10 Painful Reasons You’ll Never Survive as a Day Trader

Generally it is observed that now a day people enter day trading looking at profit made by others , listening to rosy picture presented to them by friends , Influencers on social media platforms . They hardly try to analyze how they made money , and without any knowledge jump in to day trading and end up with huge losses and a lot of frustration ..

Day trading is not a game of luck . It is not a game of if’s and But’s , which people generally talk about “ if I had profit “ Remember day trading is not an effortless proposition .It requires a lot of hard work , analysis , access to information , flow , conviction and more importantly certain qualities which are given in this blog ..

Quality to succeed as a Day Traders –

Day Trading is not for everyone . Certain qualities will decide where you are successful or failure as a Day Trader .

Flexibiliy

Self – control

Willingness to Exit Trades at End of Day

Accept Responsibility

Discipline

Able to digest loss

Persistence

Confidence

Concentration

Patience

Consistency

Willingness to learn

Daily Analysis of Results

Flexibility –

flexibility and adaptability are perhaps the most important qualities a day trader should possess . I have observed that people who are extremely rigid tend to perform poorly as a day traders .

Such flexibility , however must be maintained within the context of specific understandings , trading signals , and / or guidelines . A trader should be flexible not only to new ideas about the markets , but also to situations which develop in markets during the day , Hence a flexibility is an important quality which unfortunately , cannot be taught .

Self – Control –

Another important quality which successful day traders must either possess or develop is self control .

During each trading day , a trader comes across hundred of trading opportunity; however a person can not act on all of them as it is practically or economically not possible to enter all trades .Also , which of these opportunities will be profitable , is not known to the trader in advance .

Hence it is important that a day trader has sufficient degree of self control , so that he does not jump in all trades , trying to profit from every where .

Day trader must begin each day’s trading with general plan of action within which the day ‘s event may be interpreted and the proper action taken . The plan , how ever , must not be so restrictive as to blind the trader to other unexpected opportunities . In so doing , some of the worhtless or losing opportunities will be eliminated ahead of time , and the trader will stay focused on those which seem to offer the best potential .

Willingness to Exit Trades at End of the Day –

70 percent of traders enter position originally as day trades ; however , if these trades show losses at the end of the day , they are inclined to hold them overnight or longer given their refusal to take the loss . in this mainly because of the fact that they are not willing to accept the fact that they are been proved wrong . They often give justification that the position will profit soon .

The Holding a position over night , particularly a losing position is perhaps the single greatest offense that a day trader can commit . Frequently , it is also the single most costly violation of the rules . Still another important quality which the day trader must develop is the willngness to exit position by the end of the day .

Accept Responsibility –

Taking responsibility for all your trades at all times , without giving any reason is one quality which is very important to succeed as a day trader .

A successful trader will never blame the market , the government , the companies or anyone else , and will take the complete resposibility for his actions , and losses , if any resulting from them .

A day trader must always remember that market gives ample opportunities to them to make money . It is only the trader’s fault if he doesnot recognize them.

However it is noted that due to ego problems , many traders believe that they can never be wrong , so they tend to give excuses like fault in trading system , mistake of broker while placing order , false rumors , listening to other opinion etc. Many of these excuses may be valid , but by accepting responsibility for all your trades , without making any excuse or without blaming anyone , you empower yourself to consistently improve your performance in the future .

Discipline –

Discipline is one of the most important qualities required to succeed as a day trader .A successful day trader always follows a disciplined approach . He never breaks discipline . He never breake the rules of the game .

A successful day trader always obeys disciplines , he closes the positions that don’t work for him , irrespective how big the loss may be similarly he exits a good profitable position , without thinking much about the profit it can give tommorrow , if held overnight .

Disciplines also refer to trading with your own funds and definitely not borrowed funds under any circumstances , and also not to overtrade .

Discipline also refers to giving your day trading positions sufficient time to work , either in your favour or against you , before exiting .

Above all , discipline is the ability to come back to the trading arena every day , regardless of whether you have won , lost , or broken even the day before .

Able to Digest Loss –

To succeed as a day trader , one must learn to accept a loss & digest it quickly . The day trader must be willing to accept what he or she has achieved by the end of each day without due frustration and / or wishful thinking – win , lose , or draw . As human beings we always took back on what we have done , often with regrets ,thinking that we should have done things differently . Always remember , each loss ,will teach you something important .

Persistence –

This is perhaps , the single most important of all qualities that a trader should possess . Day trading ,which requires the ability to continue trading, even when results have not been good . Due to the nature of markets and trading system , bad times are frequently followed by good times and good times are frequently followed by bad time. Some of a trader’s greatest success will occur following a string of loss. This is why it is extremely important for traders to be persistence in applying their trading methods and to continue using them for a reasonable period .

Those who quit too soon will not be in the markets when their system begin to work , however those who quit too late will run out of trading capital .

therefore while , persistene is important , it should not be too much .

Confidence –

The best traders are successful because they are able to maintain unshakable confidence in themselves and in their decisions . This serene self confidence creates a positive state of mind and the will to act .

When you are short of confidence , you tend to miss opportunities reduce your gains and extend your losses. This is all happens due to emotion called fear .

When you are confident enough , you tend to stop second guessing and also stop’s worrying about the consequences .

Think of a confident role model , preferably a successful trader whom you look up to , and pretend to be that trader .

Concentration –

Concentration is another important quality which the successful day trader must either possess or try to develop . In day trading , so much information flys around you at all times . So many scripts rising , so many scrips fallings , various important announcements coming in . in such a environment to succeed as a day trader , you have to stay on top of it , be able to avoid distractions ,and stay focused .

As far as possible for day trading , your trading room should be free from any kind of noise and disturabance and should be as silent as possible , this helps you to concentrate in your trading .

Patience –

Patience is yet another important quality required to succeed as a day trader . Day traders must be willing and able to tolerate a series of losses , as they patiently await a turn in their fortune . However too much patience can act as a fatal flaw . The day trader who is too patient in hanging on to a losing position will be violating one of the cardinal rules of successful day trading , which is , of course , not to carry losing position overnight .Losses must ,in all cases , be taken as quickly and as expeditiously as possible .

The idea is ofcourse to ride profits to their maximum while eliminating losses quickly .

Consistency –

if there is a single goal that a trader should have , either novice or experienced , it should be consistency . Here by consistency , I mean the ability and willngness to follow a particular program or trading methodology day in and day out as long as the technique continues to give you the desired results .

The most successful traders have a methodology or system that they use in a very consistent manner . However most of trader spend too much time attempting new things , rather than following the method which is working for them currently .

Consistency is required in deciding the conditions under which you enter trades , exit trades , how much capital you commit to each trade .

Daily analysis of Results –

Day traders should have formal procedure for analyzing their results at the end of each day in order that the maximum amount of learning can be extracted from each trade , whether each trade was a profit or loss .

This ofcourse requires some degree of organization and consistency . I urge you to begin keeping diary if you are not already doing not .You ‘ll be absolutely amazed how much you can learn by jotting down your comments at the end of each trading day . It only takes a few minutes , and the reward is literally hundreds of times the cost and effort you put in .

Willingness to learn –

You cannot learn trading in a day or even a few weeks , sometimes not even in months . Successful traders keep reading all the new research on technical analysis they can get their hands on . They also read a number of books every month about techniques , about trading psychology and about other successful traders and how they manage their accounts .