In my younger days, I was impatient. VERY impatient.
I was living in Sydney (Surry Hills) and every day I would walk to and from my job in the city (Martin Place).
During my walk there was one thing that really bugged me almost every single day…
The ‘slow walkers’.
Indecisive people who were strolling along in a daze, not sure where they were going, what was happening around them or the line of frustrated people stuck behind them trying to get past.
Then I’d get to work and I’d be working at a cracking pace, getting slightly annoyed at people who were taking too long to get their tasks done, or just couldn’t keep up.
Everything was rush, rush, rush.
In my trading however, one of the strategies I was trading at the time was a weekly rotational system, where I’d only check the trades on the weekend and enter/exit on Mondays.
It was a fairly profitable strategy; however it was SLOW – some trades would be held for months as they slowly ground higher (or lower for shorts).
For an impatient person like me, it was the equivalent of watching paint dry.
Boring!
You can probably guess that I didn’t stick with that strategy for too long.
It didn’t match my personality or beliefs, so I couldn’t trade it.
I wanted things to happen quickly, I wanted to be busy taking loads of trades, not sitting around waiting. I wasn’t a ‘slow walker’.
Over time I’ve mellowed out a bit and my views on life and trading have changed (it happened pretty quickly once kids arrived on the scene and lack of sleep became the norm!).
And I’ve realised how important it is to have a trading approach that really suits you.
Sure, you can fight it for a while, just like I did, but it’s frustrating and tiring, and the odds are pretty good that eventually you’ll lose.
So why not turn it around, use character “flaws” to your advantage:
- If you like to take it easy – look at longer timeframes, trade “lazy”
- If you like to be right all the time – look at mean reversion trading, where you can have higher win rates that other trading styles (this is what got me into mean reversion trading)
- If you’re an adrenaline junkie who trades just so you can have a good ’10-bagger’ story to share at barbecues, try pennystocks. (just kidding – get your thrills outside of the markets)
Don’t try to trade a particular style just because someone else told you to or that it works for them, figure out what works for you.
It may take a few “learning experiences” to really figure out what works, but it will be worth it.
If you’re just starting out and would like to learn more about trading styles, markets, timeframes and much more, download the ‘ultimate roadmap road map for beginning traders‘. It’s free.
Andrew.
Released:
15 January 2018
