How Professional Traders Differ From Amateurs

For years people have swarmed to the Futures markets, hoping to find the holy grail trading system and to get rich overnight. If you really believe there is such a thing as the holy grail trading system, then why don’t more people quit their day jobs in search of this elusive creature? Part of the reason would be because they are smart enough to know it does not exist. Fortunately for Professional traders the dreamers who do believe in a holy grail are plentiful and once one trading account is blown up along comes two or three other dreamers to replace them.

Successful trading requires extensive ongoing education, repetition of what you have learned, a back tested and written trading plan explaining your trading style, risk management rules, a well-capitalized trading account, plenty of free time to analyze the markets both post and pre market, discipline to follow rules and the list goes on.

The rewards of being a Professional trader are endless, but the skills to maintain this status is the challenge every profession trader has to fight with.

If there was ever a business where you need to save for a rainy day it is a Professional trading career.  As Tom Baldwin, worlds greatest Bond trader once said about trading, “live by the sword, die by the sword.”  Follow your trading plan regardless through the ups and downs.

I seem to be getting asked more frequently now by students during my trading session about how much money they can expect to make as a trader.  Imagine how difficult it is to answer that question.  How much money you can expect to make as a Professional trader is as individual as your fingerprint is.  For each of us the term successful means something different.  Being successful does not have to mean making millions of dollars either.  For one trader making 5,00,000 per year is living very comfortable.  For others they will want to make 20,00,000 per year.  While some will be happy to make just enough to supplement another income they already have.

A lot depends on the lifestyles each of us has chosen.  If you have expensive taste and feel you must have the biggest, fastest, most expensive, etc toys then you will need much more money to live.  For others they will be content to make a comfortable living and save for their future retirement.  There is no magical number anybody can give you to expect to make in the Futures markets.

You want to be a successful Professional trader?

All you need is a true passion for trading.  This means not trading because you are only doing it for the money, but because you love to trade.  Then because you are doing something as a career you are passionate about you cannot help but be successful because you will be happy doing what you are doing.  Again successful does not mean you are making millions.