I’ve been doing a lot of ’soul-searching’ after I read the book Enhancing Trader Performance: Proven Strategies From the Cutting Edge of Trading Psychology by Brett N. Steenbarger…
He argued that everybody can be a successful trader, as long as they find the correct niche for themselves… Some traders are suitable for discretionary trading, others prefer a mechanical system… some need to day trade, others prefer to do lots of fundamental research and only trade once or twice a month…
This is not a new concept to me… It’s something that I always believed in… But he mentioned something else that struck me.. He said that if we have problems being disciplined in our trading, it may be because that trading style is not suitable for us… He gave an example of an army officer who had problems with spread trading, because deep down, he considers hedging to be a coward’s behavior… Thus, he argued that if we find ourselves repeatedly breaking our rules when trading, working on our self-discipline may not be the solution… Instead, we should consider if the strategy is suitable for our personality…. He argued that there’s lots of trading strategies available… and any of them can be profitable as long as it suits you…
That was kind of an ‘aha’ moment for me… I realize I was wasting my time all along trying to figure out which trading strategy is more profitable… I wrote lots of EAs to compare trend trading, breakout strategies, candlesticks, arbitrage strategies etc… Maybe all of them are equally profitable… Come on, for every trading strategy out there, there are people who make a fortune from it, while others bust their accounts using the exact same strategy…
So, it is not about the strategy at all… It is about a match between the trader and the strategy… If the strategy is suitable for you… you’ll ‘resonate’ when trading it… You wouldn’t have problems following the rules.. because you are just being yourself… That’s when you know it’s the right one for you…
