What It Takes to Win in the Markets

What It Takes to Win in the Markets

Brett N. Steenbarger, Ph.D.

Note: The following is an excerpt from Gail Osten’s interview with Brett Steenbarger in the March, 2003 issue of Stock, Futures, and Options (SFO) magazine entitled “The Windmills of Your Mind and the Pathway to Your Trades”. The entire interview can be accessed at .

Gail Osten: I have to believe that the majority of people in this world are part-time traders.

Brett Steenbarger: I think that’s true, so maybe even more important than whether they are in the market part-time or full-time is how much time they’re spending researching the markets and preparing their trading, because that ends up being a big part of the full-time commitment.

Gail Osten: OK. Then I can make the differentiation between a part-time trader that is well-prepared and one that just pretends he or she is.

Brett Steenbarger: I’ll give you a great personal example. The last two days of trading, I have been in the market a total of 30 minutes—that’s maximum. Definitely not more. I’ve placed three trades in the last two days, and I’ve been in the market less than 30 minutes total. In those two days, I have easily spent 10-12 hours in preparation. So it gives you an idea of what full-time commitment means. It’s not simply being in the market full-time; it’s working at your craft. And to do that, you’ve got to love it. You’ve got to love finding the patterns, discovering the patterns, researching. You have to enjoy the discovery process every bit as much as you love getting in there and taking your profits.

… No one reasonably pretends that someone is going to become a master surgeon or a chess champion or a master artist by doing it on a part-time basis. I think the same is true for trading. So much of the element of success comes from the long hours of research and immersion in the markets, that it becomes a full-time enterprise—even if you’re not necessarily trading every minute of the day in the pits.

Brett N. Steenbarger, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY and a daily trader of the stock index futures markets. He is the author of The Psychology of Trading (Wiley, 2003) and coeditor of the forthcoming The Art and Science of the Brief Psychotherapies (American Psychiatric Press, 2004). Many of his articles on trading psychology and daily trading strategies are archived at his website, .