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"It is almost impossible for the beginning trader to make a reasonable assessment of the level of expertise
that is required to function in a trading environment."
Mark Douglas, The Disciplined Trader
"Unlike a trip to DisneyWorld, to make dreams into reality requires changing the Dreamer into a Realist."
Kenneth
Reid
 When you first started trading, your attitude toward the market was probably one of positive expectancy. I call this the "Dreamer" phase. After a period of time, however, a natural disillusionment often sets in as aspiring traders realize that trading is actually
harder than it first appears. Most traders get stuck in this phase, which can turn into a spiral of negativity, and never make it to the other side, the place where trading is easy again.
As we move from being "Dreamers" to being "Realists," we encounter a business environment that Mark Douglas describes as a lonely "psychological
wilderness." The trading environment does not resemble normal social or business reality, so the type of 'realism' we actually need as traders is unfamiliar to most of us. One client who has been very successful in the construction industry recently said to me after taking a 40% loss in one equity position over 3 days, "I don't think I've ever realized before how ruthless the trading business is."
The natural risks in trading are made much worse if 1) you have already suffered a history of losses; and/or 2) if you are learning to trade while under financial pressure; and/or 3) if you are trying to apply success strategies from the world of business to your trading. If any one of these conditions is TRUE, you are at
great risk of making your financial situation worse because you are likely to engage in high-risk behaviors and not realize that you are doing it.
ARE YOU A HIGH RISK TRADER?
 It is a core principle in trading that one must keep losses small. Virtually all large losses start out as small losses. Suffering losses that are much larger or more frequent than planned is one of the primary warning signs of a High Risk
Trader. You may be a High Risk
Trader and not even know it, especially if you have been successful in business.
One client (let's call him Sandy), a former executive at a famous software company, took his trading account from $1 million down to $100k in the year before he called me and proceeded to draw it down to $25k before he could get control of his trading. Sandy is smart, creative, confident, tech-savvy, strong-willed, ambitious and very dedicated. In the business world he is a CEO-type, a "peak performer," but that did not help. In fact, it made his trading worse and he was almost uncoachable.
Sandy's mistake was thinking he could apply his natural business skills to trading. They actually worked against him because they led him to focus on the market, not on himself.
Ironically, Sandy's experience as a peak performer caused him to overlook the obvious: namely, that he was being psychologically affected by the market in negative ways. He was no longer the cool, competent executive he used to be. He had
lost control of himself, but did not know it. After all, there is no Board of Directors overseeing your trading. You are the whole organization, top to bottom, so any psychological traps you may fall into are unlikely to be easily recognized.
 As his strategies and tactics failed to achieve the desired results, Sandy increased his risk taking behavior. He averaged down on losing positions. He increased the size of his bets. He traded more frequently. His wife worried about his trading because
he seemed obsessed and was putting the security of the family at risk, but he would not heed her warnings because he felt he was on the verge of tremendous
success even as his equity curve plunged. After all, he totally believed in himself and his abilities.
Sandy failed to recognize that the world of business and the market environment are very different from each other. Sandy was not aware of his vulnerability to psychological conditioning by the market environment, which gradually motivated him to employ desperate tactics that increased risk and greased the rails of his decline. Once the downward psychological spiral starts for a trader, it tends to
take an inevitable course to ruin. To understand more about your own vulnerability to the Risk of Ruin read the next section. You can take my FREE RISK PROFILE here.
RISK OF RUIN
The Risk of Ruin defines the odds of reaching a point at which you are no longer mentally, emotionally or financially able to fund (or re-fund) your account. The risk increases exponentially for those traders who:
Any one of these behaviors is a warning sign that you are vulnerable to the Self-Sabotage Syndrome. In the current market climate, where volatility is 2-3 times normal levels, these high-risk behaviors may soon put an end to your trading career.
Tax return data show that more than 90% of active traders don't make significant money. The conclusion is inescapable:
If you are not 100%committed to being in the top 10% of traders,
you should stop trading now ...
because otherwise you will waste a significant amount of time & money
proving to yourself that achieving anything less
is not worth the effort.
THE GOOD NEWS
 Most traders who are still in the game after two years have a passionate desire to learn to trade. The best traders feel compelled to master the game. I'm a competitive tennis player. Andre Agassi once said, "For me, tennis is a vehicle to discover myself and push
myself." I think for many aspiring traders, the market serves the same purpose.
