Trading non-negotiables every successful trader agrees on
Three rules every successful trader seems to share
If someone came up to you and asked you, “What does it actually take to make it as a trader?”
What would you say?
Perhaps the obvious stuff…
Perseverance, not giving up, play the long game, this is not a get-rich-quick scheme…
You might even get personal and start mentioning things important to you.
“Wait for a trap to be set.”
“Be patient for the tape to confirm.”
But forget all that for a moment…
Look at every successful trader out there.
The ones doing serious P&L, ten, twenty million plus…
What do they all agree on?
NON NEGOTIABLES
They all say the same thing in different ways.
And yeah, we’ve heard it all a hundred times, but that’s kinda valuable, right?
If a hundred people who’ve actually done it say the same thing… those aren’t recommendations. They’re non-negotiables.
Three of them spring to mind.
#1 Risk management.
Cliché, yeah sure it is.
But the road is littered with even genuine pros who thought they could trade their way out of trouble… Options Seller, Adoboli, Leeson. The list goes on…
Not to mention the thousands of retail traders who did just as much damage to their personal accounts.
Every single one of those blow-ups could have been prevented with risk management.
#2 Your own style.
Look at the Market Wizards and top money managers; they all have their own style, but many modelled traders before them.
– Linda Raschke modelled Taylor and Crabel.
– Crabel modelled a lot of Wyckoff’s work.
No one’s reinventing the wheel here…
Take inspiration from traders you admire and build your own thing.
You’re the best at being you, and trading’s pretty flexible. So build your playbook in a way that plays to your strengths.
#3 It takes time.
Three, five, ten years. Nobody wants to hear it, though do they?
Everyone goes “yeah, that’s them, but not me,” then wonders four years later why they’re still getting nowhere.
The irony is that if you accept it’ll take years and lock in on working through the journey methodically, you probably get there quicker.
There’s more, of course, but those are the three running round my head this weekend…
Mostly because I’ve just got my hands on the latest Market Wizards book. Looking forward to getting stuck in.