This is the last trading week for the year 2007. It is unlikely for me to trade since I am rushing to finish some work and preparing to head to Sydney this coming weekend for my Christmas break.

Well, if you do not achieve your trading target or your trading ‘dreams’ for 2007, it is too late to make it happens now. Yes, I know miracle does happen, you might hit a jackpot for the coming 4 trading days, but…after all, it is still a miracle. We meet miracles by chance, we don’t plan to have a miracle. Got it?

Instead of struggling to hit your 2007 target at this stage, maybe we should do a review of our real trading problems.

Answer the questions below, carefully and frankly. You will realize some of your mistakes and make a note for the coming year.

• How much time have you spent on searching for the secret trading strategies in forums or blogs?
• How much time have you spent on studying markets, developing your own trading strategies and style?
• How much time have you spent on trading forums (e.g Elitetrader, forexfactory etc) or chart room such as wallstreak (sorry ,ugly) to listen to other people’s opinion (most of time ,nonsense)?
• How much time have you spent for yourself, thinking deeply, which trading instrument/style/timeframe/market etc that really suits yourself?
• How many times have you been changing your trading strategies? From dummy to fibonacci, then to breakout or even scalping?
• How long was the last time you stick to your trading plan?
• How many times have you been delaying writing or recording your trading journal?
• Are you spending way too much time in something called ‘trading psychology’ things? It is important, but are you spending WAY too much time on it?

There are still a lot of questions for you to answer, but I guess these should have shown you something. Please be frank to yourself.

The most valuable thing I have learned from the past couple of years is, trading is really a lonely and individualist business.

You have to work out by yourself to figure out what’s working for you and what’s not. Sorry to say that you have to design your own strategies and plan.

Chat rooms and forums are really for entertainment. Purely entertainment. There is nothing called discussion in trading, most of the time, there are just bullshit sharing. It is good to visit forums and chat rooms, for the sake of laughing. :-). The best place to learn about trading and the market is the market itself. These are my opinion and experience. Take it or leave it.

One of my favorite posts in blogsphere is ‘Chasing Success’ written by Trader-x. It is a good read and good reminder. Make sure you check it out.

most people jump from indicator to indicator, time frame to time frame, method to method. They will use something for a few days, hit a bump, and move on to something different altogether. One day the holy grail is a XX period moving average, the next day it is MACD or an oscillator. One day it is a 30-minute chart, the next day it is a 5-minute chart. One day it is buying the break of the first inside bar, the next day it is a pullback from the high.

I call this “chasing success”. The bottom line is the person does not spend enough time on any one method to really understand and execute it properly. They bounce around, and before they know it a lot of time has passed and they are still struggling.

If you pick something and stick to it, you get good at it. Once you get good at it – once you perfect it, THEN you can add something else to your arsenal.