Bitcoin Forum

It may seem a contradiction to say that you don’t want to pay attention to the profit of a trade.  In fact, many of you might be saying that this guy must be smoking rope to say that profit is unimportant.  Well, to clarify, that is not what is being said.  Of course, profit is one of the main reasons why you are involved in trading in the financial markets.

However, when we discuss how you will garner your mental and emotional resources in order to become consistently successful, profit (in any one trade) is not where you want your focus to be. Profits come as a result of “probabilities” over a series of trades. In fact, profit can be a major distraction and the cause of erratic behaviors that beget unwanted results.  Let’s face it, results, consistent positive results, are what you want.Tweet: Let’s face it, results, consistent positive results, are what you want. Anything else is unacceptable.  So, your main trading trajectory must encompass this reality.  Consistently successful trading requires a laser focus on what-matters-most; alignment of body, mind and emotions; and an ability to be truly disciplined, for starters.

Honing your trading process and the focus of your trades.

The Distraction of Trading Profits
Let’s look at how focusing on profit can position you to attract the very undesirable results that you want to avoid.  Profit is transient which means that it is not only variable but it is random to the point of being capricious.  No matter how good your methodology, you cannot predict what price action will do.  The only thing that is certain about the markets is that they are unpredictable.   Due to this level of randomness, profit is an extremely inefficient data point to measure against results.

In fact, one of the worst things that can happen to you as a trader is to be profitable early in the game before you intimately know your strategy.  This type of profit is almost invariably luck.  Luck is totally unsustainable; and in your attempt to replicate these results you will reinforce bad rule violating behavior that is very hard to halt, creating many more losses as you attempt to extricate yourself from that abyss.  Furthermore, when you focus on profit alone, your attention is fragmented and your mental state is susceptible to distorting data due to a confirmation bias (the tendency to only perceive information that confirms your limiting beliefs about the current market and consequently denying information that is contrary but critically important).

Actually, you want to approach the trading process with your eyes wide open and embracing the fact that any trade can lose, and some will.  No matter how strong your strategy, you must accept the randomness of the markets and therefore be very serious about protecting your capital; in other words, using and relying on your stops.  In this way, you will begin to manage your fear…a very important skill.

One of the facts about consistently successful traders is that many of them have blown up accounts; and they came back.  When this happened, they realized that the world didn’t come to an end and developed a deeper appreciation for the importance of their stops.  They created consistency in planning their trades, trading their plan, following all of their rules, and thereby developed the capacity for emotional strength and endurance in the trade.

Trading is a process oriented endeavor for those who are serious about becoming and remaining a consistently successful trader.  In any one trade, it is not about the outcome.  You must remain dispassionate about that and reserve all of your focus to be honed on what you are doing and how you are doing it.  This is what we teach in Mastering the Mental Game online and on-location courses.  Ask your Online Trading Academy representative for more information.  Also, get my book: From Pain to Profit: Secrets of the Peak Performance Trader.

Joyous Trading


Author: Dr. Woody Johnson

Article reproduced with kind permission of the author.

Source: Tradingacademy.com/lessons/article/focus-trading-process-not-money/   


The article is ended with more helpful quotes:

“One of the biggest mistakes that newbie traders make is to give up on a trading strategy after a run of losing trades. The thinking behind doing this is understandable but very wrong. The thought is “If a strategy is losing trades, why keep doing it?” The point is that every trading strategy has losing trades!” – Jasper Lawler 


“Always keep in mind that trading is mainly a mind-game playing probabilities. Try to find a strategy that you understand and that fits to your personality and possibilities and then try to build the trade management together with the risk management around it. This will lead to much better results then searching for the best entry technique of all times.” – Andy Jordan


“Trading is not for anyone who has an unquenchable thirst for certainty. Uncertainty in trading is co-equal with insecurity.” – Joe Ross


“However, the truth is probably like most things somewhere in the middle and eventually with a level playing field (which there will probably never be) it comes down to the individual. In part this is why I like trading, it is a reflection of who you truly are, not what your circumstances have made. The market has no idea where you are from, what your social status is, your colour, your religion or your sex. It merely knows whether you have the attributes of a good trader or you don’t.” – Chris Tate

Successful trader do not focus on profits from beginning but after trading become part of them. If you have being following trade thus you will find out that trading both in bitcoin, altcoins and forex take a lot of diligent, hard work, commitment and intelligent. No one has ever predict assets prices movement consistently but a lot of both loss and profit for you to really succeed in the long run.

I agree with you . All things must have a process and experience. With added intelligence then we can take a chance in trading.
Money is not everything, but with money we can be happy. Trading is one way to get happiness.

Despite the occasional buzzwords that people don't use like "co-equal", you have a point.

Just as importantly, people can look at the potential profit instead of the profit they are actually likely to get.  In cryptocurrency trading more than anything else, they'll see leaps of 1000% or more on some altcoins and want to jump right in, not realising that most people trading it didn't actually make those gains because it's near impossible to predict exactly when the price will rise and fall.

