Time and Money Management

You pay a price for every profit you take with time and effort required to obtain it. Not to mention the years of experience upon which your knowledge and system methodology have been constructed. The slippage, and getting knocked out on a winning trade by one tick have a cumulative mental attrition that can only be offset by constant profits, vacations and other interests not market related. Time is the most valuable commodity in every person’s life because each person knows he only has so much of it. To use time wisely creates more of it. To use money wisely creates more of it. It is ironic that man is the only animal that knows he is going to die, and the only animal that laughs. There is probably some profound message in this irony, related to trading.

One of the most frustrating things in trading is knowing what to do, how to do it and when to do it, and not being able to execute. This is why it is so important to have a decent broker with good executions even if you have to pay a little more to obtain it. A bad fill hurts you a lot more than a higher commission. If you get slipped a tick in and a tick out, you will have paid a lot more than perhaps, a $25 commission. But the most frustrating thing is not being able to get the job done, when you know how to do it. This has been a plague on trading from before I began to trade. It is always a problem to a greater or lesser extent.