Trading can be learnt

Beliefs and Values for Trading Success

Over the next few months we will discuss important beliefs or values of successful traders to help you improve your trading and investing. If you work on a new belief each month, you'll soon be on your way to trading success.

Number 4 - Trading can be learnt

There are a lot of theories about the ability of people to learn to trade. I believe that it is very possible if they are prepared to do what is necessary.

An example of this is Richard Dennis’s Turtles. The turtles were a group of people who were taught to trade by Richard Dennis after a bet with his partner William Eckhart who said that trading could not be learnt. They placed an advertisement in the Wall Street Journal and selected thirteen individuals of varying backgrounds. Some had trading experience, but most didn’t have any experience. Dennis’s requirements were a commitment to follow his trading psychology and the discipline to follow a trading system. After several weeks of training, each person started trading with amazing results and a second group was trained. Eckhart accepted that trading could be taught if the right disciplines were in place.

To learn to trade you have to be prepared to do what is necessary and develop an understanding of how the markets function and what is required to operate in them.

Successful traders do the things that unsuccessful traders are not prepared to do. The majority of traders want someone to give them a system that will make money for them when in reality it’s the trader that makes the money using a system.

Learning to trade is like any profession, you have to spend the time to develop the skills required. No one is born a good trader, the same as no one is born a good pilot. We all have to spend the time and learn to be successful in our chosen profession.