Trader’s Narrative

Oops! You mistyped and made a fat finger trade

There is so much ink and pixels spilled on how to succeed in trading. So I thought, being a contrarian, I would zag instead of zig and outline how to fail as a trader. Without further ado, the 10 vital steps you must take in order to fail in trading:

1 Start out undercapitalized
Become enthralled with the romanticism of taking $500 to a $1 million - ignore any pesky thoughts about the improbability of such a Herculean task.

2 Ignore risk management
Always value conviction over discipline. Don’t worry when a trade goes against you, just put it aside and think of it as a long term investment. Or double down. It has to come back eventually.

3 Compare yourself to other traders, not yourself
Don’t use R or any of that weird stuff like MFE/MAE. Instead compare yourself to other traders using dollar amounts.

4 Look for the right system
Rather than gaining an understanding, search for the killer trading system - it is out there and it will make you rich beyond your wildest dreams! Take someone else’s system, seminar, etc. never waste your precious time in doing your own research. Don’t ask too many questions or push boundaries; crush your sense of wonderment and your natural thirst for learning.

5 Don’t keep a journal
Or in any way, try to learn from your previous trades.

6 Be secretive
If you stumble on an idea or insight, keep it to yourself. Never ever share it with other traders or ask their input on it.

7 Be casual
Don’t take it seriously, do it on the side, part time - don’t devote a lot of attention or resources to it. See #4

8 Fill your charts with as many indicators as possible
More information means more signals and money so make sure every chart is so complex that price action is hardly visible through all the indicators.

9 Trade with your emotions
If you’re feeling greedy, push your trades and buy more. If you’re fearful, stand aside or sell. If you don’t have strong emotions, go with the crowd. If they’re fearful, there must be a good reason, sell. If they are buying, join them. They must know something you don’t. And if you don’t know how to monitor the crowd, let a TV personality do it for you. Buy what and when he says.

10 Be inconsistent
Try to be completely random (that’s what markets are like after all, right?). One day trade based on news, the next day on candlestick patterns, the next day on fundamental analysis. Each day trade a different market: Monday: corn, Tuesday: the spoos, Wednesday: FX, Thursday: gold, etc.

I’ve been noticed twitter getting really popular and coming from under the shadow of a useless gimmick to be potentially quite useful. Personally I have my doubts.

If you’re not familiar with twitter, it is one of those web 2.0 apps which allows you to broadcast to the world little snippets. So you can tell the world: “I’m having a peanut-butter sandwich.” or “My jello pudding-pop just fell down.” Ultimately it’s about communication: real-time, fast, easy and cheap. In the hands of pre-adolescents it’s inane. But what about traders?

One challenge that that most traders have is that they are isolated. While most traders are proud to be on their own, this can get to you after a while. So a few have been putting these twitter widgets on their blog and sharing with the world (in almost real time) trading tidbits.

So why not use something like Gizmo VOIP to connect a group of remote traders in a conference call? Wouldn’t that be much more productive? With a headset you’d have your hands free to, you know, trade and to keep the chatter down you can mute your mic until you have something to say. Like twitter, it is free and blazingly fast (who can type as fast as they can talk?) . And unlike twitter, you get instant feedback (two way communication).

Sure, twitter is the hot thing right now (read: fad) but I think a real time voice chat is much more effective for traders. Of course, you would have to keep the group faily small and invite only (same as twitter). What do you think?