In trading as in all other endeavors in life there are people who take full responsibility for their own results and the consequences of their own actions and there are others who blame everybody and everything else for the bad things in their life. There are the winners and then there are the whiners. Trading is no different, and many do the homework and put in the time to become winners and make money and others just become victims of the notorious “they”.
- They are crooks
- They were fishing for stops.
- They ran the stock against me when I was in the bathroom.
- They gave me a bad tip.
- They just used me for a pump and dump.
- They are playing games with prices.
- They were running a bear raid.
- They pulled off a short squeeze.
While big money players can move prices in the short term they have to get back out of a position and as J.P. Morgan recently proved, whales can get themselves trapped in trades also, many times their size is a disadvantage because they are moving a market against themselves as they try to enter and exit a trade and build a big position. Trading is a free market and we are free to do whatever we choose at any time, to blame others for losses is just ridiculous for some one who is a mature professional.
The mark of a winning trader who is a real pro is that they take full responsibility for the results of every one of their trades early in their trading career.
- I lost a lot of money because I traded a position way too large for my account size because I did not respect risk.
- It is my fault I lost a large amount of money on this trade because I didn’t stick to proper risk management of 1% of total capital per trade.
- I lost money because I simply have no idea what I am doing, I am just trading opinions.
- I lost money entering and exiting this trade due to the bid/ask spread, I understand than market makers make money on the spread and it widens in low volume.
- I know there are risks in trading, but I didn’t fully comprehend how quickly I could lose a lot of money with a bad trading plan.
- I lost money due to market volatility but that is part of the game.
- I had a bad month trading but I have no regrets I followed my proven plan and it just didn’t work out due to the market environment.
Who is accountable for your trades? The answer to this question is very important and predicts the outcome of your long term trading career most of the time.
The true mark of a whining trader who is never going to make it in this business is one who continually blames everything but his or herself for the outcome of a bad trade.
The winning trader is bigger than any string of trades and stands head and shoulders above the market and trades with poise and confidence regardless of the short term results. They win in the end.