Today's Quote: “A single conversation across the table with a wise man is worth a month's study of books." - Carl Gustav Jung.

Over the next two weeks this daily trading lesson area is going to run a small series that you can think of as ‘a collection of qualities good traders share’. Many of these may seem familiar; some may be a bit surprising.

There is an assumption here. These comments are ones to help developing traders; those in the process of learning to trade. So the assumption is that the trader has already begun the process of education. There is nothing more important. As a matter of fact this is what today and tomorrow’s lessons will focus on. Please understand that the word ‘trading’ covers everyone in the market. Whether you are a scalper or a core trader that holds for months, it does not matter. We are all subject to the same problems. It is just that the day trader will encounter them at a faster pace than the core trader. In some ways, that is an advantage. The day trader realizes their flaws quickly. It may take the core trader months to see the pattern that is hurting their trading.

Education is a remarkable thing in trading. No one feels they need it.

If your mother needed a heart operation, it would be hard to imagine any of you would decide to do the operation yourself in an effort to save money. Would anyone spend the weekend reading books about the heart, and then operate on Monday? Or if you were being sued for all you were worth, would you read a couple law books and try to defend yourself? Don’t laugh when you read this, it is what many traders do. Perhaps you did this same thing yourself. How many of you started trading after having read nothing more than a single book?

People will usually spend more time researching the purchase of their new car than they do studying the market before their first trade. So, is the point that training to be a trader is as hard as training to be a lawyer? No, of course not. It is harder.