Trading, like any endeavor, any skill, is learnt through doing. We learn through trial and error, through having experiences and evaluating and learning from those experiences; and of course, our learning is accelerated if we have the support and advice of someone who is further along the path of development. The skills of trading are to do with execution, and implementation, the doings of trading. The problems we all experience in our trading, problems that are popularly referred to as the psychology of trading, are the challenges of trading, it is these problems we surmount as we develop our trading skills. The skills of execution are the equivalent of the basic shots and strokes that make up the games of golf or tennis. There is no point having a strategy in tennis if we can't execute the complement of strokes we need to be able to play. Knowing that we need to hit the ball deep and move our opponent from one side of the court to the other is of no value if we cannot hit the basic shots. There is no point having a trading strategy if we can't trade and no novice trader knows how to trade. The problems we all experience in trying to make money trading stem from the fact that we do not yet have the skills of a trader. If all we needed was a system we would all be wealthy; no, we need to become traders. If you have read the Market Wizard books by Jack Schwager, you will notice that each of these very successful traders has a different approach or system, yet they are all successful. Their approach is not the common factor that determines their success. The common factor amongst them is their trading skills. What are these trading skills and how do we develop them in ourselves, that is the million dollar question. We need to look to ourselves for the answers, what are the problems that we experience, what are the behaviors that result in our lack of success and our failures? It is overcoming these behaviors that move us along the path of the trader. The basic rules of trading are cut your losses short and let your profits run, a losing trader is not doing one or both of these. When we have learnt to ruthlessly cut are losses and have the restraint to run our profits, only then are we traders. And it is during the process of our development, as we demythologize the market, that we start to have the observations and make the distinctions that lead us to evolve and refine our trading strategies. If we could have the strategy of a successful trader delivered to us on a plate would it be of any value to us? I don't believe so; in the same way we could not implement Tiger Wood's strategy, or Pete Sampras's, because we do not have their skills, so we could not implement another traders strategies without their skills. We must develop as traders first and in so doing we will naturally evolve our own unique style and approach to trading success. To develop these skills we need to get our feet dirty, plunge into the markets and have experiences. These experiences are all good; they are the feedback we need to gauge our current state of development. Without feedback we have no means of progressing. When I first started to play tennis I did not go straight into a competitive game and try to win, I started by learning the basic skills of tennis, the forehand, the backhand and the serve. As a novice it was normal, expected even, for me to hit the ball repeatedly in the net or hit it sailing out; this just indicated that I needed to work on these shots. Imagine taking this approach to trading. Lots of losing trades is to be expected for the novice trader, it is the first feedback, which reinforces the fact that the first skill of trading is to cut losses short. A novice tennis player needs to learn to control the ball so that it lands in the court; the novice trader needs to learn to control his losses. This is how we learn; it is a constant cycle of trade - feedback - adjust. So what are the practical steps for going about the business of developing trading skills? As a novice it is helpful to trade a simple, logical system. This appears to contradict the stance I took against system vendors above, but what I am talking about here is a systematic way of having a view of the market. My objection to the system vendors is that they maintain that their system is all that is required to be successful, whereas in reality it is the ability to implement a system or strategy that determines success. As your trading skills evolve, your ability to read the market will evolve; but until then you will have no valuable opinion, so a simple, logical system will give you a reason to buy or sell. In attempting to trade these systems two things will happen; firstly you will find out the issues you have that you need to resolve in order to progress as a trader; and secondly in the course of trading the system you will start to make observations and distinctions that will enable you to be more discerning about picking trades. The issues that you will come up against will be the feelings that arise that will prevent you from executing your system flawlessly. You will need to neutralise these feelings so that you are no longer a victim to them. I believe that to have some sort of support while developing as a trader is vitally important. A trading coach, for want of a better phrase, will help you to navigate when you feel lost, and will give you an objective perspective when you are wallowing in doubt and uncertainty. As a novice floor trader I found the support of my backer essential in developing trading discipline. Support does not have to come from a professional coach, two traders could support each other, or a novice trader could seek out a mentor.
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