Trading is a business that is being penetrated by many youths in Nigeria today. The need to earn fast money is one of the common reasons behind trading in forex, crypto or stock trading. What you find on the social media are screenshots of profits they are making, inspiration posts and earn 50,000 in 1 million in a few days. This is what makes trading appear as a magic money machine. That is however not the case. Most people also lose money everyday not because the market is bad but because they do not take the right mindset.
It is not only the strategy, indicators, but rather the mindset that is important in the distinction between a successful trader and the struggling one. A successful trader does not think that way. And to succeed in the trading world, one has to also learn how to think like them.
To start with, a lucrative trader maintains a business aspect of trading. He does not give himself up, he does not give up the sponge. He does not blindly enter the market out of boredom, or after a signal was sent to him. He understands that, trading is serious business and he handles the business with forethought and discipline. Just as a business person counts the cost, plans to prevent the move and move, an ultimate trader waits till it is the right timing to strike and will only put in a risk which he can lose.
There are a lot of Nigerians with the wrong mentality on trading. Others believe that it is similar to gambling. To them, trading is a hobby or a way of seeking easy money. It is the reason why they blow their accounts. Bet9ja or aviator is not trading. It is rather not about being hopeful or lucky. An experienced trader will have known that only when he takes it as a game he will be the one who will be played.
Second, a successful trader has discipline in their blood. Most traders also possess rules that they do not execute. You might choose to risk just 2 per cent of your capital on a trade but when you see a setup that is too sweet, you disregard all the rules and risk 50 per cent. Once it works against you, you end up losing much of your money, and you start to regret it. Success is what a successful trader adheres to his rules. When it comes to excitement, fear or greed, he is not driven to make terrible decisions.
Discipline is doing what is right although, it is difficult. It is exiting a trade when you get a stop-loss hit even though your mind is telling you to wait a little longer hoping it is going to turn. It is also about getting out profit when you think it is time to get out and not when your head tells you to. It will be a catastrophe of trading without discipline
The next attribute that all good traders possess is patience. It is an aspect that people do not discuss but it is one of the most crucial attitudes in trading. There are traders who desire to make a trade per hour, per day. They do not have to wait anymore. Big traders, however, understand that the market does not owe them. They have the position to hold out hours, also days, for a great configuration to arise. And once the setup goes they go thru it.
It is difficult to wait in Nigeria where people are under a lot of pressure to blow fast. However, it is patience that saves your money and provides you with better opportunities for winning. When you enter the market in a hurry due to boredom or you feel pressured, you will lose.
A successful trader is also able to deal with emotions. This is the difficult one since emotions are natural. When everything is fine and you have a successful trade you are very excited you are feeling greedy and you want more. When a trade is not going your way, you become scared and panicked and want to get out of it or wish that it would turn around. On some occasions, there are individuals who even get into revenge trades when they lose. All these can ruin your account.
A successful trader does not have wild emotions. He does not get overly excited when he wins, and he does not collapse when he loses either. He stays level headed and he is focused. It is such an emotional balance that aids him in prolonging his stay in the game.
The next one is having a trading plan. An effective salesperson will not operate without a strategy He always possesses a strong understanding of his entry point, stop-loss, take-profit, and the amount of risk that he is going to take on every trade that he is entering. He has tried his way through the years and he believes in it. He does not trade off the vibe or what someone posted on WhatsApp or Telegram.
It is very unfortunate that not all Nigerian traders have a plan. In the case of these people, they switch back and forth on approaches. Nothing is ever right, today it is support and resistance, tomorrow it becomes supply and demand and next week it is ICT. Such misunderstanding results in failure. You have to identify what is effective and do it. Simply go raking and do what seems to be the dumbest thing to do, and stick it out.
The other significant element of a profitable trading psychology is risk management. This is where most of the individuals fail to get it right Individuals will even put all their capital on a single trade. To some, greediness causes them to over-leverage their account. Any successful traders will not do that. They are very conservative with their capital. They would opt to make minimal losses just to remain in the market rather than lose it all by one bad trade.
The effective risk management involves the aptitude of stop-loss, correct lot size and not trading cash that you cannot afford to drain. As an illustration, by assuming that you have 100,000Naira in your trading account, committing 50,000Naira to a single trade would be a very bad idea. A trader who is making good profit can only risk 2,000 or 3,000. By doing so he will be able to suffer various losses and still be left with capital to continue with trading.
The desire to continue learning is another aspect which comes to mind of a successful trader. But trading is not the kind of thing that you learn in a week or even in a year. It is a State Highway construction under process. The market is dynamic and you need to keep learning to be in tune with it. A trading expert reads books, views videos, enrolls in communities and continues to learn the market.
Unfortunately, a number of Nigerians are only dependent on free signals or TikTok videos. They do not care to get the fundamentals of trading. To be able to make a profit, you have to invest in education. It might take some time, however, after a long term, it will be worth it.
Last but not the least, a good trader is humble. He does not open the doors to pride as he makes some profits. He is well aware of the fact that the market is able to humiliate even a good person. This is the reason that makes him concentrate and not take unnecessary risks. When a trader becomes too self-confident, he begins to make thoughtless decisions. A modest trader admires the market and understands the fact that he/she does not always win.
Also, an excellent trader pays less attention to money than to the process. Yes, everyone wants to earn money, but blindly going in the name of profit will take us towards the -path of destruction. Successful traders are less concerned with what other traders do, instead, they want to be sure that they are using their system to their best advantage, surrounding themselves with risk, and keeping to their plan. The money will take care of itself as long as you are keen on the process. But when you start to concentrate on the money alone you are going to make decisions that are not based on reason but will cause you to lose.
To sum up, these are, discipline, patience, emotional control, risk management, humility, and continuous learning that form the attitude of a profitable trader. These are things on which you do not grow in a day, over a period of time. The get-rich-quick mentality has no place and as a Nigerian, you need to drop that attitude and think in terms of developing the right kind of habits to successfully trade. Although prices will not move up or down based on charts and signals, profits are realised in your head. It is as simple as building your mind and money will not be far behind.