Change

"Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes" - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It's great to see my cousin making money for the past 3 consecutive days, controlling his losses well and great improvement in riding the profits. It's been really stressful for him since he started trading at the beginning of the month, losing almost daily. This scenario is quite common to a new trader.

Being totally new to futures trading, it's quite an uphill task for him to learn so many things in such a short period of time. I can sense his frustration, anger and the feeling of hopelessness in himself.

I need to do quite a lot of damage control to his emotional well being, encourage and instill a positive mental attitude in the face of adversity.

Mentoring someone new is much easier, they are keen to learn, willing to listen with no emotional baggage. Most important, they are willing to change.

Many old birds that came to see how I traded, I would say are rather stubborn if they are not making money. They still like the way they look at their charts, layout and strategies.

My questions to them "Are you making money looking at so many tiny charts with so many indicators?", "Why don't you change and test other trading platforms?", "If you are not making money, why are you still looking at the same charts?"

Their answer "I'm comfortable with my charts, I like to look at these indicators and TT trading platform is expensive.", "I'm not stubborn!"

"TT is giving 1 month free trial, why don't you try it out" was my reply. "Free! you don't have to pay."

It's so difficult to convince them to change.

Profit in the special account went back to S$10,230.00 while still holding the 4 Topix/Nikkei spread. Not able to focus on this account for the past few months. Trading has been tough.