So, now I was on the main road just outside the supermarket, heading back, when suddenly a silver car pulled out from a side road and almost slammed into me side on. He braked suddenly and pulled back into the side street. He also had the wretched nerve to honk his horn at me!

So I’m thinking stuff like, “You idiot! Why don’t you look the heck where you’re going? And then YOU honk at ME?!”

But I’m also thinking, how could this happen? It’s as if he didn’t even see me. Is he totally blind or am I invisible?

Then I noticed something very interesting. My gaze flicked to my dashboard. My headlights were completely off! Yes, I could see the road ahead just fine because there were streetlights. But I guess that nobody could see me coming so very well!

It was night and I was driving like a bullet in the dark, unseen.

Hmmm. So who’s the idiot now, I wonder?!…

I have to admit I felt more than a trifle guilty about it. There could have been a really bad accident if I had carried on much longer. Luckily, I had only just left the supermarket, and even more luckily, my attention had been immediately alerted to the problem by this incident.

So, what's this story got to do with online trading, you might ask? Well, nothing and everything!

The fact is, it's a very good life lesson. Many traders trade like this – absolutely certain that what they are doing is right, and MUST be right because it's them doing it. And that's totally irrespective of what the markets are plainly telling them!

We get negative feedback from the market, e.g. it moves against our position. So what happens? Instead of having a stop that gets hit and takes us out for minimal loss, we have no stop at all. Or worse still, we actually ADD to the position. That's kind of like saying to the market, "You IDIOT!"

It's just like when the guy nearly hit me and had “the cheek” to honk at ME. We carry on all the same, just swearing that we are RIGHT! Then one day, we crash and burn and scratch our heads and wonder why?

Is it any wonder that 95% of online traders crash and burn when it's like they're driving without their headlights on! They're just asking to crash.

It's a great analogy that I want you to think about for your life and especially for your Trading. What is your blind spot? What is it that you are just refusing to see in your method?

We can drive along in our lives, not examining what we are doing, not being as AWARE as we should be. Then one day, reality collides with our fantasy and we are left to pick up the pieces, and wonder what the heck happened. This happens ALL the time in Trading.

Rather than think “Idiot” about the other guy, I was left asking, “SO who’s the idiot now?” And that's what we need to ask ourselves (in a constructive fashion of course, i.e. "What can I learn from this?") when we get our noses bloodied in the markets.

In fact, the guy who nearly hit me was symbolic of all those people who warn us we are in danger when we take a wrong path, but who we filter out and ignore because we don’t want to hear what they have to say. Luckily for me, he appeared on the scene and awakened me to something I would not have seen otherwise until perhaps it was too late.

Maybe the lesson is, switch on your headlights BEFORE you have the crash! In Trading this means, examine what you are doing in full awareness and make sure that it is what you really want to be doing. Do you have a method and is it PROVEN to work?

Realize that what you do has financial consequences for your trading account. Every lapse, even momentary as mine was, can have enormous results.

So, make sure that when it comes to your Trading, you too are not a dark bullet in the night, heading for a certain crash and burn. Switch the lights on, and shine the bright light of Awareness onto your Trading and your life in general.

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Get the FREE Report, The 7 Deadly Mistakes Of Online Trading. Which of these critical errors do YOU make… and you don't even know it?…

In day trading, the ability to be independent is even more important than in other life arenas. That is because in the day trading arena, there is no such thing as “absolute truth” and there is no end of opinion, conjecture, rumor and fantasy. Hope and Greed play their part too, and overall create a landscape of illusion wherein a person with no independent opinion of his/her own will be swept away to rapid destruction.

The fact is that there is a whole plethora of valid ways in which to make money in the financial markets. You can choose your own way and be perfectly effective and profitable in your online trades. You don’t have to buy the latest new-fangled trading system, or adhere to any particular day trading dogma, no matter how well informed it may seem to be. Likewise, you should guard your own mind from being unduly influenced by the opinions and theories of others, which may only serve to throw off both your mental discipline and your resulting trading.

Read the rest of this day trading article.

Asoka

The key point to come back to is that Online Trading has to be a business, if it is intended to be your primary source of income for yourself and your family. If that is the case, then it is imperative that you treat it with the seriousness that it deserves. That means that even though you may be working for yourself at home, you need to impose some business disciplines that you would find in a standard office environment.

If at all possible, you should establish for yourself a separate room for your online trading. Wherever possible, you need to give very serious thought to closing the door to family and pets in order to concentrate on what you are doing. (Now, I know that this is hard because my two cats basically have total access to me, and I can’t see that changing. But as the saying goes: do what I say, not what I do!)

Remember, your online trading is a business, NOT a hobby. It will ultimately, if it is not already, be your primary source of income and that upon which your family depends. Hence, you owe it both to yourself and to them to get serious and to get professional, no matter whether you trade from home or on the proprietary trading desk of the biggest firm on Wall Street.

Read the full article: Online Trading Distractions

Now, this is pretty amazing when you think how many different markets they are trading, the variety of trading methods used, and so on.

You might think there are far more factors involved. Maybe. However, my research reveals just SEVEN trading errors that are critical. If these are eliminated, your online trading performance can soar to previously unimagined levels.

You can discover the facts for yourself in my brand-new FREE report, Online Trading:The 7 Deadly Mistakes

Best Wishes,

Asoka

This is to announce the launch of my new website and blog, Online Trading Rebel.Com. On both this blog, and in the website, I aim to provide you with cutting edge strategies and techniques for successfully trading Forex, Stocks, Bonds, Commodities or whatever. This is planned to be the first website of many in a new information company that I am creating based upon trading and investment from a quantitative point of view.

My own background is that I spent 11 years within the mainstream investment banking business, in firms like Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns and others, all based out of London. I've also been involved in the management of a multi-billion dollar investment fund. My primary skill throughout this time was providing and trading strategies based upon technical analysis of price and yield charts.

Although my career began, and was primarily spent within, Fixed Income trading, I finished up in charge of International Equity Quantitative Research for Rabobank International. Hence, I've seen both sides of the business, and a few things of value to share!

Despite all the corporate name-dropping above though, I remain very much my own person, and always felt a bit of an outsider to the whole rather conformist mainstream investment banking regime. Hence, you will find me to be anything but your typical corporate geek (or ex-corporate geek).

Right now, I prefer my own company (and that of my two cats!), trading and researching the markets from the privacy of my own home, without being accountable to anybody. That is the beauty of the online trading environment; all you need is a computer, a regularly updated market price database, and internet access to your broker. You don't have to answer to anyone or jump to anyone's command. None of this would have even been possible fifteen years or so ago.

Anyway, here I am and this site is here to stay. I promise you a wealth of tips and insights from my fairly eclectic and esoteric study of the markets over the years. It will be a wild ride but an enjoyable one. Hence, I encourage you to sign up to my Rebel Trader list, to receive trading videos and podcasts, plus be updated about new informative posts to this blog. Whether you are forex trading, or trading stocks, commodities, whatever… I think you'll find that I have some powerful and valuable insights to share.

So, hope to greet you as a subscriber to the new email list, and to see your comments on this blog!

Best Wishes,

Asoka Selvarajah (aka The Online Trading Rebel)

Visit Online Trading Rebel.Com To View The First Trading Video