For me, PATIENCE is one of the most effective weapons I have in my forex trading arsenal against the common enemies of over-trading and over-analyzing.
I know if I do not learn to exercise the proper amount of patience when trading, I will begin doing all kinds of self-destructive things to my trading account; over-trading, trading off too low of a time frame, over-leveraging, etc.
Simply put, I cannot become a consistently profitable forex trader if I don’t understand why patience is a crucial component to forex trading success and make it a part of my forex trading routine.
Patience is scare among Forex traders, including me.
The reason it is scarce is because most new traders approach the market from the complete wrong perspective.
Gary Bielfeldt is a trader profiled in Market Wizards – “I have always tried to keep the concept of patience in mind by waiting for the right trade, just like you wait for the percentage hand in poker.
If a trade doesn’t look right, you get out and take a small loss; it’s precisely equivalent to forfeiting the ante by dropping out of a poor hand in poker. On the other hand, when the percentages seem to be strongly in your favor, you should be aggressive and really try to leverage the trade similar to the way you raise on the good hands in poker.”
Patience is perhaps one of the hardest aspects of forex trading to master.
When I start trading, often times I become addicted to the adrenaline rush of being in a trade and get into the easy habit of overtrading. Because I want to be in a trade, I start seeing so called “setups” on the charts because I want to see them, and these are so wrong!
Instead of trading on what the charts are actually telling me, I’m trading purely off the emotional high of being in a trade.
But professional traders understand the importance of playing the waiting game. So now I know that sometimes the best thing I can do is to simply wait until my setup is there and stick to trading my plan, even if it’s not as exciting as jumping into a trade at any given moment. The importance of patience in trading can’t be emphasized enough!
Professional traders have the confidence to follow through when an opportunity presents itself because they have a plan, practice discipline, manage risk, and only trade high-probability setups.
Trading is not easy, but if you have the courage to get in there and take a well thought out trade with confidence then your one step closer to trading as a professional