What makes trading different from gambling? [No Trading Zone]

#Notradingzone #Tocademy #PrincipleTrading #Confluence

Hello traders from all over the world.
Observing thousands of retail traders during my lessons, lectures, and consulting, I realized that a lot of novice traders in contemporary market have some bad trading habits. Especially if you are a daily trader or scalper who usually take small and many short-term trades, please pay attention! Someday in the future, hopefully, you will eventually realize that the best and most ideal position in the world is to take neutral position. What I mean here doesn't imply that you should not trade at all and rest the whole time.

After entering this world of trading, within the process of becoming a mature trader there is a time when you realize the power of the TA(Technical Analysis). Once you start to practically utilize what you have studied and even see how the numbers on your account grow, you literally become mesmerized. This magical thing called ‘Trading’ would feel like the ONE you have been searching for the whole life. I know, calm down! It feels great when the price reacts to the lines and indicators you have drawn and put on the chart by yourself. In this particular stage, I see many traders sit in front of the monitors or watch their smartphones all day long, being addicted to trading. Well, here’s a truth that I deducted through years of my trading career and the data that I have researched; addictive traders hardly become successfully.

Always remember that our ultimate purpose of trading is to solely make money, not just for fun. Of course, making money would be fun but for some of you, the priorities of these two are switched. Before you even notice, you might find yourself gambling rather than trading. Now put your hands down, close your eyes, and think for a minute.

Are you anxious when you are not in a position?
Do you frequently regret that you closed your position too early?
Do you become angry when you miss big long or short?
Are you so urgent to recover your loss as soon as possible?
Does trading disturb your primary work? (Hard to focus both, isn’t it?)
Does trading masses up your lifestyle and relationship with people?

If you replied ‘Yes’ to majority of the questions, please cancel all of the pending orders right now, turn off the chart, get some rest, and forget about trading just for a while. I understand more than anyone that you are full of desire to chase all these micro trends or minor waves in 1 minute chart. Especially those who are trying to recover all the losses you made this week ASAP, before you encounter a bigger loss, trust me, take some time, and cool your head.

I am sorry to say but you might be more of a gambler than a trader right now. Sure, there would be few that still do fine with all those conditions but if you eventually keep ending up bad due to excessive entries or lose entire seed at one cue after series of consecutive wins, your addiction might be interfering your judgment. Irrational trading decisions are the biggest risk that human traders have to face and restraining our emotions during trading is integral. (Please click the image/link below for details)


As the image below indicates, since we humans cannot perfectly control our emotions every single day, the total number of trades and the net performance are not always proportional in a short-term period. In other words, spotting thousands of entries in a single day does not always lead to daily accumulative profit. Not only you pay high transaction fees, but your physical and mental exhaustion can lower your concentration seducing your irrationalized perceptions to break your trading principles. Accordingly, the more excessive amount of time spent looking into the chart, the more likely our logical sense becomes numb and vague which can easily cause FUD and FOMO.


Researches have shown that the relationship between the entry rates and the performance (per certain period of time) of retail traders is averaged out as a curved shape with a local maximum coordinate. This peak point implies the ideal amount of profit and entries of a trader. It would be different for each trader depending on their preferences, capabilities, and other circumstances. For instance, 3~4 entries and $10,000 profit per day might be ideal set or oriented goals for some traders, while 10~15 entries and $100 profit per day might be those for other traders. Hence it is important for us to figure out each of our own boundary and refer to it when designing strategies and PnL first of all.


Therefore, a well systematically designed strategy that can effectively weigh and quantify technical signals based on the scientific and reliable evidences must be adapted. Once validities of each are scaled, we would be able to comprehend which signals are relatively more reliable than others. Shown on the main image above, even though entering a 80% credibility zone will provide low entry rate, higher RR ratio and win-rate can be achieved. We need to train ourselves to be able to call “No Trading Zone” when the identified trends and derived price action zones do not meet the minimum standards of our own.

Some of the talented and successful daily traders I’ve met are not very much different from most of us here. They analyze the market and design trading setups just like we do. If anything, that made them superior, they have a proficient sense for spotting the “No Trading Zone”. They are amazingly good at consistently stepping aside if the signals are not reliable enough or do not meet their standards. They know time is on their side and they wait in patient. It's just simply deciding whether to take certain trades or not, filtering out some of less potential entries and maintaining no position when they are less convinced about the signals, but these tiny differences ultimately result in a huge difference in performances.

Investors who trade with technical charts like us can measure the credibility of signals based on the confluency of technical signs and indicators. Here are two traders: trader A and B. Trader A considers eight signals (techniques, indicators, and theories). For example, trader A observes volumes, trendline, Fibonacci levels, moving averages, Bollinger band, Ichimoku cloud, RSI, Stochastic, and Elliott wave theory. Trader A won’t enter position unless majority of those signals are giving signs simultaneously relatively at the same price and time. On the other hand, trader B only considers trendline and moving averages. If only one of the two gives a signal, trader B enters immediately. Which trader would be more successful? Even though entry rate is low, trader A would be able to secure higher RR ratio and win-rates because the trends and price action zones that trader A has deducted through TA are more reliable than those deducted by trader B.


As mentioned, Confluence Zone is an area where multiple technical evidences overlap at the same price or time period. In TA world which is 2-dimensional, a price action zone would be expressed with a dot, a line or a box. When multiple indicators signal certain trends and PRZs both in price and time wise, we need to keep our eyes on those coordinates. We as a trader, need to utilize these confluence zones which indicate major price range within certain time period, to design trading setups. The more overlapping elements there are, the higher RR ratio and win-rate we can secure. And this is what makes gambling different from trading. Both of us fight with numbers, but we can control that numbers while gambler cannot manipulate the RR ratios and the win-rates they are given.
Thanks for reading my post. I will see you guys next time!

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