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BOOK YOUR FREE STRATEGY SESSION NOW >>Trading doesn’t work. Nothing could be closer to the truth... Because, honestly, trading doesn’t work if you approach it without study and the proper mindset.
Trading, in itself, isn’t profitable. Neither are investments, just for the sake of being investments.
In both cases, what really makes the difference is the level of seriousness and preparation you bring to the table.
Are you fully prepared? Do you have a solid plan? Have you really thought through your strategies?
And even beyond that—what kind of person are you? What’s your personality like, and how do you handle risk?
All of these factors play into your ability to trade effectively.
Check out the video now to learn:
-Is trading better than long-term investing?
-Should you change your approach if your current method isn’t working?
-Does trading really work?
Enjoy the video! 😉
Trading doesn't work
Trading does not work. I’ve often heard this sentence. It normally comes from different people, people who obviously are trading and are encountering losses. So, I don't like sentences like this because I have different evidence from myself and from students in the Unger Academy. But it's true that we often listen to this.
And also, we listen to it from people who never traded sometimes. People who answer in forums or on YouTube comments with a firmness, a strength so that it appears as if they are the only people in the world knowing the truth.
Trading does not work. Don't discuss with them. There's no argument with this guy because he knows the truth, he's the man. They have never traded in their life. They don't know what this is all about.
They just rely on something. And then there are obviously these aspiring traders who start with something, but they don't really apply seriously. They want immediate results.
Everybody would like to have immediate results, but we know it's not that easy. They want these immediate results. They start, they go, and they don't obtain it. Not the way they expected, maybe.
So, they start changing approach. This method does not work. I will try the other one, it's more serious. And again, after a while, they change again. Maybe they change mentor. This mentor, this is a scam for sure, this other guy is better. They go there and after a while they change again. They're in a loop. Sometimes they quit the right moment when it was starting to produce profits maybe.
But okay, let's say they're not that unlucky, but in any case, they change too often, and they never deepen anything of all the things that they do. They don't do anything seriously, I would say, because seriously means you learn what you are doing, you put it in place the right way, and you give that approach the necessary time to show what it can do or to see if it reflects what you were expecting from that approach, the plan and so on, you remember? Okay.
Then there are long-term investors, and they start claiming that trading is for losers. The right way to go is investing. You put your money in ETFs or funds or whatever, and you forget about it. Or you trade it every month, some asset allocation, things like that. But trading is just to pay the banks all the commissions that you generate and so on.
That's a point of view. I respect the point of view, and I truly believe that if you are good at investing, you should do it. If you like it, you should do it. And I also believe that investing with asset allocation or things like that, is something that is productive and is certainly profitable.
You must like it, you must study it the same way you study trading, and then you can apply it. But why should trading be bad and that way should be good?
This is the absurd of the thing. I mean, I respect what you do. You should respect what I do because I believe that both can be profitable and normally, trading is a bit more profitable than investing, if you look at the number at the end of the year, not always, of course, but normally it is.
So, you can argument that it's crazy to dedicate all this time and pay all those commissions to get as likely better result. It was like, can be 1%, 5%, 10% more, I don't know. I may agree with that. Okay, yes, it's a point of view, but it doesn't mean that this approach doesn't work, and the only true approach is that one.
Again, this is an exaggeration that we find from some people there. So, trading has something where, of course, I trade because I feel, for example, that jumping in and out from the market, I have a higher degree of control of what I do.
Just a feeling, it's just a mindset. It's not right or wrong. It's a mindset. And instead of sitting in the trade waiting for a month, two, or just a time exit after six, eight months, I prefer to be there jumping in and out, which might be wrong, which might be leading to losses, but I feel that I have a higher degree of control of what I'm doing.
Just a feeling. There are many people like me. Obviously, for these people, trading is a better solution than investing. By the way, growing in age, I also slowly move into investing because all this hectic way of going is sort being too challenging for me now and I prefer also something which is quieter.
Investing, option trading, things that are a little bit more relaxing from a certain point of view, but, again, it's just a matter of age in this case, a matter of money. It's not a matter of that works, that doesn't work.
Trading works, but…
Trading works, if it's done properly. If you want to become a trader, you need to do it seriously and, this is very important, with right expectations. You have to set expectations. If you want to trade because you believe you will double your capital in a couple of weeks, obviously you are completely wrong.
