Everything we do in life is a gamble. I looked at a YouTube video of a police officer who pulled someone over and was arresting him. The police officer had the man in cuffs and he swallowed something, started to choke and fell to the ground. The man in cuffs convinced the police officer to give him the keys to the cuffs. Then the young man uncuffed himself and did the Heimlick Maneuver on the police officer until he spit up the obstruction. I’m getting teary eyed thinking of it now. The young man is a hero. But the police officer gambled on going to work that day and I’m sure he didn’t imagine that happening to him.
So, yes, day trading, like all life is a gamble. But with day trading you can minimize the risk that comes with gambling. When you develop a winning strategy you are minimizing your risk. When you practice good risk management you are minimizing your risk. When you learn to trade with an edge you are minimizing your risk. When you enter into a trade you are always taking a gamble. But when you do it as a seasoned trader you have minimized that risk and reduced that gamble.
There is a professional gambler who is so good he is banned from all the casinos in Las Vegas. If the casinos in Las Vegas allows him to play who is taking a bigger gamble? The Las Vegas casinos! That’s who. He has become so proficient at gambling that it is not a gamble for him to bet his wages. The gamble is with the casinos.
And with trading we must do the same thing. We must become so proficient at trading that it’s not a gamble for us to trade. It’s a gamble for the other persons who trades and are not as proficient as we are. Because trading is a zero sum game. But instead of losing your money let the other person lose theirs. In the Army we would say, “We don’t want to die for our country. We want the enemy to die for theirs!”
So, trading is gambling. But I want it to be more of a gamble for you than it is for me.
Leave a Reply