By Elliott Wave International
How many losing trades can you tolerate each year and still be successful in the markets? How many consecutive losing trades? How many losing weeks, months, or even years would it take to end your trading career?
Peter L. Brandt is a professional trader who openly acknowledges that only about 30 to 35 percent of his trades over an extended period of time will be profitable. He says that most years, he will "incur eight or more losing trades in a row." He also says his trading career has seen "losing weeks, losing months, and even losing years."
So why should you listen to someone who has lost so often?
Recently, an independent accounting audit of Brandt’s annual IRS tax statements across 18 years of trading verified an average annual return of +41.6%. This period included the dot-com bubble and the financial crisis of 2007-2009.
When you trade with the Elliott Wave Principle, you must understand that recognizing a chart pattern is only part of the process. According to Peter:
Successful trading is an upstream swim or uphill run against human nature. It is fair to say that consistently profitable market operations require that a trader learn to overcome strong emotional pulls. In fact, most professional traders can relate how many of their most successful trades required action in direct opposition to emotional urges.
(Diary of a Professional Commodity Trader, p. 28)
Whether you’re a full-time trader or an active investor, the most important elements of your success are education and self-discipline — in a word, experience.
Learn from Brandt — a veteran trader and one of a select few contributors to Bob Prechter’s Elliott Wave Theorist — in this exclusive FREE report:
Foundations of Successful Trading: Insights on Becoming a Consistently Successful Trader from Peter Brandt.
Whether you are an average investor, a novice trader, or an industry professional, you stand to benefit from what Peter Brandt has to say. You can learn more about Brandt and gain insights on his consistently successful approach to market speculation in this free 16-page excerpt from Part I of his book, "Foundations of Successful Trading."
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This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline "The Commodity Markets Take No Prisoners". EWI is the world’s largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.
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