How do I improve on my portfolio performance?

Simple,just 3 words...
The first would be experience
Second would be experience
and third,would still be...you guessed it, Experience!

There's no holy grails or secrets to achieving the success that one is aiming for.One must get "taught" by the market to be better at trading. It takes time,patient and money.Gaining proficiency is the same in trading as in any other profession - it requires experience, and experience takes time.

How can one improve on his portfolio performance?
Well,since there are couple of factors attributing to an increasing equity curve,I will prioritize them from the most important to the the not so important.

1.Gain experience.No amount of education around the world can give you that unique trading edge.Experience is within yourself.To have experience,one must be patient through the random lessons that will be laid to you,for sometimes at a cost(losses) and this may sound cliche,but one must resist the urge of giving up as trading is not an easy profession.

2.Give yourself a fighting chance.When I say this,it means have a huge amount of capital and place extremely small trades. By doing this,you allow room for yourselves to incur consecutive losses and still trade another day. Not forgetting this axiom-"Trading is a random distribution between winners and losers." Be it you're a fundamentalist or a technician.

3.Once your mind,heart and soul genuinely accepts any kind of losses and just do not worry about it,the trader is having the correct mindset and is on his way to the status of a pro trader.Why do I say that? Because when you have fear, it is detrimental to your learning curve.Fear confuses one's knowledge that one attain. That is why sometimes you see 2 people in a same situation,same resources and same skills but end up with different results.Why?Fear restricts one natural logical thinking.,and one of the solutions to reduce that fear dramatically is to trade in small amounts and mentally prepare yourself for a loss.

4.Embed the skill of "High Probability Trading".I might get some stick by saying out this point,but it has help me stay out most of the bad trades that I will usually trade. So what is High Probability Trading? For one,there is diverse definition on it. What is high probability for me,may not be for you. it depends on what angle you're looking at.While some may follow a trend,others may pick a bottom.,etc.Bottom line,be choosy in your trades. Trade only the ones that gives you the highest chance of profiting.And yes,you will still face inevitable losses even after you methodically choose your trades,but hey,that's part and parcel of trading.Losses will forever be a part of a trader's life.

5.There's a famous adage that the trading society frequently likes to remind each other,which is,"Let your profit run and cut your losses short." I find it funny and contradictory to my belief. For me,if it is time to get out,I'll get out.,via the systematic way.I won't let my "profits run base on blind hope".But I stand fast beside the axiom of cut your losses.As funny as it sound,the reason why people hang on to losses is simply because they don't want to lose.So instead of,"Let your profit run and cut your losses short.",it should be "Take your profits and run and cut your losses short."

I'm sure you realized that there's no or little form of technical aspect in the discussion because honestly,it's all in the mind. There's no Secret strategy or any of that sort. The Greatest Teacher is YOURSELF.

Cheers
Hyzel


"All traders make mistakes, great traders, however, limit the damage."
Anonymous