Working a typical 9-to-5 job can be monotonous. Many people just try to make it through the day. They can’t wait for their shift to end. Some work settings are viewed as especially mundane. For example, comedians are fond of making fun of the workers at the Department of Motor Vehicles, portraying them as the exemplar of bureaucratic mediocrity. Many workers struggle to get through the day. They aren’t passionate about their work. It’s just a job. Some newbie traders think they can take a similar mediocre approach to trade, but they soon find that unless they go the distance and make more heroic efforts, they will never achieve enduring financial success.
The goal of the short-term trader is to take advantage of the masses. Some of the masses are amateur online traders, but some are professional institutional investors. Many part-time online traders view trading as a hobby. They don’t put the necessary time and energy into developing trading plans that will produce a profit. Institutional investors take a long-term view and are not necessarily worried about short-term variations in price.
In both cases, these market participants don’t put in extra effort to capitalize on short-term variations in price. The short-term trader, in contrast, searches for ways to capitalize on shorter-term fluctuations, where huge profits can be made. You can’t hope to make huge profits with a simple buy-and-hold approach. You must look for innovative trading strategies. The search is endless. A strategy that worked one day may not work the next day. From the longer-term perspective, short-term variations are “error.”
A multitude of factors may cause a short-term variation from false beliefs of the masses to an influential analyst report. Factors such as this interact. Each factor goes together to produce a price change, making a stock price fluctuate in a particular pattern consistently for only a short time before a different set of market factors coalesce to produce a different pattern of price movement. In short term time windows, the markets are chaotic and complex. It takes time and energy to develop an intuitive feel for these patterns and develop trading strategies that can produce a profit.
When trading the markets, you must put in a great deal of effort to achieve profitability and maintain it. You can’t be complacent. Many people try to trade the markets, but few achieve enduring financial success. It’s not just a job. It’s a lifestyle. If you don’t put in enough time and effort, you won’t succeed. But if you work hard and long hours, you’ll trade like a winner.