We are driven to master trading because it holds the secret not only to our financial future, but to our own personal development and self-mastery, as well.
Many of my clients report that as their trading improves, the quality of their life improves along with it. If you are this type of trader, passionate about succeeding, I am equally passionate about helping you reach your goal.
SITE OVERVIEW
I have packed this website full of free, frank, cutting-edge information about the reality of trading and I invite you to explore it at your own pace. Take a few days to let it all sink in. If my perspective resonates with you, I hope you will email me for a FREE 15-min. CONSULTATION (doc2 at daytrading-doc.com).
Learn about me personally and read a summary of my Coaching Program below.
COACHING PROGRAM OVERVIEW
 My
name is Kenneth
Reid, MA, ABD, LPC, SEP and I am a practicing
psychotherapist, trading coach, stock trader and futures trader. I work as Senior
Analyst
and Editor for three national stock market newsletters with thousands
of
subscribers and I run several very successful portfolios. I've appeared on CNBC and written for Forbes.com and SmartMoney.com.
More importantly, I have a passion for helping traders because I've
experienced my own
personal struggle with the same issues you may be facing. In a nutshell, I have an Ivy League education, I built a successful manufacturing business with $1300 of starting capital, sold it and retired at the age of 42. But the market took money out of my trading account for years. I had to work very hard to cure my own trading problems and in the course of that journey I learned some things that may help you.
A SYSTEMS APPROACH
There are three key systems that aspiring traders need to address: your Belief System, your Trading System and your Nervous System. Fixing one without addressing the others will not get you where you really want to go.
 Belief System
After a honeymoon period, active trading that is unsuccessful will create a negative belief system because, like Pavlov's dogs, you will have become "aversively conditioned" by losses. In plain English, that means you have a subtle, but deep-seated negative expectancy about trading. Basically, in this state of mind, you are not trading to win, you are trading not to lose. Of course, that won't work. You need to correct the negativity and change your mindset back to one of positive
expectancy. I have many tools to help you do that.
Trading System & Tactics
Additionally, the typical aspiring trader has a Risk Profile that requires many more wins than losses in order to be able to sustain the positive mental attitude necessary for successful trading. You will not be able to maintain the mindset of a winning trader if you don't have professional trading tools and a Trading Plan that give
you a psychologically sufficient win/loss ratio (at least 3:1). I help traders define, refine and optimize their trading systems and tactics.
 Nervous System
Having a winning attitude and the proper tools are necessary, but not sufficient, for trading success. If you are emotionally reactive or have attentional patterns that make you overtrade, over-analyze and over-stress, then you need to address the inner landscape of your body-mind. You need to optimize brain functioning and your ability to de-stress. This is an area I specialize in.
After just one session, a client wrote to say, "This way is working out for me so much better…I feel more in control and have not made any mistakes…and best of all I have not chased anything." RH, in Florida. (Posted 7/1/09)
See Program details.
This totally individualized program costs just $1499,
less than you might lose in a single bad day.
MASTERING THE MARKET
 Whatever your level of intelligence, education or success in life, learning to trade for a living is likely to be one of the hardest things you have ever done. To trade successfully, you need to do the exact opposite of what your instincts, emotions and business skills naturally urge you
to do. Mastering the market means:
1) Mastering your mindset in an unusually challenging environment.
2) Mastering a trading plan and tactics;
3) Mastering your reactivity to being wrong, losing and missing out, so you can trade your plan.
 Whether you are an aspiring rookie trader, an experienced 5-year veteran who is stuck at breakeven, or a successful professional looking to sharpen your edge, I can help you reach your full trading potential in as little as six weeks.
Clients who work the program invariably experience a dramatic turnaround in their relationship to trading and in their bottomline. You can read testimonials here.
Email me to schedule a FREE 15-Min. CONSULTATION (doc2 at daytrading-doc.com) or click here to sign up now. If you take no other action today my friend, be sure you order
my premier neuroprogramming MP3 ACCESSING THE WINNING TRADER'S MINDSET for just $99. Nothing is more important than becoming proactive about your mental-emotional state while trading. It could save you thousands!
PLEASE, don't wait another moment to gain more control of your trading.
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