Brett Steenbarger, Psychologist and Trader, talks about the four overlooked qualities of successful traders today.  I wouldn't consider myself a successful trader yet but nevertheless, do you or I have these qualities?

1. Constant Desire to Improve -  I truly find trading rewarding and interesting therefore I have this desire to improve.  I want to be successful and I also want my financial well being to be in my hands, not some corporation.  I'm always reading and trying to find a new strategy that may give me an edge.  As long as I have this desire, I feel like my goals can be obtained.
   
2. The Ability to Press Their Advantage - Brett talks about the good traders being aggressive and never shying away from what they see as an advantage.  The lesser traders according to him are quick to take profits and are risk averse.  This ability is something that I am working on.  I feel like I've made some progress since I've developed a more mechanical, written trading plan.
3. Emotional Resilence - Brett states that the great traders have a great attitude about losing.  "They know it's going to happen."  I don't like to lose and I don't have a great attitude about losing yet.  I certainly have made inroads throughout the past year though.  When I first started trading, I lost so often that it totally consumed me.  Now that I can string together some wins, the losses don't seem as bad as before.  Losing doesn't affect me as much as it once did but the bottom line is that it still does affect me to a certain extent. 
   
4. Creativity - Find an edge in an unlikely place.  I feel that I'm creative in my trading but definitely not as much as I would like.  I think that once I can close the gap in knowledge between myself and experienced traders, I may have more time to be creative. 

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No. 1 :

Excellent points from Brett Steenbarger. I have been trading forex for over two years and to date I have been quite successful. I believe that my psychological approach to trading is the number one reason for my success. When I commenced trading, I realised how emotional trading could get and worked very hard at eliminating emotions from my trading. Statistic shows that approximately 90% of traders are unsuccessful. The few that are successful have a psychological edge. For me trading is 100% technical, but I only use 20% of my trading skill when trading. The 80% is pure psychology (emotions). All traders must have a trading plan/checklist. If emotions are so involved in trading, then why don't we have a psychological trading checklist also? After pondering on this self imposed question, I developed a psychological trading checklist for myself. I review this checklist prior to every trading session and it flows right into my actual trading checklist. As traders we all know our own emotional state and I highly recommend that we all consider this thought. I recently launched my website www.forexnetworth.com for friends and invite you to visit. It is a work in progress right now, but it is 100% free and I will use it to help and share my trading success with everyone. Thank you for your great blog and God bless you.

Submitted by Terrence Muir • 2007-01-11 14:13:15

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