In the Film "Dirty Harry" starring Clint Eastwood, the
character Dirty Harry has a villain in the sights of his
famous magnum hand gun.
A few inches away from the villains hand is the villains
gun.
It's a tense moment in the film while the villain decides
whether to go for his gun on the assumption that Dirty
Harry's gun is empty - or to surrender.
Dirty Harry then utters the immortal line "Are you feeling
lucky punk, well are you?"
Of course, Dirty Harry knows that he [Dirty Harry] has an
extremely high probability of a successful outcome to this
encounter.
A common thread amongst many novice (and some not so
novice) traders is that have been placing trade after trade
and at the end of the day/week/month they are not doing as
well as they expected.
Does this ring a bell?
One of the greatest myths in trading is that an "active"
trader is one who spends their entire trading day placing
trade after trade.
Some even believe that the "active" trader places trades on
several different currency pairs simultaneously and as soon
as one trade closes they open another.
Many novice traders spend their whole time looking for
trading opportunities and become very dismayed if they
cannot find one - believing that the market should somehow
provide the ideal opportunity for them whenever they desire
to trade.
These are the very myths and miscomprehensions that cause
many novice traders to produce poorer results than they
would have wished for.
In truth, the active and successful traders are the ones
who spend their trading time studying the charts, assessing
the possible impact of pending news releases and watching
for all of their indicators to move into perfect harmony.
Then they start looking for reasons NOT to trade.
Yes, I'll say that again - They start looking for reasons
NOT to place a trade!
If after looking for reasons NOT to place the trade, they
cannot find any, then they know that this will be a high
probability of success trade.
Then, and only then, they enter that trade. Successful
active traders understand that opportunities need to be
watched and waited for.
They understand that great opportunities regularly come
along, they just need to be ready to take advantage of them
when the time is right.
Successful traders know that they cannot force the pace -
the market dictates and they respond, but they only respond
when the conditions are as near perfect as can be expected
in the forex market.
Does this take a lot of self discipline and self control?
Yes.
Does it make a lot of difference to their overall trading
performance? You bet it does.
Next time you believe that you are ready to place a trade,
try looking for reasons NOT to place that trade. You will
be amazed at the difference that this procedure will make
to your trading.
In future, before you pull the trigger, you need to have
the assurance of knowing that you have the highest
probability of success - just like Dirty Harry had - and to
not be asking yourself "am I feeling lucky punk, well am
I!!!"
----------------------------------------------------
Martin Bottomley is a full time professional forex trader,
acknowledged author, forex tutor and co-developer of forex
trading software including The Amazing Stealth Forex
Trading system.
You will find more information at:
http://www.stealthforex.com
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