Where does the phrase 2+2 = 5 - 1 come from?
Of course, it originates from the master Kostolany, but what does it mean when applied to trading?
One of the greatest pitfalls for traders is overtrading. They can't sit in front of the platform without clicking. They can't stand being out of the market.
We also have Warren Buffett reminding us with one of his quotes:
"The investor has a benefit over the market, the ability to say NO."
It becomes clear that it’s not good to always be in the market. Rather, one should wait for the opportunity, like a sniper, and once it comes into range, "attack" and disappear. And so on until the next time.
As you gain more experience in the market, your sense of intuition develops. This intuition allows us to increasingly recognize the entry and exit points on a chart.
But once the opportunity is seen, the impatience to enter becomes insurmountable. It's very difficult to wait for the confirmation of the signal, perhaps because we want to squeeze the last penny out of the market. And it’s this impatience that makes us enter too early, get stopped out, and end up out of the market with less capital.
Market timing (the ability to know when to enter and exit at the right moment) is not for everyone—in fact, I’d say it’s for no one—but it’s clear that, like in everything, some will do it better than others.
So, within this fever to continuously enter the market, one trade after another, without any profit in return, and even with losses, we usually stop just when that awaited opportunity arises, where the price moves exactly as we knew it would from the beginning.
As I’ve said, controlling market timing is very difficult. But having the patience to know when we should act is even harder, yet it’s vital to eliminate many of our negative trades and ensure that the difference between losses and gains is positive.
Therefore, you must know how to wait for the right moment, and for this wait to bear fruit, practice a lot, practice and practice in real (never in simulated as the instincts involved in each mode are different). Accumulate hours and hours so that everything happens naturally, and then, yes, when you’ve calibrated your intuition, you’ll be able to enter at the right moment and in the correct trade.
Finally, remember Kostolany again with his "2+2 = 5 - 1," where he tells us that what you’ve intuited will certainly happen, only it will occur a little later than you thought.
Conclusion: patience to wait for the right moment is essential for success.
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