Best Loser Wins: Why Normal Thinking Never Wins the Trading Game – written by a high-stake day trader

My boss loved to tell the story of how his client managed to turn a £5,000 account deposit into an £8m (that is eight million pounds!) profit. He relentlessly pursued the idea that the French franc was hopelessly overvalued, and he profited hugely from

know from statistics that 48% of all gaps get filled on the same day they occur. Considering that 90% of daily highs and lows occur in the first hour and a half of the trading day,

It is how traders think about their strategy – and their ability to follow the strategy – that will set them apart.

once walked in at 6 am to find that a Russian client was on a margin call for $10m. I quickly calculated that it would take me 133 years on my current salary to make $10m. By 7 am he had wired the funds over. This was a private trader. I was in awe. Inspired.

The market doesn’t care about your position. It doesn’t care if you are long or short or on the side lines. The market has no feelings about you or your position.

It is perfectly natural to expect a human being to drift down the path of least resistance.

It meant they had plenty of small losses. Their back-testing had shown that if the strategy was to be traded correctly, it would work immediately. If it didn’t work immediately, the strategy called for the position to be closed.

You should. You really should ask yourself what makes you different to the 90% of traders that do not make money. If you are normal – as in you do what everyone else is doing – then you won’t make it.

Whatever happens, my job is to read the sentiment and to keep my own emotions in check.