Success And Focus: The Power of One
Posted in FXCM Expo, Forex Trading on August 22nd, 2006If you haven’t taken advantage of FXCM’s free forex videos, especially Rob Booker’s presentation then make use of them while they are still available and free.
I particularly enjoyed Rob’s seminar and there will be several things I’ll be expounding upon in the coming weeks that I learnt from his talk with the remainder of this post being the most prominent feature I learnt from him, and that is: being focussed.
Having being a trader for some 8 years I’ve pretty much done it all: I’ve had the “privilege” of wiping out a couple of accounts, reading a gazillion trading books, attending hundreds of seminars, purchasing hundreds of systems and subscribing to hundreds of signal vendors… etc etc. I suppose if I added up the amount of time and money spent it would easily be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars!
And do you know at what point I began becoming consistently profitable?
When I traded a system that I created from what *I* observed.
My profitability then increased further when I acquired a skill that allowed me to backtest my observations through programming, and increased yet again when I tweaked the system I had chosen to trade.
And this, I think, is at the heart of becoming successful as a trader: focus.
I remember the days when I would create a system, backtest it, like its results, trade it, encounter a string of losses (like… 2 in a row), panic, and then throw the system away.
How stupid was I?
Everything my mind had logged, trading that system, had now been erased. If the system was breaking down I could’ve gone back to the drawing board and thought about what common characteristics were prominent on trades that were losers. And this is when the penny dropped.
I stopped chasing the elusive holy grail and simply concentrated on what I liked using and what worked for me.
I then audited my trades on a consisent basis knowing that the markets are always changing and the precious experience my mind had acquired watching charts I could crystallise into an improved method for extracting profits out of the market.
After watching Rob’s presentation I began to realise that the real element of my success was the focus I put in on that ONE system. Without that focus I would’ve continued chasing my tail using a new system every month.
If that’s you, come in close, reeaaal close I need to tell you something very very important…
STOP!
Rob puts it best… “If we were to lock you in a room for six months and gave you historical data on ONE currency on ONE time frame with ONE indicator could you develop a PROFITABLE system?”
If you’re not profitable trading the forex market then why aren’t you doing that?
Focus.
Grab your favourite currency, plot it on your favourite time frame, use your favourite indicator and then stay focussed on creating your holy grail.
And this is what Jack Schwager’s FXCM presentation should have impressed upon you: there’s no ONE way of extracting profits out of the markets.
I know profitable forex traders who use only a MACD (or the Macdizzle as Rob put it!), traders who trade announcements (such as Felix), traders who trade bank opens, carry traders, CCI trades (such as Woodie)… etc etc.
It’s no hocus pocus… just focus.