Rob Booker

 

Have you ever been upset that you're not taking all the trades that your trading system produces? 

Often I re-learn that the more strenuously I seek for something, the more elusive it becomes. Maybe I'm not getting 25% of the trades my system could possibly produce. On the other hand, maybe I'm actually getting closer to 90% and I just don't know it. Not so wrong to admit that if I tried to take 100% of all the possible trades that the following things might happen:

I might get exhausted and start messing trades up
I might find myself tempted to take something "off plan" because I'm in front of the charts
I might lose what I made in the morning

I have known at least 10 very good traders who royally botched their trading as soon as they had a "full time" schedule for trading. They quit their much-hated main job, and then proceeded to binge themselves on trades. It would have been better to pick up the guitar and play for 6 hours a day, and then sleep for 2 more hours, and then treat the lady to a fine meal and some Barry White Special Time, rather than sit in front of the radar screen and launch bombs at their financial future. When you cross the chasm to full time trading, which is sort of like enlightenment, then fill your day with ordinary tasks. As they say, "After enlightenment, the laundry." Otherwise you lose it.