Tue 31 Mar 2009
My husband has been trading currencies for over 20 years?
Posted by echan76 under Investing
Rosemi asked:
but he stills goes off the deep end if i walk into his office while is in the middle of a trade and now opts to play video games inbetween trades? what is going on???
but he stills goes off the deep end if i walk into his office while is in the middle of a trade and now opts to play video games inbetween trades? what is going on???
he calls it stress??? what do you think?
That he is not doing very well.
Trading currencies SUCCESSFULLY means just one thing and one thing only — retirement after less that 5 years.
Anybody trading for 20 years and still working can’t call himself a successful trader. No wonder he is stressed. He should have received his Aha! some 15 years ago and find himself another occupation.
Currency business is a business that requires concentration. To improve concentration if he plays video games it is good because continuous concentration on any business has a lot of side efforts. It may be because of him not doing well too. Currency trading is a very good business which gives more returns than any investment.
Does your husband do this as his full-time job? If so then he is probably profitable. If not, then he may not be. Currency trading requires a lot of patience; one can go for hours without a trade and you can go insane if there is not something else occupying your mind. I even play a game during a trade, so that I don’t get too stressed while waiting for the outcome. Currency trading is stressful and it consists of a delicate balance of thinking on the right things at the right time, and then letting go and let the market do its own thing.
If your husband is profitable in his trading then it would be fair to say that he has got the balance perfect and that playing games while trading is an important part of his system. If your husband is not profitable, then playing games is a coping mechanism; men go into their caves to solve a problem and playing games can be a part of cave mentality.
Currency trading itself is a game; you are competing with other people for the money, and as a result it takes a lot of thought. The stress comes in that you can lose money and it takes a lot of courage to enter into a successful trade. I hope this has been useful.
I guess he is a technical trader, once he is enter he is waiting the marker to follow the trend.
He may be in a period of drawdown (losses) and it may be stressing him out. However, I find it hard to believe that someone that has been doing this 20 years still gets stressed. I have only been trading FX for one year and after the first 6 months I no longer was affected emotionally by what the market was doing.
There are many times traders have to “walk away”, it’s the only thing that helps them keep their sanity (that’s assuming that traders with more than 10yrs have any sanity left).
Look he could be going down to Harry’s or another local bar in the neighborhood, go out front a scream & curse at who is walking by, so be thankful, video games are harmless.
Good traders have to walk away when they either get pissed or start to run cold, it’s a way of life for a trader, so let him have his outlet. Just be thankful he doesn’t come home and kick the dog or worse..
The response from Stan the Man - is a bunch sh.., I know many floor traders (CBOE, NYMERC, NYSE, AMX, LME) and they been around successfully for more than 20 years, when you trade and your successfull money no longer is a motivator