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Do You Need to be Smart to Day Trade?

Do You Need to be Smart to Day Trade?

Here is another truism I heard today, “There is so much money in finance today, that it doesn’t pay to be smart.  Just don’t get hit by a bus!”  Now sit back and give that some deeper thought.  It shouldn’t take long before you realize the reality in those words as it relates to the markets and the ability to day trade them.

You don’t need to be the smartest, most talented person, with highly developed math skills to day trade successfully. It is, in fact, the code developers not the traders that must operate at the speed of light turning transmitted bits of data into actionable algorithms in the financial markets.

Back to the first truism from above – that it doesn’t pay to be smart when it comes to finance – or so it seems.  Honestly this continues to be a true statement no matter how far back we look – all the varied crashes, financial collapses and calamity, bubbles bursting as the love/hate relationship with the US dollar as it expands and contracts.  It does highlight the false belief that people learn from their mistakes.  In general, we don’t learn.  Maybe it’s genetics… Maybe we are hard wired to continue to make the same mistakes over and over again.  Different sets of circumstances and different levels of awareness It seems that each generation makes its own version of the same mistakes.  However, when push comes to shove, it is the same underlying emotions that seem to ebb and flow to the same tune.  While I think we get better at certain technologies and the ability to play the ‘game’, there are also more players circling around a diminishing number of musical chairs. Yes, we still haven’t learned to play well together in the sandbox.

Now to the second truism from above – Just don’t get hit by the bus!  Sound advice I would say.  What is your “bus”?  What gets in your way no matter what you do? For me, it’s impatience.  When I lose my patience I start having rational thought and start to act purely on emotions, sensations, feelings, or hunches.  

Today’s markets demand patience and at times the ability to wait out on the other side.  Having a solid sense of market awareness and great trading software can enable you to be alert to changes, limit distractions, and focus on trading.  Being alert to change keeps the decision process out of a panic state.   Mistakes will happen.  Avoiding all of them is impossible.  But, shedding the light of patience onto a situation makes it much easier to see any oncoming buses and possibly how to avoid them.

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