Being completely wrong is then leading to frustration because you will never achieve what you expected. Not achieving what you expected leads to this frustration where you start blaming everything and everywhere and making the mistakes, probably changing things too often.
Now, the expectation has to be set properly in anything, of course. But setting the expectation also means having knowledge about what you do. Many people don't have enough knowledge about trading because they are misled by an industry of scams or whatever you can call it, where you really believe that you can hit the jackpot in trading. It's not the case.
Trading is a business, a serious business, a business that I like, a business that can be thrilling, can be interesting, committing, but it's a business that has to be faced seriously.
And if you do so, it works. It works, maybe not the way you do, but it works over a horizon of time. Sometimes you study, you develop a strategy using 10 years of data. Then after two weeks, it doesn't perform, you drop it.
Two weeks, and you judge it on 10 years, and after two weeks, you stop. How many periods of losing two weeks would be there in the equity time that you don't see because the equity time is too narrow, and you stop it.
It's not trading that doesn't work, it's you as a trader who doesn't work because you don't have a plan. You don't have a plan. The plan should be, this is the strategy, this is the expectation, and they expect this to generate that invest.
Ok, when in six months, in one year, when should I stop it if it doesn't? If it exceeds this and this, but I hardly believe that in two weeks it can exceed all the parameters that you're setting, because if it's that the case, probably the parameters were set in a wrong way and again, it's a mistake in planning, not a mistake in trading itself.
So, trading can be a useful tool to invest your money. You must be aware of what you are going towards.
Discretionary trading or systematic trading?
You can be an investor, you can be a trader, and you can do whatever you want, but you have to be aware. Some other guys say that I state that systematic trading is the only reasonable answer to traders.
Not exactly. I mean, I don't blame discretionary trading as is. I normally say that systematic trading is the best choice for aspiring traders because you are much more in control of what you do, and the end result is much more integrating with your personal life.
And the control about the whole activity is much easier because you are there with numbers to base on, not on gut feeling or on trust and so on. So, if you are a good discretionary trader and you're really good at it, absolutely do that. Don't think about systematic trading.
But if you don't know exactly what to do, I strongly believe that systematic trading is the better way to go, because there are a number of points where you can really plan your activity in a due way and understand what to do and how to react to wrong periods which happen.
So again, I'm not saying that discretionary trading is the devil and systematic trading is heaven. No, I just say that it's normally a better choice and I notice that, also from my students, because what they were looking for could be found in systematic trading, but probably not in discretionary trading.
On the other way, I've always said, maybe you say or so, that the best discretionary trading in the world will make more money than the best systematic trader in the world, just based on the way trading is performed.
But just this as an information is not enough to make you choose that just because you could make more. You must be the best. Not everybody is the best. The best is one. Not me, in any case, anywhere.
So, again, you have to try to choose which is easier to follow, which is more comfortable to structure, and systematic trading is the answer in this case, but I'm not saying that the other one is wrong. I'm just saying that this is a better choice for many aspiring traders.
Everyone has their own style
So, you want to discretionary trade? Fine. You want to be a long-term investor? Fine. You want to be an option trader? Fine. I myself am an option trader. You want to practice systematic trading? Fine. In any case, properly set your expectation. If you do so, you will probably never come out later and say trading does not work. At least, I hope so.
Ciao, from Andrea Unger.
We'll help you map out a plan to fix the problems in your trading and get you to the next level. Answer a few questions on our application and then choose a time that works for you.
BOOK YOUR FREE STRATEGY SESSION NOW >>Andrea Unger here and I help retail traders to improve their trading, scientifically. I went from being a cog in the machine in a multinational company to the only 4-Time World Trading Champion in a little more than 10 years.
I've been a professional trader since 2001 and in 2008 I became World Champion using just 4 automated trading systems.
In 2015 I founded Unger Academy, where I teach my method of developing effecting trading strategies: a scientific, replicable and universal method, based on numbers and statistics, not hunches, which led me and my students to become Champions again and again.
Now I'm here to help you learn how to develop your own strategies, autonomously. This channel will help you improve your trading, know the markets better, and apply the scientific method to financial markets.
Becoming a trader is harder than you think, but if you have passion, will, and sufficient capital, you'll learn how to code and develop effective strategies, manage risk, and diversify a portfolio of trading systems to greatly improve your chances of becoming successful.
