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I have never understood this statement and this sounds counter productive to me. How does blowing your account the best way to becoming a profitable trader? This sounds like it is the best way to become a losing trader.....lol!! The best way to become a profitable trader is to have a proven back tested methodology and build confidence by trading consistently on sim. Then trade live with 1 contract and be consistent then add size as you improve.
You can never take emotion out of trading unless you are not human or trading an automated system. It's how you handle your emotions is the key to success in trading, sports or any competitive event. Until one understands who they are as a trader and have the feel for the markets they will never be a consistent profitable trader.
You can however set a daily loss limit on your account to prevent over/revenge/account explosion type trading.
What is super humorous is the new Ninja Site which shows an image of an older man under the splash screen and a young dude on semi and fully automated. I guess they're making a comment on trigger control, or pin control considering that mouse is more like a hand grenade.
Shit, if you follow your system you should know that over time you are going to at least break even, the question is:
are you in control enough to know when to "shut er down" or do you have to figure a work around for your brain
Trading is about being involved with a lot of risk and controlling yourself (Emotions). And if you can control yourself, you're going to be successful. That is your challenge.
Look at some of the greatest athletes in sports and you will find some of the most competitive and emotional individuals. Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods, and Michael Jordan are all intense athletes that coincidentally, hate to lose. Ironically, they also, all lack personal discipline, and seek external stimulation and a high degree of risk in their personal lives. Yet they are able to channel their emotions when it is required of them, and perform at an elite level.
The important ingredient in success is not emotional dampening per se, but the enhancement of concentration and focus. That is what enables people to act with sustained purpose and stay rooted in their goals. The reason why most traders aren't successful, is they pursue short term pleasures, ( and avoid short term discomfort) at the expense of longer term rewards. Develop the character trait of patience, along with the ability to positively channel you emotions, and you will have at least one of the keys to the kingdom.
Emotion is present even when trading an automated system. How many traders have developed an automated system, started using it, entered a drawdown, and then stopped the system only later to see it recover? That's an emotional response. Same for "overriding" the system and telling it to skip a trade because you thought you knew better.
Like you said, balancing the emotion or perfecting your emotions is really the key with trading. Whether it be a discretionary trader or an automated one, you have to still deal with controlling your emotions and focus on making balanced, educated decisions.
Another reminder there is no such thing as "black and white" in trading. No right or wrong. Sure, there is profit and there is loss, but think about this for a moment...
A trader decides to follow his rules, NO MATTER WHAT, because in the past he has "learned" that not following his rules has cost him dearly. You can guess what is likely to end up with this trader -- he may blow up his account.
Why?
For any number of reasons. Just a few: 1) His method wasn't profitable, 2) He didn't realize he wasn't truly executing on his rules correctly, 3) His rules were impossible to be correctly executed.... etc, etc.
No black and white. No right and wrong.
Don't get me wrong - I believe that execution is where a lot of traders go wrong. They lose focus and are always in constant search of some external factor, whether it be an indicator, a trading room, system, their wife, their lack of sleep, whatever --- always some external factor to blame for their poor trading. But hard, fast "rules" like "follow the rules", or "remove emotion", those things don't work. I'm speaking from experience