Are some traders lucky whilst others are unlucky no matter how hard they work at it?
Whenever you make a mistake with, for example, position size or currency choice does it always end in a loss or a windfall profit?
It you set your TP with great care and go away does the market always seem to turn one pip before it or after it?
Does your SL always get hit just as the market turns or is it missed by a few pips before going on to make a nice profit?
When you switch on your trading platform have you usually just missed a beautiful move by 5 mins or is a perfect setup just appearing ready for you?
When you switch on and the day’s movements so far look full of promise does the market die the moment you join it or does it go on to fulfill your greatest expectations?
When you have sat on a position for so long without any movement that you close it in exasperation/boredom does it immediately take off on the very next bar straight to what would have been your TP or does it sink to what would have been a stop-out if you hadn’t close it when you did?
When you are faced with two identical setups on two different currencies and have to chose only one, does the one you choose turn into a fakeout whilst the other performs a perfect trade or vice versa?
In other words, is there a factor in trading that is unexplainable and which seems to either bless or stress traders? Is there such a thing as pure luck? And do some people have it consistently while others never taste it at all?
I gotta be honest and admit that luck sometimes plays a factor in trading. Sometimes you can do all the right things - solid fundamental analysis, wait for technical confirmation, proper risk management plans - but still wind up losing when there’s a market surprise. On a more positive note, you could also get lucky on a trade you’re not so sure of and get enough momentum to press your advantage. But as David Branco mentioned above, luck isn’t likely to be a factor that would constantly affect your trading. Besides, it’s still up to you when it comes to making the right decisions to take advantage of such fortune.
I Agreed with Magneto and Dave. Luck plays a role, but you can decide how much of that role determines your overall performance by controlling the risk. As for profits, the market gives you what it gives you. Maybe that part has some luck in it.
Have you tried the coin strategy in one of the threads today?
There is a mindset that walls “damn it anyways”. If I only…
News, momentum and who controls the market NOW, Easy to look back on, hard to live in the moment. Today, now, what is going on now? NOW is the key…now-strange looking 3 letter word.
Believe, I am still working on this. I want to predict, be almighty…doesn’t work.
All those situations happened to every one more or less, the thing is if you have a good trading strategy and you are disciplined enough to follow it than luck is not necessary. You can miss some trades, you can make some bad choices but in the end of the day, consistency on a long term will play the main role and not the luck.
Yes, Rambo, you are pretty much on the button with where I was hoping to go with this thread. As you say, we all experience these fortunes and misfortunes and we can attribute them to luck or whatever. But I think that behind the label “luck” lies a more important attribute which is “attitude”. It is important that a trader remains entirely positive towards his/her work regardless of whether we are experiencing a loss or a gain.
If we start to let negative attitudes colour our results then we will notice, emphasise and remember the negative things far more than the positive and gradually brand ourselves as overall “unlucky” traders. Just like Friday 13th is considered an unlucky day, I doubt that statistically it is any different to any other, but if anything goes wrong on Fri 13th it simply reinforces the conviction that it is an unlucky day.
Attitude and self-confidence are so critical to good trading that it is important to focus on what goes right and simply try to learn from whatever goes wrong.
As I heard from somewhere, I don’t recall where: losses are not failures, they are the overheads of running a successful business. If we are failing because of losses it is not actually the losses than are causing the failure, rather it is the lack of gains - i.e. our trading system, strategy and/or risk/money management etc that needs fixing. We are not simply unlucky or lucky, are we?
Well known saying: "The harder I work, the luckier I get:
Work on understanding fx
Work on devising a trading plan
Work on studying the market
Work on being aware what big news events are occurring and upcoming
Work on your money management
Work on accepting responsibility for your own actions
The luck will take care of itself
Don’t hope for luck in trading because there is no one who could control your luck but if you’re working hard so you will find out how to make money in forex business easier than only hoping for luck. Luck can happen in all businesses but you can’t be successful with relying on luck because there is no one who can become successful without hard working and smart working although you can be luck sometimes.
Do you believe that there is such a thing as luck at all? If not, what do you think causes people to talk about luck or to attribute success or failure to “luck” or lack of it?
Interesting post Bearish. Actually the issue was not whether one hopes or relies on luck but whether some traders have more luck than others no matter how hard they all work? You say yourself here that “Luck can happen in all businesses” so you áccept that luck exists and “happens” so how do you feel about who gets lucky? Is it purely random or are some people actually consistently luckier than others? - or is luck actually something entirely different to what we normally assume it to be?
Of course luck plays a part. Back in January I was lucky to be on the right side of a trade when the Swissy event happened and I made some money.
The problem comes when traders, esp noobies, just guess or trade on ‘instinct’ and make profit. They don’t realise this was just luck and that the next time it could go against them.
