One Day It Will All Make Sense
"Whenever you find yourself blaming providence, turn it around in your mind and you will see that what has happened is in keeping with reason."
— Epictetus, Discourses
Back to trading again when comparing today's meditation. Although the opening statement you can argue, would be different when adopting a trading mindset! We are focused on our trading plan using the rules/criteria for our strategies of course, but there isn't some hidden bigger plan! Any trades that we think could turn out to be a disaster, we cut short and take a controlled red. We are not hoping for lucky breaks because that means we've stayed in a trade too long and if a lucky break doesn't come, we will be hit with an unmanageable red! We want to be consistent based on our rules/criteria and getting lucky won't happen very often, meaning our bank isn't being protected which is paramount to succeed!
There is a line in there which is very true when it comes to trading though. "Our loss is somebody else's gain!" We are using our own money and taking other people's money. This is the way it works with Betfair providing the platform to trade.
I have mentioned patience quite a lot when writing these daily journals, but patience will be rewarded, IF you stick to the rules/criteria for your strategies. A lot of traders are far too eager to ditch a strategy before they have given it enough time. They will switch from strategy to strategy! Not all trades will go our way, so we have to act swiftly to minimise losses. When we use the stats/data that we have available to us, this means we will be right many more times than we will be wrong. So as long as we cut short those losses and take controlled reds, the greens will make us profitable over time because we have managed the occasional losses efficiently.
Here are three things which are pivotal to help trading all make sense;
1) Patience; to give it time.
2) Discipline; to exit that trade in a heartbeat if it's going wrong.
3) The Trading Mindset; to trade what you are seeing and not what you hope to see.
These are the vital ingredients for trading consistently and profitably.
Time is of the essence and it will all make sense in the long run.