Forex Trading Tips: No Fear

No Fear

I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. Michael Jordan

This week I crossed the breakeven line in my scalping account seven times in less than four days. I made more than 100 trades and for most of the week I had nothing to show for all my efforts. The P and L in my account remained essentially the same as I made money, lost money, made money, lost money over and over and over.

Was I frustrated?

Yes.

Was I willing to walk away from the screen and abandon my efforts?

Absolutely not.

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There was nothing wrong with my scalping strategy. The mistakes as always were strictly my own. I ignored the rules of entry. I rushed trades. I was careless in the management of my stops and limits giving back profits while letting losses run. In short I was committing every sin of trading known to man except one – I wasn’t quitting.

I knew my strategy was good. When I followed my rules it worked more often than not. More importantly I knew that even when I executed to plan, the strategy would always hit a drawdown in choppy trade before recovering to new highs. So I stopped worrying about losing money and started focusing on making proper trades. Sure enough by the end of the week my equity had climbed higher by 2.5% as I became much more selective l in my entries and exits.

Sometimes I think the market is Biblical in its ability to frustrate us and we are all playing the role of Job. Of course that’s not true. Much as we want to blame our shortcomings on the machinations of the Gods the fault almost always lies within us. I noted last week at the expo in Pasadena that trading is simple but never easy and I continue to believe that to be true.

Trading is always a battle between you and the market and you and yourself. Most of us focus on the first part but rarely think about the second when in fact the second battle is much more important in the long run. We have no control over the market but we can learn to control ourselves. Fortunately for us, we do not need the super human dunking skills of Michael Jordan to succeed at this game. We simply need to share his attitude of never fearing to fail.

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