfied and feel that I could have
made more.

Agree Disagree

23. When I put on a trade, I feel I have a positive attitude. I anticipate all of the money I could make
from the trade in a positive way.

Agree Disagree

24. The most important component in a trader's ability to accumulate money over time is having a
belief in his own consistency.

Agree Disagree

25. If you were granted a wish to be able to instantaneously acquire one trading skill, what skill would
you choose?

26. I often spend sleepless nights worrying about the market.

Agree Disagree

27. Do you ever feel compelled to make a trade because you are afraid that you might miss out?

Yes No

28. Although it doesn't happen very often, I really like my trades to be perfect. When I make a perfect
call it feels so good that it makes up for all of the times that I don't.
Agree Disagree

29. Do you ever find yourself planning trades you never execute, and executing trades you never
planned?

Yes No

30. In a few sentences explain why most traders either don't make money or aren't able to keep what
they make.

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