Action for Action's Sake

Hey, man, I'm here to trade. Just show me the 'Buy' and 'Sell' keys and get outta my way!

Sound familiar?

It's the most common refrain of new traders ... unscarred, untested, unafraid, and itching for action.

There's no doubt they'll find it. Currency trading has action in spades! Hitting either the 'Buy' key or the 'Sell' key is easy to do. It's knowing which key to hit and when that's tough! Knowing which and when can take years to figure out. But, new traders haven't learned that ... at least, not yet.

What adherents of this, "Action for Action's Sake," mentality most commonly share is a very early and very high fatality rate!

Maintaining naive exurberance in the foreign currency market is not just foolish, it's downright dangerous. It's also difficult to dispel. On the one hand, you want to encourage optimism and on the other, you want to encourage caution. Cautious optimism is the balance needed to survive the inevitable financial and emotional highs and lows that all traders endure.

Action is OK if you know well enough how to anticipate and deal with the upcoming curves and chasms and not OK if you think the ride is on a straight trajectory headed for the moon. Experience is the teacher. And experience has more to teach a trader about his or her inner emotional life than anything else. The tangible goal might be profit, but the intangible reward is the emotional maturity gained from the journey.

While exurberance is dangerous and cautious optimism is at least a more sane approach, seeking action for action's sake is a definite formula for a knock-out blow in the boxing ring of forex trading. Better to buy a ticket for a rollercoast ride ... at least the odds are better that you'll be able to walk away when the ride is over!