{"id":15504,"date":"2019-12-11T17:00:34","date_gmt":"2019-12-11T22:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jeffclarktrader.com\/?p=15504"},"modified":"2019-12-11T17:00:34","modified_gmt":"2019-12-11T22:00:34","slug":"a-successful-trading-career-isnt-just-about-trading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/a-successful-trading-career-isnt-just-about-trading\/","title":{"rendered":"A Successful Trading Career Isn\u2019t Just About Trading"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mike’s note: <\/strong>When it comes to long-term sustainability in the trading world, there are few better people to learn from than hedge fund market wizard Larry Benedict.<\/p>\n

Larry’s trading career spans 35 years. Starting with $10,000 in the trading pits of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), Larry worked his way up to making millions of dollars on single trades… and managing hundreds<\/em> of millions. (To watch Larry in action in a special trading event tonight at 8 p.m., sign up right here<\/a>.)<\/strong><\/p>\n

But, as you’ll learn in today’s special evening edition of the Market Minute<\/em>, Larry owes that success to something more than his trading expertise…<\/p>\n

\n

A lot of the problem with new traders is they end up letting one or two big winners define them. <\/p>\n

That’s an emotional approach… And it leads to a lot of early endings to promising careers.<\/p>\n

I’ve always looked at trades very mathematically, and encouraged new traders to do the same.<\/p>\n

I’m thinking less about how a trade reflects on me in a personal, emotional way… and more on how it’s affecting my overall P&L (profit and loss).<\/p>\n

I want to be consistent above all, and that’s my way of achieving it.<\/p>\n

Traders make mistakes when they make emotional decisions and divert from the mathematical plan. That’s the opposite of consistency.<\/p>\n

For me, consistency has always come out of grinding out positive P&L (profits and losses). It’s from putting a P (profit) on the page, no matter how small.<\/p>\n

That’s different from what I see most traders doing…<\/p>\n

Most traders just go for home runs. They only want to cash out of a trade when it hits some unreasonable profit target. And by waiting around for the profit, they’re missing out on countless other profit opportunities.<\/p>\n

I’m not a home-run guy. I look for singles, doubles… And every so often, when everything lines up perfectly, I hit the grand slam. <\/p>\n

I don’t mean to pretend that I’m perfect. As I write this, I’m in a trade and I was <\/em>up a decent amount of money on it. I was probably up around $70,000. <\/p>\n

But, I got greedy. <\/p>\n

Instead of cashing out of the trade when I hit my profit target on the upside, I decided to keep pressing. And what was looking like a big gain is now a loser.<\/p>\n

Here’s my point… When you’ve earned your risk – meaning you’ve had a string of good trades and built up a strong base of capital – you can afford to get greedy. Before I made this trade, I’d been doing well. I had built up my P&L (profit and loss)… so I took the risk.<\/p>\n

I never would have pressed this trade if I were on a losing streak. I would have taken the profit right away when I saw $70,000. <\/p>\n

Every trader should be <\/em>using this same discipline… but almost none <\/em>of them do. <\/p>\n

What’s even worse is, this same emotional approach bleeds into their personal money management, outside of trading. Here’s what I mean…<\/p>\n

A lot of guys who trade for a living will have one great year… let’s say they make $750,000… and they go out and buy a boat. Or a mansion. They try to hit the “home run” of life.<\/p>\n

The mistake is they think they will just make the same amount next year. That they’d have the same income, year after year.<\/p>\n

And they just blow through all of their money.<\/p>\n

That’s terrible money management. And if you’re going to be successful at trading, or at anything you do in life, you have to have responsible money management skills. <\/p>\n

It may sound strange, but being a successful trader for the long haul is just as much about what you do when you’re NOT trading<\/u>…<\/em><\/p>\n

Consistency is what made me unbeatable. I could risk a million on a trade and it didn’t matter, because I earned it by building up a strong base of capital. You have to look at the long term as well as the short term.<\/p>\n

And, just as importantly, I never lived outside my means. If you let your ego get to you and you go overboard, that’s just as dangerous.<\/p>\n

Don’t change your lifestyle just because you had one great trade, one great month, or one great year. I always tell the guys who trade or work for me… if you have a good year, buy yourself one thing and save the rest of the money. Saving money and making sure you always have a solid pile of capital is the foundation of consistency. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The best traders are the guys that keep slowly building profit every year. They will keep getting bigger and bigger as they go. <\/p>\n

The worst ones are those who assume lightning will strike twice, and that they can depend on the same result over and over to fund higher levels of risk – and irresponsible spending.<\/p>\n

If you’re consistent in not just your trading discipline… but how you manage your money after<\/em> the market closes… you’ll come out ahead of almost everyone else.<\/p>\n

Regards,<\/p>\n

Larry Benedict
Editor, The Opportunistic Trader<\/em><\/p>\n

P.S. <\/strong>Tonight’s the big night.<\/p>\n

We’re getting started at 8 p.m. – just a few hours from now… And I couldn’t be more excited.<\/p>\n

I’ll reveal the long-awaited results<\/a> of my challenge to generate at least $70,000 in a single trading session… along with the secret methods I used.<\/p>\n

You’ll learn how, after starting from the bottom, I turned trading into a full-fledged career… and what it takes for anyone else to do the same<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There’s no cost to attend. In fact, if you drop by, you’ll walk away with a free copy of the 50 stocks you need to start trading today<\/a> if you want a solid chance at becoming a success.<\/p>\n

Tonight, you have the chance to witness the culmination of my 35-year trading career… as I finally step forward and share my trading expertise with everyday investors for the first time ever. Don’t miss it<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lot of the problem with new traders is they end up letting one or two big winners define them…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"service":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"publication":[10],"person":[58],"newsletter-type":[],"ticker":[],"class_list":["post-15504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-minute","publication-market-minute","person-larry-benedict"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15504"},{"taxonomy":"publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publication?post=15504"},{"taxonomy":"person","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/person?post=15504"},{"taxonomy":"newsletter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletter-type?post=15504"},{"taxonomy":"ticker","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ticker?post=15504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}