Breathing and virtues

Breathing

Patterns in Day TradingWatch your breath when you take a position in day trading. It will definitely not be normal. My observation is that more brittle the emotional make-up of the individual, more hurried is the breathing. In any case do emotional traders really survive eventually ? Maybe if they learn to channelize it into useful energy. But that is a hard and long story. We will deal with that some other time.

Humility

Being Humble is not just a heavenly virtue heard in churches. The mature trader is always humble, after being battered time and again in the markets. So why not start it a bit earlier ? Believe me, it pays to be humble, otherwise one goes to the market every day with confidence only to be smashed time and again. This is very common among traders early in their career.

Fear and greed

These aspects are slightly different from the fear and greed to be dealt with say, in position trading or investing. The reason is that a new trader will learn soon enough (with painful losses) that it is smarter to live and trade without having to deal with them. For a professional trader, the concepts assume a kind of surreal, subtle form. Greed should be honed into a system of "how to let the winners run" and fear into a "trailing stop". The same thing actually ! Two sides of the same coin. The most successful traders are like well-oiled machines not reacting to anything but catastrophes, if at all. It is the moment at hand that is important to them and a very spiritual experience to make the most of it wisely, with humility and patience.