If you're making terrible trades and you make some profit on one of them, it's basically gambling except with an unpredictably high house edge.

Profit does have a slight bearing on the skill of the trader though, just because I say "unpredictably" high house edge.  No one can actually tell what the probability of their trade succeeding was exactly, and to even get anywhere close you have to do a lot of analysis which might be daunting for new investors.  What's important is that people put many different trades with small amounts of their portfolio to decrease the risk while having a coherent strategy - in this scenario, profit is very important because it evens out and the probability of failing when you make many strategic trades instead of one is very low, so in those scenarios you can judge your skill based on profit.

To become successful trader it's necessary to learn the process and the rules of the market. And of the crucial mistakes beginners make is total focus on the profit but without knowing what are they actualy doing and why are they doing this. When you get suficient knowledge about the actual procedure the profit will come easier.

Yes when we are having the right knowledge, we will be focusing only on the price levels where to enter and exit. Probably we will not be having time to think about how much profits on that day we are going to get. I mean to say when we are actively into technical analysis, money will not be a distraction.

When we are entering and exiting trades with a reason, profits are inevitable. I believe when we are busy with our researches, there will be no room for being greedy for having big plans on money making.

Good traders, focus how to get profit in trading not in focus on bitcoin profit. That's why doing trade its a combination of analysis and right prediction it may not 100% accurate but it should be close unto it of course.

I agree to the title of the topic. This is really true because the good trader or professional trader doesn't depend to the money that he is making and the profits that he made because it is all about the progress of trading. If you know that you are doing good and your progress is looking good then the money will follow you and we should not worry about something. Focus on your skills and experience and to your passion and not the money because money will make you greedy.

Ofcourse. The true secret in trading is to know or learn the process because you can't be a successful trader if you only look on the income you will get. Nothing will happen if you always depend on the income. You will not earn if you didn't know the process and you'll lose all of your money if your trading skill isn't good or isn't enough. So you must sure to know the process before looking in the price or income.

Agree because many people like beginners are always looking on the money or income they will get. Even if they are only beginners, they think and act like veterans. They didn't study the whole process already and just go. Looking in the money you will get in trading but you didn't know the process already means you are not working hard foe yourelf, you are working to get money. Greediness is the one who overcomes you and that is bad and negative attitude of a true and intelligent trader.

Being a trader is very risky. A good trader make a right decision they don't mind about money it fucos on the processing of trading, they need to monitor every time for the price in bitcoin. A good trader know when is the right time to buy then the right time to sell with this I'm sure they get a profit.

Mistakes comes in trading but with an experienced trader you know to handle every situation, you can make a decision making on how it will solve and it is because they an experience to become a professional trader. And also having with this it will avoid like what you said "greediness".

Yes but trading is not east. You have a few winners. Exchange because of fees, Devs because of premine/ICO. Big whales because they can change prices of coins easily, and pumper groups with enough BTC. That are always the winners. The losers are the people that think they have a lot of money and buy at the high of the pump, the noobies and the people that want to take big risks

If you become even you can make the bitcoin growth easily. Bitcoin price will be increase because of the rate of adoption on block chain technology and bitcoin.
Simply need to look at the chart to make profit, buy the bitcoin as much if any sudden pumps happen and sell the bitcoins when the price is moving to high price. still some as your personal wallet for your own.

Personally, I have always been taught to not even care or look at the money and my equity which I have right now, it is just not needed for my trades.
I do some specific strategies and technique which work well for me, but to be honest I never care if last 10 trades were on profit or on loss.
It is because I always set up stop-loss and take-profit, and all I do is play a probability game. It means that im trying to make my odds better, thanks to joining the trend/countertrend move in a correct timing.

My advice for every beginner in trading is to focus on making trades and correct analysis, than instead on profits and desire of winning. To make it come true, you need an experience.

Yes mistakes always come from trading and that is why professional traders are called professional because they always treat the mistakes as a lesson to them that they can use to improve their trading process because if they give up then they are the losers but if they continue learning to mistakes they will become better trader than before.

In trading our target will always be money, but to get profit we need to understand and learn the trading process and all the factor that can affect the price, by learning the trading process we will easier to get profit, so it is really important for beginners and even the professional to keep on learning the trading process

Yeah , in the trading we don't need to focus at the trading but need to focus on the asset for which we are looking .
I mean if we want Invest our money or bitcoin in the altcoin then Ofcourse doing trade with that altcoin should not be our priority , but we should investigate the altcoin fully whether what the background , what is the price range of the bitcoin , Security in the network system , and how much turn over of the altcoin going in All the exchage , so in these ways we can make big profit if we take care all about those .
Most of the us make Investment in the altcoin that have no wallet ( got die and stopped but available at the exchange most likely to be found in the yobit.net )
so we should investigate about them fully whether what is going on in his official wallet , whether is working or goes died .

