The biggest difference between traders and analysts: Profit does not come from your ability to predict the market's accuracy!
If you are trying to become successful, then you will find you have little in common with most people. In trading, the only pursuit is the price difference. No one can predict the future market. The only thing you rely on is rules—consistent trading rules—which place you on the side of the probability game.
A true trader only cares about two things:
1. What to do if the market proves me right after I open a position;
2. What to do if the market proves me wrong after I open a position;
Profit does not come from your ability to predict the market's accuracy; it relies on "minimizing losses when you are wrong and maximizing gains when you are right." This is the biggest difference between traders and analysts. When you are in a favorable position, you must be greedy. When you are in an unfavorable position, you must be fearful.
At any time, the market is a gamble with your capital. You only know if it is a range-bound or a trending market after you close your position. Considering these issues during trading often leaves you at a loss. When the market does not match my criteria, I lose as little as possible; when it matches my criteria, I try to earn as much as possible. I never expect to make money from every market move.
Sometimes trading is just gambling, using certain costs to bet on uncertain profits. No one knows what tomorrow will bring, but when deadly risks are at bay, the future is worth a look. Trading principles can remain constant, but strategies must be adjusted according to the market trends. There is no universal remedy.
At any time, holding a profitable position is the safest trade practice. You can control losses, but profit needs the right market conditions and sometimes a bit of luck. Every position relies on accumulated experience and there is no such thing as a perfect independent signal to open a position. I never believe that opening positions dominates trading. Overly focusing on opening positions in swing trading is detrimental and misses more opportunities.
Trading is often contradictory, so logically seeking the right answer does not always yield expected results. Never try to imitate others; trading is a unique endeavor. To last long, some sacrifices must come from the heart.
I have no special reasons for opening positions—K-line trends, trading volumes, memories of past experiences. I never expect to close at the highest or lowest point. Continuous losses are acceptable to await a substantial profit. We can only predict and analyze to kill time; no one knows how the market will move. We just wait.
I have no formal reasons for opening a position; it is basically gambling based on past experiences. Losses can be controlled, but profit requires favorable market conditions. When the market does not match my criteria, I control my losses; when it does, I maximize my profit. There is no other way. I do not seek a perfect trade; my settlement period is in days, not months. I will never let myself fall into a passive situation.
True trading starts with defining your settlement cycle. Any trading model must consider whether it can achieve capital growth over a long period rather than relying on isolated trading days.
The only thing you can do is stick to your bottom line and maintain consistent principles in handling positions. Profits are not within your control; sometimes, luck is needed. This is the charm of trading. As long as you avoid significant backswings and remain profitable within your cycle, the market will eventually reward you.
Many people fail to achieve overall capital growth because they can't withstand the pullback of floating profits. Floating profits are not your actual profits. Consistency means following your rules at all times, unaffected by the market and others, unless you see significant losses within the rules. Consistency means persisting with your methods, unshaken by others or market forces. There are no secret tips in trading; even the most profitable strategies are public knowledge.
This is trading. Do not think that those who make money have secret tips and count money behind closed doors. This market has existed for hundreds of years; any feasible or unfeasible profit method has already been thoroughly studied. You will not find anything new that predecessors have not explored, so do not think you have made a new discovery. It's likely a self-made trap.
If you have basic implementation problems, it will be hard to succeed in anything, not just forex. Look at the successful people around you; whether they are employees or entrepreneurs, they have trustworthy execution capabilities. This is a survival attitude.
Do not constrain your thinking with limited cognition. Open up; many things are not that complicated. Trading constantly tempts you to abandon your principles. Abandoning opportunities is more important than seizing them.
The level of gambling on market direction is not much different among people. The main difference is who can hold onto their positions.
Holding profitable positions has more benefits than just potential windfall profits. At least it provides the following advantages:
1. Reducing the number of positions lowers overall capital risk;
2. Effectively avoiding substantial capital retracements.
If you plan to trade for a living, do not abandon your survival principles because of missing a few trades.
To catch a trade with a profit potential of 100,000, you must learn to give up trades worth 10,000-20,000. If you think trades worth 100,000 are too few and trades worth 10,000-20,000 are numerous, then go after the 10,000-20,000 trades and give up on the 100,000 ones. "Principles" have no quality; it is about the extent to which you adhere to them.
Why maintain consistency? A major part is that you will not always be in a disadvantaged position. Favorable times will counterbalance the unfavorable ones. Profits primarily rely on the overall strategy. If you trade randomly, when luck is not on your side, you might continuously be in the worst positions.
Most of the time, the timing to open a position will appear as you designed; you lack patience, not strategy, and certainly not technique.
Do not expect to always position at the perfect point. It is impossible every time to open a position and have the market move favorably. The purpose of a stop-loss is to give the market space to operate.
To make money, you must endure the pullbacks of floating profits, unconditionally. Pullbacks of floating profits are different from capital pullbacks. In a sense, enduring the pullback of floating profits ensures that your capital does not experience significant retracements.
You will never know what market scenario will arise next, but you must know what kind of scenario will result in a loss and what will bring a profit. If opening a position is critical in your trading, it shows that you do not understand trading strategies or how market trends form.
You value opening positions highly for a few reasons:
1. You lack basic patience in opening positions;
2. You always hope to position at the most precise point, immediately see profits, and cannot tolerate normal price pullbacks;
3. You always aim to sell high and buy low;
4. You see stop-loss as a disaster, so you always set your stop-loss very tight;
5. You do not trust yourself.
Every profit you gain requires careful consideration if it will result in significant capital drawdown. If so, do not take such profits. A trader is not trading for one day. If you maximize profits by breaking rules, you will harm your rule’s probability advantage in the long term.
Long K-lines always correspond to long transaction bars. If you look at K-lines, why bother looking at transaction volumes? As for the position volume, I always believe it has no impact on the market trend. Habits are deeply ingrained and cannot be changed overnight. In the trading world, many things have no absolute rights or wrongs and no absolute truths, so do not seek certain answers. This is trading.
You do not believe others can do it because you cannot do it yourself.
Think through a basic question before trading—what kind of money do you intend to make? Are you making money for a living? Then it is simple: trade to make a daily goal of a few hundred bucks, seeking relatively stable small profits.
Are you treating trading as a career to make big money? Then also simple: pursue large trends and big moves, ignoring small fluctuations. Lack of goals and direction is the fundamental reason you are stuck. Imagine if you could make both big and small money, you would soon be the world's richest person, but obviously, you cannot achieve that!
As a trader, remember that profit requires patience at all times. Most traders fail not because they cannot predict the direction (who can, really?), but because they hurriedly exit when in the right direction. Profits require patience; holding the right position longer increases the chance of success. This patience may not always yield good results, but without it, your fate is sealed from the start. Why waste effort on trivial matters?
One day, if you understand that the trading outcome has nothing to do with your ability to predict the direction, you will have become a trader. Otherwise, you are merely doing something unrelated to trading.
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