You might have trouble being a Professional Trader if you.....

Being Honest With Yourself

Mon, Nov 23 2009, 15:43 GMT
by  The Trader's Journal Collaborators  - The Trader's Journal   |   View company's profile

Many times traders enter the business because they lost a job, are looking to supplement income or think that trading is an easy way to make money.  Don Dawson discusses the business of trading and provides a list of questions a good trader should ask.Being Honest With Yourself

DON DAWSON 

SEPTEMBER 2009 / VOL. 5 ISSUE 9

While working on this article, I was having a little fun with my friend/fellow instructor, Debbie, and we came up with this list that we thought would be fun to read.

You might have trouble being a Professional Trader if you.....

1. Have to take out a trailer equity loan to open your trading account.

2. Come into my class and make a statement like, “I just want to trade for the first hour of the day, then go play golf.”

3. Have to use a lifeline to phone a friend, ask the audience or use a 50/50 before you can place a trade.

4. Think ‘Shorting’ means not leaving a tip at the restaurant.

5. Hear that somebody placed a ‘hard stop’ and think they locked up their brakes on their pickup truck causing them to spill their beer.

6. Come into a 5-day class and think that the following week you are going to quit your JOB and lay around the pool trading for a living.

7. Reply to an ad for a trading system that guarantees you will make millions of dollars trading for only $29.95.

8. Have a trading plan that involves going to a pub before or during trading hours,

9. Tap into your neighbor’s cable box to get CNBC on your television but your wire is too short and
you have to move your trailer closer to his.

10. Have the attention span of a gnat on crack and cannot finish reading this sentence without looking out your window going “Oh look, a kitty.”

11. Call tech support because your cup holder does not go in and out of your computer anymore.  Once there, they inform you that cup holder is actually a CD/DVD player.

12. Use up all your Ritalin medicine and you just had it refilled yesterday.

Don Dawson has been trading the futures markets for 20 years.  His perseverance through the ups and downs of trading, openness to experience of others, balanced tolerance for risk and patience to wait for his setups are a few of his strengths as a trader. 

Don obtained his Series 3 license in 1990.   Soon afterward, he registered as a Commodity Trading Advisor with the National Futures Association and formed his company Majestic Futures. He has been a guest speaker on Technical Analysis at Johns Hopkins University and a guest speaker on Business of Trading Radio Show  in Washington, D.C.

He continues to actively trade his personal account on a daily basis when not teaching for Online Trading Academy.  His teaching method has been referred to as “down to earth”.  He understands the students need for a structured environment in the early stages of their trading education.  He uses humor to convey information in an accessible way.