The only source of knowledge is experience

This week has been a good week to take off, shame I didn't! The markets have been very subdued with some volatile moves, especially today with the EU payment to UK farmers where the British Pound rallied. This week was probably the toughest week I've had in a while, purely because I've been working from my desktop and obviously wanting to trade. I had to go back to my old tactics of sticking a post stick note on my screen saying: 'We get paid to be disciplined; not by the hour'. I was also heavily influenced by my involvement in a trader talk group where there are many intra-day traders. I put in more effort this week in staying disciplined than I did in the gym! I digress, we all know the obstacles we face as traders but not many have solutions to them.

When most traders lose money or don't follow a strategy through, they return to the path of learning more and increasing their knowledge. Some of my traders who I mentor have done exactly this. After not trading for a while due to quiet markets, pressures start forming.....how am I going to hit my target? How am I going to pay the bills, etc.... So what do they do? They forget about their mentor's (me!) years of experience and try and go it alone. They start spending hours a day learning about Elliott Wave Theory, Gann Theory, Cycle theory, Candlesticks, joining forums to find new strategies, etc and are essentially trying to find the holy grail!

Fortunately, I have studied all of the above, do I use all of the above? No. Last night, I met with my network of market technicians from the Society of Technical Analysts at the LSE who are a mix between institutional market technicians and private traders. They all specialised in one field.....some only traded Elliott Wave theory, some spent most of their time analysing and understanding Gann theory, however, most just kept it simple. We all came into agreement that you have to find something that resonates with you, no matter what it is, and go with that. For that will be the simplest method for you to implement on a daily basis, allowing you to focus on the more important aspect of trader psychology.

My own view is that the only source of knowledge in trading is experience. Most successful people in life have a mentor that inspires and motivates you, holds you accountable, challenge your thinking to make you understand it in your own psyche, provide new ideas and help you achieve your goals. This is vastly different from a coach, a mentor has been there and done it and you are their to learn from their experience. I have been fortunate enough to mentor some dedicated and hard working individuals for some time now. It is remarkable what one can achieve on a personalised basis. Being around the right peer group is essential, or to not have one at all if there is no one like minded!

Experience counts for everything.

As Bruce Lee said: "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times"

Best,

Jitan