Do you trade for money or emotional satisfaction?

[analyst100]

DO YOU WANT TO BE ENTERTAINED OR RICH?…IT’S YOUR CHOICE

I came across this excellent chart the other day. It shows those times in history when the S&P 500 doubled over a ten year period and the trajectory that this doubling took.

Please see here for a relevant chart: https://www.tradinggame.com.au/want-entertained-rich-choice/ 

Much commentary that followed on twitter related to the steady low volatility climb that characterised the latest run and how boring this was. One of the interesting thing about markets and money in general is that people betray their true desires and personality.

Markets are the true window into the soul and in this instance what traders were actually saying is that they wanted to be entertained and not rich. The constant current moaning about the lack of volatility is little more than the plaintiff cries of children who bedevil their parents every school holidays with cries of …I’m bored.

This lay observation tallies with what others have found. The seminal work in this field of trader immaturity is An Analysis of the Profiles and Motivations of Habitual Commodity Speculators by W.B. Canoles, S.R. Thompson, S.H. Irwin, and V.G. France. I have summarised their findings below and have added my own emphasis.

“The typical trader assumes a good deal of risk in most phases of his life. He is both an aggressive investor and an active gambler.

 [He] does not consider preservation of capital to be a very high trading priority.

As a result, he rarely uses stop loss orders. He wins more frequently than he loses (over 51% of the time) but is an overall net loser in dollar terms. In spite of recurring trading losses, he has never made any substantial change in his basic trading style.

To this trader, whether he won or lost on a particular trade is more important than the size of the win or loss. Thus he consistently cuts his profits short while letting his losses run.

 He also worries more about missing a move in the market by being on the sidelines than about losing by being on the wrong side of a market move; i.e., being in the action is more important than the financial consequences.

Participating brokers confirmed that for the majority of the speculators studied, the primary motivation for continuous trading is the recreational utility derived largely from having a market position.

Numerous indications in our survey indicate that they are not trading solely or even primarily for profit, but may be maximizing excitement or the number of winning trades.”

So we come back to the original question. Do you want to rich or be entertained as the choice is entirely yours.

Author: Chris Tate
Article reproduced with kind permission of Tradinggame.com.au.

The article is concluded by the quotes below:


“It's in your best interest to focus on building your trading skills rather than on achieving a huge profit every month.” – Joe Ross

“No matter how good you may think you are, nobody is bigger than the market and it will beat you to your knees if you don't treat it with the respect it deserves.” - Adrian Alberts 

“Trading does not have to be very difficult — what can be difficult is finding the right path early on and properly understanding the major impact of your mental state on your trading results” - Gabriel Grammatidis 



www.tallinex.com wants you to be a successful trader


Trading realities: http://www.advfnbooks.com/books/unlockpotential/index.html

[bitcoinking11]

When you have got other sources of income then you can trade for emotional satisfaction. But, I am trading for money, as I don't have other sources of income. At this young age, I need a lot of money to support my family. So, If I can some, It would be good for my family.

[Gabz999]

I trade for money of course. I don't trade just for emotional satisfaction. There are a lot of things you can do just to be satisfied on your emotion. I think for rich people who just want to enjoy trading, maybe they are the one who trades just for their satisfaction.

[patt0]

Never heard of trading because of emotional satisfaction. In fact I find trading very stressing, specially if it's the only source of income for you and your family. There is always the possibility of losing money, so when you have bills to pay, and you depend on your profits to pay them, it's definitely a very stressful experience. I was a decent poker player, and once I realized I was making enough money to pay my bills I decided to try it full time. It was a terrible experience, and I just had to stop. I now play poker just for fun again, and I appreciate the profit I can get from it, but I don't see how that can work in trading. It's not a game, so you can do it for an extra profit, but it's not for emotional satisfaction.

[Alone055]

There are always two kinds of traders.
1) Those who already own a lot of money, and do trading just for fun, or to experience the situations.

2) Those who have only managed to set up a trading capital so that they can make some good money out of it.

Now the first group of people would obviously do it just for pleasure or you can say for emotional satisfaction. And the other group does it only to earn money. People doing it for money find it very disturbing in times if the trades are not going in their favor, while the ones, who are in this for just entertainment purpose, don't really care about how the market behaves as they don't really care much about losing the money they have at stake.

I'm not much of a trader really, but when I do it, even a little bit, I do it for money. So I trade for money, not for emotional satisfaction.

[BUK2016]

I don't see trading crypto currency as an entertainment in any way but as some thing that brings profit to me at the end of my trade which simply mean that I trade for profit and not for entertainment purpose.

[sorrysteve1]

I myself do find that I have fun while trading, when things are going well, but I also do not mind having the most boring days with little volatility if it means that I can profit. Profit comes ahead of emotional satisfaction but both can go hand in hand.

