Something I heard hit home

I recently watched the movie about the 1980 US Olympic Hockey team "Miracle on ice" team.

In this movie was a great quote which I copied off and stuck on my computer screen. I wrote it a little smaller so here goes...

Success breeds confidence.

If you are practicing trading get your successes up (GW said 26 in a row) and you will have confidence to trade real $'s.

Just wanted to share this with fellow traders.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/09/2013 09:37AM by Darcy2.

Good advice, Darcy. Thanks for the quote.

I can tell you from my own experience that the corollary (failure will erode confidence) is also true. It has taken me a long time to appreciate the value of practice trades.

I am sorry guys, but I have to "flap my jaws" regarding this thread as well. I totally indulge myself for hours and hours of practice. I do not practice as much now as I did a few months ago. This is a fact... If you are not winning in practice, you will not win when you are using the real thing. As my college coach would sometimes say, "You practice like you play".

I am watching my mentor totally lose his shirt right now. He is accustomed to buying very, very large numbers of shares of stock and treating it almost as options. For an example, he would spend 500K on shares of Apple. He would use some of the same rules used in trading options, but there is a difference when you own shares and you buy options. Over the last 3 months, he has wanted to mimic my approach to buying options. Well, we all know, you have to PRACTICE and know what you are doing when buying options, or you will LOSE YOUR SHIRT! He has had some much success buying stock, but has never been able to capitalize on making money when the market goes down. I have warned him several times, explaining to him that when the stock price moves a dollar, that does not mean his options account will reflect as it does when he owns stock. Well, he is learning the hard way. He has lost nearly 50K in the last month. He is my mentor, and simply does not want to listen to me. I told him he has to practice and study options before just buying because the candles look good. This guy will not stop until he either loses it all or figures it out and get mega wealthy. It appears he might go broke first. Sad to say, but this is a prime example of what uncontrolled success, big egos, and too much pride can lead too. Thanks for that quote Darcy. It hits me pretty hard when watching someone I care about and love as my brother go through something so detrimental. All he has to do is humble down, go back to the basics, and practice options. I am here to help him, but based on he being my mentor, he cannot fathom the thought of me training or mentoring him.

26 in a row huh? That sounds reasonable to me... I'm a new GW student, wasn't around for the 1-5 classes but the guy who got me into it was... I'm just starting out... took the 1st class a year ago, and the 2nd one recently... i still have class 3 and then the RTP classes according to the new curriculum... I'm using qcharts and optionshouse virtual trading (w/ realtime quotes) for my practicing... I think you are right in that you need to practice... i have very little confidence and not much success currently but I'm hoping that if i just keep at it, I'll get it eventually... thankfully this is one of the few things that continues to hold my interest so i can keep going.. glad i found these forums... I realize a lot of you have deviated a bit from the GW receipe and I'll continue to only 'do as instructed' but it's nice to know there are some other GW success stories out there.