Forex trading is more than expected to make money from your best-crafted trading strategy.
Successful traders have traits that enable them to execute their strategy effectively in different situations.
Successful traders do not acquire nor develop their traits overnight but through hard work and determination over time.
Let’s look at the traits of a successful trader.
Traits of a Successful Trader
While few traders may possess all the positive attributes, most traders might be keen on some and show weakness in others.
The following are the keys to successful trading, no matter the financial trade.
1. Trading Plan
You are probably aware that failure to plan is planning to fail.
Consequently, a trader with a trading plan will mostly succeed in financial trading than the one without.
Having a trading plan tops the list of traits of a successful trader.
Furthermore, sticking strictly to a trading plan, among other positive attributes of a successful trader, separates winners from losers.
Ideal traders develop a trading plan with clear goals and strategies to achieve their objectives.
On the other side, losers, while lacking positive qualities, operate on impulse decisions without any plan, often making losses.
Must Read: How to Create a Winning Forex Trading Plan
2. Risk Management
Traits of a successful trader include effective risk management.
They use stop loss and profit-taking orders to minimize losses while protecting their gains.
Also, successful traders have a small risk tolerance of about 1% and a risk-reward ratio of about 1:3.
Being a successful trader starts with proper risk management practices in conjunction with other traits of a successful trader.
3. Discipline
Adding discipline to the traits of a successful trader leads to profitability in any financial trading.
But why do you need discipline in financial trading? It enables ideal traders with successful traits to stick to their trading plans.
With positive qualities, successful traders patiently wait for excellent opportunities to arise and then with high discipline, execute their plans without hesitation.
The millionaire traders mindset is highly disciplined – never follows a trend but always relies on their research.
Must Read: Top Golden Rules of Trading Discipline
4. Patience
Patience and discipline positive qualities are closely related.
With the patience of a vulture, successful traders patiently wait for suitable entry and exit points- in line with their plans- then like an eagle, swiftly execute orders at the right time.
Traders lacking patience and discipline traits of a successful trader prematurely enter or exit a trade.
Traits of a successful trader cannot be complete without patience.
Winners have patience giving a trade enough time to work to their advantage.
They have realized that trades don’t work out immediately but often take time.
5. Record Keeping
Traders successful in financial trading keep proper and up to records in a trading journal.
The essential attitudes that build winners provide insightful information for improving a trading strategy.
Details in a trading journal include emotions, trade outcomes, and others.
6. Mental Flexibility
A millionaire traders mindset is flexible, thus able to implement their trading plans irrespective of the market condition.
Besides, he/she understands that their strategies may also fail, thus avoiding some trades.
An ideal trader mental flexibility easily adapts to new changes, thus trade better in forex markets.
On the other hand, a rigid mindset regularly leads to losses as they employ the same approach to different market conditions.
Being a successful trader, the millionaire clearly understands how and when to implement his/her trading strategy in all market conditions, and when to stay away.
7. Positive Mindset
Being a successful trader entails having a positive mindset, no matter the outcome of a trade.
With positive attributes, you will accept losses and wins as possible financial trading scenarios, thus showing little or no emotions at all.
In your endeavors to being a successful trader, remember to take charge and control your emotions.
No matter the outcome of a trade, ideal traders always stay focussed on their trading plans while having a positive mindset.
You can quickly abandon your plans as you get excited by a series of wins, or be depressed by a series of losses.
High emotions cloud your judgments and sabotage plans.
Must Read: How to develop a positive winning mindset in trading?
8. Learning From Mistakes
If you keep doing things the same way repeatedly, you will always get the same results.
Learning from mistakes is one of the traits of a profit-making trader.
Winners study their trading journal and learn from past mistakes to improve on their trading strategy.
Meanwhile, losers insist on using the same approach over and over, leading to losses.
Related: Common psychological trading mistakes
9. Self-Confidence
A good trading plan, practice, learning, and proper mindset are positive qualities of a profit-making trader.
All these successful traits develop and boost the self-confidence of a successful trader.
The confident traders will believe in their trading abilities, analysis, and strategies leading to profitability in the long run.
10. Independence
The successful trader has a sense of independence, which entails developing a trading strategy that works best for themselves without relying on others.
Independence is one of the traits of a successful trader that you should aspire to have for profitable trading.
Like winners, start early enough to develop responsibility for your profits, losses, and market analysis.
Traders without independence always move from one mentor to another, a trading book to another, and heavily rely on financial trading subscribed services.
11. Always Informed
A successful forex trader always informed about events and news affecting the market.
He/she must find time to read newspapers, listen to the radio, watch TV or browse the internet for the latest news and significant announcements.
As you watch or read the news, make a proper interpretation, separate hype from reality, and make sound decisions.
Successful traders regularly read widely to learn new strategies and techniques in market analysis, apart from being updated on the news.
12. Always Plan Ahead
Always planning ahead is another attitude that builds winners in financial trading.
While the millionaire traders mindset uses historical records in making analysis, they always plan forward based on financial market news.
My Final Thought
Possessing all the traits of a successful trader does not come easy but through hard work and determination.
Aim to develop and improve on your weaker traits as you polish your trader personality traits.
If you can achieve these traits of a winning trader, you will be in foreign exchange trading for a long time and most likely emerge as a winner.
You have no choice but to analyze your trading journal to pinpoint the weak and strong trader personality traits that you possess.
And having a balanced lifestyle perfectly wraps the successful trader’s traits.
