Trader profitability

I often see comments that say that 80-85% of traders dont make money. I think there are a multitude of reasons why this is the case. I will mention some here:
1. Lack of experience: This is where a trader does not have the experience to make good decisions. There is little one can do to avoid a lack of experience, other than to face it head on by reading books. You can always retreat to what you know, the markets you know, but of course its not bad to have setbacks, as long as you commit yourself to overcoming them, and have a strategy to do so.
2. Poor organisation: This is where a trader does not have the resources at his fingertips to solve problems. Common organisational errors include failing to
3. Poor planning: This is where traders dont anticipate the positive or negative consequences of their trading actions.
4. Poor discipline: Alot of traders have alot of difficulty sticking to their trading plan. They may or may not identify a list of things they have to do during the day, but they dont stick to it. They are distracted, demotivated, or otherwise not focused on their business.
5. Poor psychology: This is where a trader continues to make the same mistakes despite identifying the cause of the problem through a process of logic. There are several issues that arise related to trading psychology:
a. Self righteous: The trader needs to be right, so they turn a blind eye when the market turns against them. They dont even need to mount arguments, they are just hoping the market turns.
b. Self indulgence: There is a tendency to be undisciplined with trading. This is particularly the case in times of significant profits or loss, so you become loose with your investment decisions, or you take larger positions.
c. Making emotional decisions: Emotional decisions are motived not by rational arguments, but rather by fear or greed. The timing of these decisions is often very telling.

It goes without saying that trading suits only people with very healthy psychology. The reason is that traders actions in any instance have a great deal of bearing on how they feel about themselves. There is a tendency to place all the value of their actions on their trading results, as opposed to all the research they have done. One of the difficulties is that traders efforts are poorly correlated with their efforts. Success can be a fluke, and losses might happen despite some insightful thinking. eg. You anticipate a move in copper prices. It happens, but you fail to take profits because you were not paying attention or you anticpated a greater move.

Traders Lifestyle

I guess one of the appealing reasons for becoming a trader is the idea of living a flexible life. Just to give you an idea, here are some of the benefits and obstacles. Starting with the benefits:
1. Flexible residence: Trading potentially gives you the flexibility to live anywhere where there is a reliable internet connection. I have traded from Japan, Australia, the Philippines, and also whilst travelling through countries such as Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia. There are of course issues to deal with, eg. setting up accommodation, finding new friends, getting your communications connected, dealing with visas. Some of the better places are the Philippines (you can renew visas for a year without leaving), Japan (90days, but just jump to Korea for the weekend cheaply), Indonesia, Thailand, etc. If you are interested in Japan I recommend buying a foreclosed property there. I bought one several years ago. See my foreclosed website http://foreclosured.blogspot.com. Japan is without a doubt the most interesting place to work. I also recommend joining Tokyo Traders. They have great parties in Roppongi (Tokyo).
2. Flexible working hours: Depending on where you are living, and the markets you want to trade, you can have the flexibility of trading in any time zone you want to, thus allowing you to decide when you work.
3. Lower cost: If you are successful you can live a low cost, alternative lifestyle. For a year, before I went to Japan, I lived for a year in a 1br beachfront apartment in Port Macquarie, NSW, on the east coast of Australia. This is an idyllic location, that allowed me to walk along the beach twice a day. I was a walk from town, paid just $500/mth for the apartment, needed only get a 6mth lease, allowing me to leave at will after 6mths. It suited me because it was a tourist centre for backpackers and it was close to good mountain biking and whitewater canoeing locations.
4. No commuting: If you are disciplined about your trading, you dont need to commute to an office, that saves you $30-50/week, and the queues for public transport, or road congestion in peak hour traffic.

But there are also some negatives for traders:
1. Perceptions: Most traders loose money, so a great many people (girls) think you are an uneducated, bumb with no prospects. Not strictly correct, I was an educated one! :) There is a perception that you have the ethics of Gordon Geko, that you will go broke 2-3 times in a lifetime, that you will end up in bankruptcy court or prison.
2. Discipline: Working from home alone makes it difficult to make yourself accountable. You need to treat trading like a business. The best way of doing that of course is to structure the enterprise like it is a business. Why not develop a partnership. You increase the corporate's equity, you share tax (loss) deductions, you get your accountability (other partners whom are not happy you loosing money), you get trading and drinking buddies, you have the flexibility of specialising and watching different markets, you have 3rd party measures of success. You could rent a 5br beachside house with trading partners, and when you get sick of one location, you move on to the next location. I'm sorry I learned this too late. Better still, treating your business as a corporation makes it easier for you to seek outside investors. The most profitable traders are those that manage other people's money.
3. Stress: Trading financial instruments can cause alot of stress and frustration. You need to have a logical set of procedures for dealing with both positive and negative contingencies, and the corporate structure should help you achieve that.