Never give up! Overcome these 3 milestones to become a successful trader

Ashish Kyal, CMT

I have been into trading for many years. When I first started, I was overwhelmed by hundreds of indicators available to be used, a plethora of free and paid software to evaluate from and thousands of analysts’ or so-called market gurus each sharing across their conflicting views across media, Twitter and various mediums.

A Trader even before starting his journey is already lost not because of lack of experience but due to so much information to process without even knowing how the entire business strategy works.

To make it more complex, everyone will try to give free tips even if you do not ask for it and they claim it to be 100 percent accurate. The majority takes a plunge by starting with “FREE” Tips assuming there is free lunch available and you can make a killing in markets but that is only short-lived since the risk is unlimited and the profits if you make any, is hardly anything.

Post realizing the mistakes it finally dawns upon to not fall into the trap which you still keep faltering until you overcome your compulsive behaviour and the quest for knowing more starts. Many traders fall apart in this first milestone itself and a few are filtered out to move ahead.

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The 2nd milestone a trader needs to overcome –

Then comes the much-debated comparison between Fundamentals and Technical analysis. Over here, I believe, it depends more on the situation and circumstances that you are exposed to and you have no control over it.

If you come across a hardcore fundamentalist and take him as your mentor you will end up criticizing the technical analyst and it is equally true vice-versa.

I, fortunately, stumbled upon a CMT during my Lehman day’s and my quest for learning took a deep meaningful turn. Lehman Brother’s bankruptcy in 2008 was a major eye-opener for me as I realized how sharply the market fundamentals can change and you need to adapt to the fast-moving market scenario change.

The subprime crises resulted in a financial lockdown and made me realise the only way to make sense out of chaos is to look at the prices.

It is rightly said the “Bhav Bhagwan Che” means prices reflect everything you need to know as a trader and Lehman Brother’s stock was being hammered all the way down in 2008 before it finally saw its doom’s day.

My life took a huge turn and I started building my journey as a trader and adopting the best of the tools available either in Fundamentals or Technicals and not debating what works.

Rather a simple Price to Earnings ratio (PE ratio), if plotted, will give a lot more information to any financial enthusiast but everyone is too busy struggling to take shelter under the respective school of thought rather than understanding the fact that when you make money by trading or investing you do not segregate it labelling as this is made out from Fundamental or Technical analysis and should be treated differently.

The aim itself at times seems is not about money alone but to battle with your own compulsive mindset. The satisfaction or frustration is not emerging out of how much you made only but also whether you did anything which was intelligent enough based on the skills or tools you have finally come to have adopted.

The 3rd Milestone –

Later, slowly once you get more handle on your emotions and understand how you react to external stimuli you will realize it is your compulsive or rather impulsive reactions that result in the maximum amount of losses.

To overcome this you need to have an objective system that will on many occasions debate with the impulsive nature that really tear you apart.

To give an example once you believe your system works (of course, based on many rigorous processes) you have crossed the 3rd milestone. But, only if you are modest or humble enough to adapt to the new market situations without any arrogance you will reach the next milestone.

I have build up on Elliott Wave, Neo Wave, Time Cycle analysis, and combine them with prudent risk and money management strategies. This also depends on your personality as a trader and temperament.

Each trader is unique in his or her own way and you will end up moving backward if you try to mimic someone else. This is a big pitfall that many traders fall into and never come out of, trying to be better than someone else by mimicking every other successful trader.

The only thing that has worked for me is perseverance and never giving up but taking responsibility of every single trade that is punched into the system and let the market decide if you did the right thing or not.

Never kick yourself for the stupid mistakes that you do because it is not really your conscious self but the compulsive behaviour that drives each one of us sub-consciously.

The only thing you can take care of is to manage the risk because that is the only reality you are aware of and the rest is the future which is not yet born.

So, trading is nothing but perseverance to never give up, keep building up from mistakes, ensuring the mistakes you make are eating up only a very small portion of your profits or rather capital if you have not made profits yet.

But, trust me the most important key is to keep riding the trend when it comes and the profits that you will see will pay for all the hard work done so far. Many actually falter exactly over here to take everything off the table too soon when the trend just started when the time has come to stay back and enjoy the fruits of perseverance.

So, trading requires you to have the appetite of risk and above that much bigger appetite to take big profits which will make all the difference and puts you among the 5 percent slot of the winners as 95 percent keep struggling across with methods.

Remember, for a trader, there is no final milestone to be achieved because every day, every month, every year brings a new situation in front of you that was never before and the game of probability requires you to overcome your earlier understanding about what you learned over the decades and keep building up.

The ongoing pandemic is a classic example of that. This is what keeps the passionate trader going, new challenges, unchartered territories, and perseverance to reach there.

But, do not forget to cherish how far you have come and the beautiful journey that made you a modest and humble person in that zeal for reaching the final destination which is only a “MIRAJ”

Become a wonderful trader and let the fire never burn off. You can burn with me in passion and quest of knowledge or chose your own independent path but whatever you chose perseverance is the only way to be a successful life on this planet!

(The author is Founder of AK Trading Gurukul / WavesStrategy.com. He could be reached on Twitter at @kyalashish)

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