Dr. Brett Steenbarger

 

SIX QUALITIES OF ELITE TRADERS

1. Capacity for Sustained Focus.

Means 2 different things:

a. Greatly fast thinker (rapid pattern recognition) or

b. Greatly deep thinkers (gathering info and understanding in depth)

fast and deep thinker to make conclusion. They can be stronger in fast thinker, or stronger in deep thinker, seldom to have both equally. Personal background: great video games player.

2. Originality and creativity

They are looking at different information as others or they are looking at same information differently. They are not playing the same game as others. They are able to find new sources of unique edge as other traders. Looking something that other people weren't. They are looking outside the box, finding more information other than just looking at the charts. Creative thinking, new way to find unique sources of markets. They are finding stuff that are not crowded.

3. Learned from Mentors and Great Traders.

In every performance field, mentoring is the dominant path to success. Showed first hand how to's. You need the example from successful trader to learn from. You are not going to be successful just only doing it from home or just learning from book. It is a process to be done in modeling.

4. Emotional resilience.

They loss, then study why they lost, then the loss become not so threatening anymore, so they better prepare for the next trading. They handle losses very well, by learning from them. It you can't accept it and use it as learning experience, it will tear you down.

5. Attention to detail.

only a modest fraction of success comes from the actual ideas of trading. once you have the idea, you still have to structure that idea into good risk reward. it is very detail of exploration. They details when to enter, exit, option, timing and sizing ideas (mechanic of trading), account of large degree of success/failures. Detail orientation is what mentored in successful trading.

6. Always working to improve their games.

Markets are always changing. Anyone approach to trading tends to have shelf life. To have successful career, you need to be evolving with markets. You need to find new edge. Always research and develop the trading setup. Always need to adapting with new market condition, require open minded and working hard.