That is true ,but in fact if we think and do trading our mind is on the posible money that we can earn from trading .
I agree with you to focus on learning but the mind in money will not forgotten of a person who use to trade because we trade risk for money and the time we learn and have already good skills more money will follow.

Nothing is wrong with learning more and more, only our skills get developed in the particular sector as well have a better ideas to implement on times of unexpected market changes. As quoted learning the trading process is a must, because every user believe it's just buy low and sell high. This is not possible with bitcoin all the time, so we need to know in such situation how profit margin need to be placed and profited.

That is the complexity of the trade and that for this you need to have a lot of knowledge and this is not the last condition. This knowledge still needs to be able to apply in practice. If the whole thing was only in the process of trading, long no one would be interested.

Yes knowledge is one of the must have thing when doing trading because if the trader is lacking of knowledge then he is more prone or vulnerable for losses. In the process of trading that is where we get knowledge because in the process of trading we can't avoid or prevent losses and when we encounter losses then we will learn to be more careful and do better decisions.

Newbie traders always looking for more profit, focus on how to get at least their capital return.
But, Op has mentioned how trading could consider as mind-game playing probabilities, strategy and risk management.
But, strategy for newbies seems like a false promise without any explanation and evidence. However, experiences will teach you how to make profit from doing trading, it's a game of loss and profit at the right time.

Trading on the stock exchange is not an easy business, but at the same time beginners start a location that they should be doing. Apparently therefore there are so many failed projects.

Indeed. Trading requires knowledge about the overall process of its cycle. And to be able to have the idea on how to use it in practice or actual doings. That's the sad thing about people nowadays that they really think money is everything, yes somehow it is because it's what you use to buy what you need but ofcourse you need to know how to be able to produce money and being smart and having ideas about trading could be one way to earn it.

To get good results from trading, we must have enough skill to trade profitably. People who are jumping into trading without getting ready themselves finding hard time to protect their capital. But in my experience I'm not finding learning trading is not hard hence protecting capital and making profits also is not hard.

But no one could ignore that aiming for making money will be the wonderful driving force for people working hard. Without are getting making fortunes, no one will be ready to take stress for any kind of work hence for trading too.

I couldn't agree more. with all the things that you have to consider to making a good trade, of course there will be a stage where you will be making the most mistakes and that is when you're just starting to trade. that's why when you're at this stage, its advisable to start with small capital just to get the feel of the process. don't think about the earnings yet because that will come in time when you're already knowledgeable

Well said. It is good for others to learn to appreciate the value of hard work and strategy when it comes on earning bitcoin especially on trading. Because through this you can manage to focus on handling your trading in a good  and wider scale. If you are going to trade, you will need to be open on waiting for a better decision making whether to hold or to sell. You will also need to monitor the price so you can know if its better to hold or sell. That it and give your dedication and do your best for a better trading.

While finding difficulties in trading, I guess all the traders will be learning all these over time. Because they will be needing to focus on analysis rather than just dreaming about how much they will be making from trading. Trading without reasons will never find good results and finding reasons will be possible when we are caring about how to trade properly.

It is very well pointed out that if one understand the nuances of trading and can predict the future through charts, knowledge, economics , various global factors that could affect the trading of anything will actually help you automatically earn money.

Once you master the process of doing it money will follow.

I think you just familiarized  and be updated always with this market movement. This will aid you in making decisions whether to buy or sell. Being updated and knowledgeable where the market is going, then its a time that you'll be raking more money coming in.

That usually works but in the alt-coin market new ground seems to be breaking on alt-coins across the board that are inconsistent with previous historical patterns so it is also important to try and be cautious when it hits new peak prices. The question really is trying to keep your margin stable to cover until it crashes if you short or when to cut losses if needed on long positions it's an interesting time now though for trading.

Yeah, a good trader depends there successful in their profit and that the reason why we need to focus on the flow of bitcoin market which is the process. It will be the guide for every trader to avoid mistakes for the successful. Every process or steps for trading is every important if we miss one of them it cause problem but we can make a solution, it will result to slow progress.

Like an algorithm, the procedures are needed to be properly executed to avoid failure.

Simply because as we trade from time to time is an expansion of your effort.
As we work harder and having an effort and focus on what you do surely you gain much.
If you do your work seriously money will follow.
If you seek your work as a priority.I beleive that money will over take me.

Yes i agree with that, work hard and just focus to the task or work that you are doing and keep improving yourself to make the best out of it and if you do that constantly then you will surely earn the money because it is like having a passion which you give all your best and focusing on the process instead of money will give you the best income.

Not just a beginner, sometimes I am more concerned with results than processes, more concerned about money than how I trade well for good results. It's because we can not manage emotions, trade is a thing that requires patience, because a good process will lead to good results. If you more care with money, maybe you'll be easier to make mistakes because you do not think about strategy during trading process, ..