Best Loser Wins: Why Normal Thinking Never Wins the Trading Game – written by a high-stake day trader

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Only the best and most lucrative clients were invited to this VIP event. On board the executive coach taking the prestigious clients to Ascot, I was introduced as the new financial analyst. Ask him anything, declared the CEO. So segueing all of this into some charts...and how I use a simple method for looking for high probablitly trades... One of my Sunday rituals and evening rituals when not trading... I will use higher TF charts 4hr and Daily to mark up common measured moves..Which then I can filter down with some entrance criteria or the flipside for a TP area when in a good trade... Always thinking in probabilites...how can I add to a trade ? well if I am in a "swing""measured move" i may be more apt to stay in the trade.... There are many caveats to this..its much more difficult than it looks... but its my way of scaling up certain trades. The time you know you’ve become a good trader is that first day you were able to win by holding and adding to a winning position. When I am in a profitable position, I have trained my mind to ask, 'How can I make my position bigger?'" I don’t agree with that. There are many people who can and who also do. One is not exclusive of the other. Many great do’ers see it as part of their life mission to pass on knowledge to those around them. When I worked at City Index, I might not have been an oracle of technical analysis, but I certainly knew more than most of our clients. For that reason I gave technical analysis lessons most evenings to our clients and the many white label clients that City Index had, such as Barclays Bank, Hargreaves Lansdown and TD Waterhouse. I dare say that if technical analysis as a subject was comparable to something like dentistry, the vocation would be terminated on account of the 80% failure rate. You don’t have a 80% failure rate amongst dentists. THE MILLION VIEWS YOUTUBE TALK

For the book content, it is very simple to read and has some powerful lessons. It will resonate with many many traders. From what Tom focuses on to his mental preparation and visualisations (especially on challenges) -- to *expecting* discomfort.

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I wrote this book to describe how I transformed myself into the trader I am today, and how I was able to bridge the gap between what I knew I was capable of, and what I actually achieved. INTRODUCTION However, if the market is not random to you, then fear, mindset and trading psychology become less relevant to you, and this depends on the degree of your perception of randomness. Tom Hougaard says, “People don’t fail because they don’t know enough about technical analysis. They fail because they don’t understand what the markets are doing to their minds.” Best Loser Wins is an antidote to conventional and flawed thinking in trading, and a blueprint for a new belief system for traders who want to elevate their results to levels they never dreamed they could reach. After completing my university degrees, I started working for JPMorgan Chase. It wasn’t a trading job, but it was close enough. Then in 2000 I became a home trader for a year and a half. It only lasted 18 months because I ran out of money.

I started applying to university degree courses around Europe. I already had a job at a pension fund as an office trainee. After reading the book, I knew that would not be my end destination. Best Loser Wins provides a triple whammy of high value. First, it provides a very compelling and engaging narrative of Tom’s rise from being a beginner to becoming a highly successful trader, warts and all. Second, it provides insights into Tom’s approach to the markets, and his deep trading expertise. And third, perhaps the most valuable of all, Tom shares his thoughts and practices for developing a winning trader's mindset, thinking differently, becoming a good loser, and embracing the discomfort that comes with trading the markets. I would highly recommend this book to any trader who is serious about mastering their craft, and mastering themselves.

You need to spend specific scheduled and focused time on imagining your desired outcome. You can’t control the enemy, but you can practise your response, so it becomes automated. By doing so, you will de-sensitise your mind to the normal impulses that a normal mind will react to. You will not have the same degree of hesitation as you used to have. You will not feel the same degree of trepidation. Most importantly, you will not encounter the same fear stimuli that a normal brain will because you will have trained the normal fear response out of your mind. “ Best Loser Wins wants you to not be afraid of failing. It will guide you through the complex undertaking of extracting actual value from failures. It teaches you how to become cynical and resilient. Tom cut his teeth in the trading industry. Among other things, he gained insight into traders behaviours by observing their operativity from the broker’s perspective. I have said to myself many times, that the pain of missing out on a big winner that I exited in fear of losing a small paper gain, or a big winner that I was too fearful to enter in the first place, is greater than the pain from losing a small paper gain, or my original risk, that would result from being stopped out. While, I’ve said this to myself many times I have not adhered to it while in a trade. I need to work on being able to fight my own mind when these fears arise. My technical skills are good enough to succeed, my mental game is not! I read time and time again, this repeated contradiction that traders declare this market is random, the future is not predictable yet when questioned why they trade they change their position to not random.

You may want to close this book and think about that for a while. It is quite frightening how deep that sentence is. By that point Marconi had fallen to 32 pence – from 1,200 pence. And still people were buying it. I suggested that on the basis of the chart pattern, Marconi would go to zero.It’s a book about pain, about being uncomfortable. And accepting it. Dealing with it, because being profitable implies being uncomfortable for the entire journey. What not to expect. There is a law in Europe that states that brokers offering trading services to retail clients must disclose what percentage of their clients lose money. That is why I wrote this book – to describe the path I have taken to get where I am today. Over the last 20 years I have read many books on technical analysis and trading techniques. I personally find most of them boring and pointless.

When I call out trades in my live TraderTom Telegram group, I will always announce a stop-loss. Always! However, I often get asked if I have a target in mind. The answer is quite often a little sarcastic: 'No, my crystal ball is out for repairs,' or if I am particularly grumpy and tired, I will be rude and say, 'Sorry amigo, but do I look like a fortune teller to you?'"Let’s face it, we can all learn to walk a tightrope suspended one foot off the ground. However, can you walk across that same tightrope when it is suspended 100 feet off the ground? How you feel about failure will to a very large degree define your growth and your life trajectory, in virtually every aspect of your life." I am leaving no stone unturned. I have described every facet of life as a trader, from the mundaneness to the excitement, and I have described the exact steps I take every day, week, month and year, to ensure that I am up to the job.