Jason Alan Jankovsky
As a veteran trader with more than 20 years of experience, young traders often ask me, "What makes a successful trader?" I often reply, tongue in cheek, "If I knew that, would I be teaching?"
No matter how you want to slice it, there is no easy answer to a question like that. Asking a seasoned trader, "How do I learn to trade?" is like asking a doctor, "How do you make a sick person well?" or asking an attorney, "How do you win a lawsuit?" There is no 2-cent answer to a million-dollar question. In fact, it is this desire by many novice traders to find a pat answer to the process of becoming a net-winning trader that prevents them from succeeding. I believe that successful trading is a learned skill just like any other -- except that what you have to learn is not what you first think it is.
Because I have had serious losses during my career I have had to re-evaluate my approach several times over the years. In the process of learning the business of trading from the inside out, I discovered that successful trading has very little to do with the markets themselves. I believe that 95% to 99% of successful daily winning in this game is a factor of personal trader psychology. I really don't think the markets have anything material to do with your ultimate success or failure. As a friend of mine is fond of saying, "The markets don't beat a player; they merely give the player a chance to beat himself." Most seasoned traders will likely agree with that statement and that is why I wrote Trading Rules that Work to help all traders -- old and new alike -- to stay focused on what really matters.
I've broken the material down into four distinct parts: "Getting in the Game," "Cutting Losses," "Letting the Profits Run" and "Trader Maxims." Each part is designed to give you a solid foundation within the overall context of personal responsibility.
If we assume the markets have little to do with our success and that our psychology of participation makes all the difference, then we must accept the responsibility for our results -- completely. We are the architects of our own fortunes, and the markets are merely the place we go to get it. Still, we must know what we are doing and more importantly, how to stop bad behavior. In my view, that is the most significant part of your daily trading: learning to stop losing behavior before it starts. This becomes your personal rule-set to begin your journey towards successful trading.
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