Part 1: Successful Futures Trading Means Taking Losses In Your Stride

http://www.meta-formula.com/futures-trading.html

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Provided By Ultimate Trading Systems

If you are to be successful at your futures trading endeavors you must be willing to take small losses

No one likes to lose. But losing is a fact of life for those involved in futures trading; they key is to limit your losses and maximize your successes. Losing money in futures trading is not a failure. It isn’t a reflection of you or of your overall judgment. (If it was possible to be right every time, we’d all be rich.)

The only way losing money when futures trading is really a failure is if you aren’t willing to take the loss, without hesitation, and move on to find winning trades. By accepting that they’ve made a loss while futures trading, and getting out of the position, successful traders focus on making money – not on being right all the time.

Many involved in futures trading feel they don’t want to “lose” money on any trade, and they stay in losing positions in the hopes that it will recover to at least the break-even point. There are three problems with this approach:

• The position may never recover to the break-even point.
• Holding on to a losing position ties up capital that could be placed into winning trades.
• Holding on to a losing position is an example of unfocused futures trading and a lack of discipline.

If you are to be successful at your futures trading endeavors you must be willing to take small losses. If you aren’t willing to take small losses, or don’t have the discipline to take small losses, don’t get involved in futures trading.

You must Stay Focused During Rapid Swings to be successful in Futures Trading
Most of us were raised to think that it takes years of hard work in futures trading to acquire wealth. That viewpoint doesn’t apply to futures trading in the markets; you can make thousands of dollars in minutes under the right circumstances.

To be successful in futures trading, you must understand that money can be made or lost extremely quickly, and then stay calm and rational. Why is that attitude important? Let’s say you’ve made several thousand dollars over the course of an hour of futures trading. You’re thrilled and excited, and you may lose your composure and start making irrational trades. You may stay in the position longer than you should, for one of two reasons:

• You think the market will keep going up, and you don’t want to limit your gains.
• The market falls, and you don’t want to give up all the gains you’ve made, so you hold on in hopes your position will rally.

If you accept and understand that huge amounts of money can be made in a short period of time, you are less likely to become undisciplined in your futures trading. Those that are successful in futures trading take their gains in stride, no matter how large. They quickly move to protect their positions by setting stops, or covering a percentage of a short position. To be successful in futures trading you must stay rational and disciplined in the face of rapid gains or losses and understand the nature of futures trading.