Trading should be treated just like a business. From an employee standpoint, it is standard to receive paychecks, whether weekly, bi-weekly etc. From a professional trader’s standpoint, we want to treat trading as the business with the expectation to receive a weekly paycheck.
The Team at The Profit Room makes it a routine to withdraw trading profits every 7 business days while retaining the same account balance. Creating the habit of paying yourself first forces you to realize and reap the benefits of true trading success. There is no real reason to have an extremely large account. Large Accounts without discipline can put you into a situation where you are able to over-leverage, double up or down, and just simply add to losers because of the “excessive” amount of capital available. This is damaging in itself due to large risk exposure which leads to larger losses.
Let’s say you started with an account of $30,000 in capital in the Equities Market. The broker provides you the 4:1 leverage if you are applying for a day-traders account. With this account, you have the ability to day trade and swing trade. It’s imperative to have a strategic approach, which involves a trading plan that includes risk/money management. A true winning approach allows you to withdraw your trading profits weekly. Profits, of course, will vary assuming that A.) You are Profitable B.) You are Consistent. meaning if you have trading losses within days of that week, you are still able to end the week net positive. This thought process is logical, and achievable and should also apply if you are trading the Forex or Futures market with $3,000 in capital. The profits will vary but the withdrawal frequency should remain the same. The concept is to Pay yourself first while retaining the same balance in your account, never adding because you are consistent and profitable. If you have to add to your account, you are obviously losing money and never really mastered the art of being able to trade profitably.
If you are only swing trading, pay yourself bi-weekly or monthly. Most swing trades last an average of 3-5 trading days.
We’ve mentored traders who are now professionals. One Trader in particular traded with a large account and suffered from massive drawdowns. It stemmed from a desire of wanting to have the ability to have 10-15 contracts trading futures or $5-$10 lot sizes in Forex. The desire to trade large size consumed this trader rather than the thought process of paying one’s self first. After further evaluation, this trader finally came to the conclusion to only have no more than $10,000 in their account trading futures. Although this trader was trained by us, the initial greed and inner thoughts we have no control over, but the skill that was mastered for this trader to bounce back and continue to profit is the only thing we can take account for.
Always remember Trading is a business treat it as such.
~ The Profit Room
