Trader Mike

Michelle B submits: A daytrader I knew who had a very high-percentage win rate, around ninety-five percent, when faced with a loss, would let it run. He was capitalized enough to do what he called “pouring on the gasoline.” This activity of his would involve “lining up cans of gasoline as far as the eye could see.” What he would do was to buy furiously all the way down at various support levels to reduce his cost basis. Sometimes, this took days, even weeks. Most of the time, after tying up his buying power and only focusing on his special kind of arson while missing many other opportunities, he would be able to …

Steve Pavlina has a very good post on a subject that often comes up when reading about the psychology of trading: Fear of Success: What will happen if you succeed? Like Mark Douglas (and others) say, traders often get exactly what they want out of the market (pain, something to complain about, a thrill/gambling, an opportunity to be reckless/ break all the rules/have no rules at all…), whether they know it or not.