Sitting on Your Hands is Also a Position

I have received a couple of questions this week asking if I am still trading.  The short answer is yes, I look at the charts daily.  The reason that I have not been blogging trades is that my setups have not been hit this month.

Actually, it did go off once, but I wasn’t around to take the trade. But I am OK with that.

I have pretty thoroughly tested the Wallaby system that I am trading in the EURUSD with Forex Tester 2 and my testing showed that there will be extended periods of about a month or so when trades do not fire off that often, if at all.

If that is the case, then there is nothing I can do except watch.  Some people get bored with this and want to force trades that aren’t there.

I know that I was like that in the beginning, so I wanted to take a few minutes to reinforce why sitting on your hands is also a position and some questions you should be asking yourself if you absolutely refuse to.

The bottom line is that you can’t lose what you don’t risk.  Your risk is substantially higher if you are trading a system that you haven’t tested and do not know what the expectancy is beforehand.  You only want to take calculated risks, not SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess) trades.

It commonly boils down to a pursuit of money not the love of trading.  I love the process of trading and that is the only reason that I have stuck it out this long and still maintain this blog.  Do you?

If you are just after what you think is a fast buck, it doesn’t exist.  You have to really love the challenge and be able to deal with the uncertainty.  You also have to be realistic about what you can make.

When I first started trading, I thought that I could solve all of my money problems by becoming a badass trader.  While this is entirely possible, there are also other factors that I needed to take into consideration.

For me, the biggest factor is the huge amount of debt that I currently have.  As pro trader Bubble Boy pointed out when I interviewed him, trading is a very psychological game and having a lot of debt will mess with your head and your trading.  His mentor insisted that he pay off all of his debt and recommended that I do the same.

So I cashed out my trading account to pay down one of my credit cards and have been working on creating income that does not depend on psychology.  This has led to a more Zen-like trading experience for me because I have found that I am not forcing trades and I have rediscovered that I enjoy trading well.

Another potential roadblock to becoming successful is your full-time job.  In fact, I emailed two aspiring traders this week and both of them said that it was very difficult to trade around their demanding jobs.

Getting out of a job you hate is another reason that people force trades.  I am totally guilty of that one too.  If this is the case, can you possibly switch jobs to something that is less demanding?  If that is not possible, then can you tailor a trading system that is based on a longer time frame so you don’t have to watch the market that often?

Making these adjustments can put you on the right track and reduce your tendency to force trades. Is that too much of a sacrifice for you?

Then trading may not be your true passion and you are better off finding something that is.  Your heart and your bank account with thank you for it.