[airdropan]

of course i do for money
even i join crypto is for money. but when i keep doing trading everyday then i feel it not about money
its about emotion satisfaction too

[prashanta]

some humans recognize a lot, but they think, “perhaps I don't know sufficient.” Their fear is based totally on the idea that they must get a hundred% in their trades. They do not comprehend that it's far going to require losses too, for-profit over the years: proper trading is the art of calculated risk.

both way, the emotional issue tends to cancel out someone's potential to stay with a rational bias. It sinks its fleshhooks into your soul and steers your mind with it. you'll now not be able to make a proper decision.
it is because they decided to imagine, surprise, or assume, in place of putting in the paintings to be certain of their gadget.

[Marahunter]

i do both, but i think trading experience is very useful when extrapolated to other facets of our life. when every bad decisions bleeds into money, but you accept the fact that you can only be right a handful number of times, but are still cool with it. you have to sift information, knowing who and when to trust them, and revise and improvise, in order to always stay ahead, kind of like whale games, trading sure gives me a kind of kick. but the end game for me of course is to earn money and the big pircture thinking that will reward me for years to come

[Rogers Andreas Leo]

Well,of course i do for money
even i join crypto is for money. but when i keep doing trading everyday then i feel it not about money its about emotion satisfaction too.I myself do find that I have fun while trading, when things are going well, but I also do not mind having the most boring days with little volatility if it means that I can profit. Profit comes ahead of emotional satisfaction but both can go hand in hand.But another logic works here and that is I don't trade just for emotional satisfaction. There are a lot of things you can do just to be satisfied on your emotion. I think for rich people who just want to enjoy trading, maybe they are the one who trades just for their satisfaction.

[tomahawk9]

I used to trade for money and those sweet profits. There are several things that require less "skills" but still they give me an emotional satisfaction, and these things don't involve putting my on the line, massive amount of stress, countless hours without sleeping, etc, etc. And it's very hard to imagine someone Trading simply because of "satisfaction", emotions can lead to some serious consequence in the long run, especially in the cryptocurrency market.

[rachelia13]

Sometimes i think I trading for money, but the fact is i trading for emotional satisfaction. Although my main focus of trading is to make a profit, but i often take action based on my emotions. I never thought about waiting for the price to go deeper to buy but i would immediately buy without analyzing the price condition in the market, which is why my coins are more often stuck and eventually sold below the purchase price without thinking of the losses that i will be get. Well, i never regret it, for me trading is about luck.

[Mpamaegbu]

When you have got other sources of income then you can trade for emotional satisfaction.

I am not sure anyone does that even when they have other sources of income. Not even George Soros. Trading is all about the Benjamins. I trade for money except on a few occasions when I would want to experiment after I had met a certain target. Other than that, money is always the motif that we take risk in business.

[richminded]

Of course I am trading to achieve my goal and that's to earn more money to buy my dream house in reality.
Trading with cryptocurrency is pretty amazing it can really make more money if you only know the basic things about it.
Its not easy to make money through trading, but I believe if you do it patiently, you can achieve your goals in time.

[boy130]

Very, very few people trade for emotional satisfaction. In fact the common consensus with most risk based systems is to leave emotion at the door, unless it is beneficial. In trading, gambling and most statistics based fields, emotions are a hinderment rather than a benefit.

However, you may get the odd fabulously wealthy individual who will take part in such activities out of interest, rather than for profit, e.g. footballers who play poker in their spare time, or a CEO who dabbles with forex trading. If you are playing to profit, emotions are not the way forward.

[13abyknight]

I do not understand the entire idea of trading for 'emotional satisfaction'. Just going out and hanging out with people and probably hooking up with a few would give me that instead of the money I would be making online. For most of the part, the price fluctuation could seem to be an emotional roller coaster ride but staying in the profit zone becomes the priority as monetary requirement would overshadow the emotional feelings of an individual.

[Scavagers]

When you have got other sources of income then you can trade for emotional satisfaction. But, I am trading for money, as I don't have other sources of income.

Well since crypto is my only source of income,I do trading for the sake of having money. While earning, I also ensure that I am having fun. I love trading and I am happy and feel satisfied after trading, not if I lost though. I do trade for both reasons. I feel motivated to trade more if I am happy in what I am doing, I feel the urge to continue doing this resulting to more profit. I never heard of someone trading just for their emotional satisfaction, of course you are trading for money, for profit so I think all here are trading for the reason of having profit.

[the rise]

the majority of traders will use both as a benchmark, our main goal is profit and risk management comes from learning management mixed with emotions that are suppressed to the maximum extent possible, I think this can not be separated because without positive / negative emotions, we will always not brave attitude towards anything decisions that occur.

[tora]

I trade in cryptos as a hobby. I am retired so do not depend on crypto income. I did not use any of my lifetime work income to buy cryptos. It was all gained from ptc,faucets and airdrops.