If you are new to trading or still have not found your footing I would say you may be lacking success due to a lack of having accountability. Trading is an individual career where your choices will have a direct reflection upon your capital account with limited oversight. By not being accountable, you may be endangering yourself and your hard earned capital.
CHECKS AND BALANCES
I run a trading room, where I am accountable to a group of traders every day. I also have a partner in my trading account that I must answer to on a regular basis as to how well I am doing. This accountability that I have has created an environment of checks and balances.
LOOK BACK AT RECENT TRADES
If you had to give an account of all your trading activity to the public, the good and the bad, would that change some of the trades you would have taken? Think back to last week’s trades you took. Were some of them out of your trading plan? Were some of them reckless? Did you risk more than you stated in your trading plan? Did you not take a stop with set risk? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you are probably in need of an accountability trading partner, i.e., mentor/coach.
PATH TO PROFITABILITY
Having an accountability partner will put you in check and cause you to stop being reckless. However, you must find a trading accountability partner who understands trading or they will be clueless to any errors you will be making on a regular basis. The most profitable traders have had, at some point in their careers, a coach or a mentor to help them succeed.
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[Editor’s note: Troy Peterson’s Gap Edge Trading won the TraderPlanet 2012 Star Award for best Live Trading Room. Who are you accountable to in your trading? Share your questions or thoughts with Peterson below.]
