I began my journey into the trading world in 2004 after attending a 2 day work shop on mechanical system trading. I had never been exposed to trading or the markets before and so was attending the workshop as a complete beginner.

Probably only two hours in and I was hooked. I can’t remember if it was the Japanese candlesticks, the story of two men who drove down the price of Caltex just for a laugh, or the mystery surrounding the fact that less than 5% consistently make money from the markets; either way, I knew the financial markets was where I wanted to be, and it wasn’t just to make money.

My journey began shortly there after when I started trading CFD’s. I had only placed one stock trade before this, and this was due to my impatience while waiting for my CFD account to be processed. I just wanted to trade!

In the first few months I tripled my capital, and couldn’t believe how easy it was. Most days, I would see my account up. It wasn’t until early 2005 that the brakes were applied and I learnt my first valuable lesson.

Unaware at the time why I was making so much money, it wasn’t until I started to lose money that I decided I needed to learn a few things. I soon discovered what a bull run was, and that every man and his dog were making money. I then discovered what a correction was and what being unprepared can do to your capital (i.e. leveraged exposure).

I also discovered something about myself, and that I was an extremely impatient human being (fancy that!). This was the hardest lesson to learn and the most expensive.

The journey of self discovery is probably the longest of all, and it took me on a wild ride trying to fill a need deep inside of me. I tried Forex, I tried US stocks and options, I tried commodities, I tried strategies, systems, advisory services and the list goes on. Eventually I realized my failures came down to one thing: I was thinking too short term, and not long term - a lack of patience!

So here I am today, and I can tell you that some of the words I heard 2 years ago make more sense now than they did back then, even when I only heard them the once. What it all comes down to for me is that consistency breed’s confidence, and without knowledge you can not have confidence.

I wrote the book ‘Financial Market Fisherman’ after being exposed to some concepts that actually answered the questions I wanted answers to, and they were, “what really makes the markets move, and what is it the 5% know that the rest don’t?” If I didn’t ask those questions, I don’t believe I’d be where I am today.

If there was one thing I had to say to any trader that was embarking on a trading career, or has been struggling for quite some time, is that success will only come when you know who you are. As cliché as that sounds, I’m afraid it’s the truth.

If you have any questions regarding this, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Happy Trading

Dean Whittingham
Elite Insiders Group - Trading Systems
Financial Market Fisherman © 2006 - 2007

This entry was posted on Monday, June 4th, 2007 at 5:15 pm and is filed under Bull Run, Dean Whittingham, Financial Market Fisherman, Trading System. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.