I have watched and learned so many things over the past months since I joined the Challenge in April 2020.  One concept that always comes up is the comparison of trading to war and battle.  I don't agree with this analogy.

     War is such a negative way to look at trading.  It leads to death and devastation.  We are told that we need the best weapons to win in the battle.  There are many examples in history where the best weapons weren't available to the victors, and they had to make do with what they could get their hands on.  We are told we are fighting against the market makers, other traders, big money, etc.  Is the WAR what we should focus on? Or is the STRATEGY more important?  I have yet to hear about former war heroes becoming successful equities traders.  I doubt that they would really want to trade at all if it was really like a war.  My husband was in the Army and will rarely talk about his deployments.  I think we can look at challenges in our lives in a more positive light and still succeed.  In fact, I believe we can be more successful this way.

     I have been a gamer since I was a kid.  My dad taught me to play chess when I was little, but I was always the most interested in the Commodore 128 he bought for the family back in the 1980's.  We would copy code from his Commodore magazines into the computer by hand.  I had a few favorite games that I used to play from those.  I bought an NES with my allowance when I was 11 years old back in 1986.  I loved playing the games on the console.  I bought a Super NES a few years later, and then graduated to PC gaming.  From there I found a huge love for MMORPG games when I discovered Lineage and Everquest in the late 1990's.  I beta tested several others, like City of Heroes, Guild Wars, and Auto Assault, and of course I played WOW.

     My point to the back story is that to me, trading is more like a game than a war.  It is the ultimate strategy game. There are so many ways to play, that my head spins, and I am guilty of becoming distracted with shiny new things like options trading!  I bought a book on options, and it is the biggest textbook I have ever owned. There are so many ways to play just that market alone.  Every RPG game I  played back in the day had the player starting with the basics.  You didn't get the finest weapons right away.  This was before anyone could buy all they needed with real money (cheaters!).  You had to figure out a way to survive and advance in the game with very little, and it made you a better player in the end.  You had to "grind" your way to the higher levels. I think it is okay for some of us new traders to start with the cheap/free platforms and scanners at first.  It can be beneficial even.  A good base knowledge of a few simple tools can help a lot if the fancy expensive platform/scanner takes a dump. There is now a back up plan in place for the future.

     I have heard a few stories of successful equities traders that got their start in poker, blackjack, and even roulette.  Lots of gamers tend to gravitate toward this field.  Why?  Because it's like a GAME.  I think this is a more positive way of looking at trading.  Some might say that seeing it as a game is not taking the profession seriously.  It's real money we are dealing with after all.  Is it really healthy to take money so seriously though?  Aren't there more important things in life than money?  There are stories of traders taking their lives over blowing up their accounts.  In my opinion, these traders were taking their trading too seriously.  It was a war they felt they lost, with no hope of coming back from the dead.  Maybe if they played the markets like a game, then it could have been a "Game Over' with a chance to start again.