Welcome, Part 4 - Trading Success On My Own Terms

It wasn't easy to stick to my new system at first. It works with mutual funds, ETF's, and stocks, but not futures. It may work with options, especially leaps, but I haven't tested it.

So, when I first started trading my system, I was constantly battling my own mind, which kept saying that my system is too simple, not lucrative enough. "I need to adopt it to futures. I need to make it work with options, then I'll be all set! I could get rich faster if I just do this, or do that..."

I really had to change my thought patterns. Instead of greed or return, I had to focus on the process. I came to appreciate the simpleness and elegance of my system, and its Taoist nature. More importantly than results, I came to have a system that I believed in, trusted. I felt it embodied Eastern spiritual principles. Practicing it felt like a form of meditation.

I now feel at peace as a trader. On the money level, I feel like I have a system with a risk-reward profile I am happy with. On the intellectual level, I feel that I am on solid economic ground: buying low, selling high, and fulfilling the proper role of a speculator: sopping up excess supply, and feeding excess demand to help regulate a free market. On a spiritual level, I feel like I am "going with the flow".

The ideas I want to explore in this blog are (from least to most important):
1. Share my system and the ideas behind it.
2. Encourage traders/investors to define their own success and systems.
3. Combine 2 with a proper mindset, to develop their own confidence and trust.

The hardest thing is for a trader to develop enough confidence and realistic expectations to be able to resist the urge to tinker.

In order to share my system with others, I published a book detailing the complete rules of my successful stock trading system, including variations and ideas on minimizing commissions and taxes: Stock Trading Riches, which is available on Amazon.com.