TRADING THE BIG ONE

“Do you have the mental fortitude to accept huge gains?”

“This comment usually gets a hearty laugh, which merely goes to show how little most people have determined it

actually to be a problem. But consider how many times has the following sequence of events occurred? For a full year,

you trade futures contracts, making $1000 here, losing $1500 there, making $3000 here and losing $2000 there. Once

again, you enter a trade because your (trading) method told you to do so. Within a week, you’re up $4000. Your

friend/partner/acquaintance/broker/advisor calls you and, looking out only for your welfare, tells you to take your

profit. You have guts, though, and you wait. The following week, your position is up $8000, the best gain you have

ever experienced. ‘Get out!’ says your friend. You sweat, still hoping for further gains. The next Monday, your

contract opens limit (down) against you. Your friend calls and says, ‘I told you so. You got greedy. But hey, you’re still

way up on the trade. Get out tomorrow.’ The next day, on the opening, you exit the trade, taking a $5000 profit. It’s

your biggest profit of the year, and you click your heels, smiling gratefully, proud of yourself. Then, day after day for

the next six months, you watch the market continue to go in the direction of your original trade. You try to find

another entry point and continue to miss. At the end of six months, your method finally, quietly, calmly says, ‘Get out.’

You check the figures and realize that your initial entry, if held, would have netted $450,000.”

“So what was your problem? Simply that you had allowed yourself, unconsciously, to define your ‘normal’ range of

profit and loss. When the big trade finally came along, you lacked the self esteem to take all it promised . . . who were

you to shoot for such huge gains? Why should you deserve more than your best trade of the year? Then you

abandoned both (trading) method and discipline. To win the game, make sure that you understand why you’re in it.

The big moves in markets only come once or twice a year. Those are the ones which will pay you for all the work, fear,

sweat, and aggravation of the previous years. Don’t miss them for reasons other than those required by your

objectively defined method. The IRS categorizes capital gains as ‘unearned income,’ that’s baloney. It’s hard to make

money in the market. Every time you make, you richly deserve. Don’t ever forget that.”

. . . Robert Prechter – the Elliott Wave Theorist (1992)