A Trade A Day

1. Unlimited Income potential.
This is cliché and a half-truth. As a trader I am limited in my income potential by a couple of things:
The size of my account.It’s so much easier to make a living off a million bucks, than 10K. However, if you can make a living of 10K, you are a better trader than I. Secondly, My trading aptitude. Look, I could give you the best laid out trading plan. There are some traders that will make money, and some won’t make a dime. Trading techniques can be taught, but it’s the ability to execute your plan and manage your risk that will make you money.

2. My own working hours.
This is another half truth. The market is open from 9:30 to 4, Monday through Friday. I’m limited to when I can trade. If I choose to trade forex then I have more flexibility in my schedule because that market is open 24 hours a day, 6 days a week. The caveat is there are still times during the 24 hour session that are better than others for price movement. I like to trade the dollar when New York opens and I like to trade the Yen when Tokyo opens because there is more volatility. So thinking you can make your own hours trading is not accurate. It seems like there’s a lot of flexibility, but for serious traders, that’s just not the case. You can make your hours ,but they need to match the market.

3. I can work from home.
A lot of people want to get out of the rat race and the nasty office commutes. People want to take it easy and work from home, but let me give you some insight. You will need to be shut in your office from market open to close with an hour on each end. This doesn’t include time you need to do research. Serious traders get dressed in the morning and treat it like a job at a regular office. You will perform better if you do. This also means that serious traders don’t sit on the couch and watch Oprah while they trade. Unless Oprah comes on at 4 in which case be my guest, but Ellen is probably out. I think Ellen come on at 11 est…

4. I can trade a little then do a little (insert activity here).
Wrong. I am primarily a swing trader. I got tired of staring at a screen all day trying to scalp a living, but I still sit in front of my monitor and watch the market or do research. When you trade, you must be committed. If you have things you need to do, then “take a day off”, but you still need to show up everyday and not treat trading like something you can do whenever you’re in the mood.

5. I am passionate about trading. It’s all I want to do.
There’s no half truth here. I would rather be trading than anything else. I would rather talk about trading or blog about it than anything else. You must have a passion to be successful at it. There is so much to learn and trading is an enormous commitment. Trading will give you so many reasons to hate it. Trading takes your money. it bruises your ego. It penalizes you for your faults in a very tangible way (money). The only way to stay with it through the bumps and bruises is to love it.

Let me know what you think. See you tomorrow.

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