Walter Joseph Dillard / Profil

Many traders fall victim to the hindsight bias.

The hindsight bias is also known as the knew-it-all-along effect. This bias makes it so people think that what they see now was easily predictable before it happened.

Many novice traders look at a chart and see a massive price movement. For example, let’s say they see a stock that shot up 50% over a couple months. After seeing that, they feel like they could have easily gained 50% plus on their money and would have known the stock was going to shoot up like that.

This is one of the primary factors that gets novice traders to believe that trading is easy. They see a few charts and now think they can get rich.

The thing is, just because you see a massive price spike after the fact doesn’t mean you can predict such an event before it happens consistently.

In the stock example, the stock may have shot up because of a merger or a new product release that you couldn’t have known about before it happened. (At least not legally.) It’s easy to see what has happened, but to predict every stock that will shoot up 50% versus those that will dump 50% isn’t going to be as easy as hindsight is. After all, hindsight is 20/20.

So, many novice traders go in with the idea that they can predict the future easily and proceed to lose all their money time and time again.

Instead of going with the hindsight bias, they are much better off learning trading psychology and learning how to approach probability based games instead of trying to predict the future with their crystal ball, going for 100% certainty in a situation where certainty certainly doesn’t exist.

Thanks for reading!

Best wishes to you!

Cheers!

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Greed kills in the trading world.

I see trader’s greed kill their accounts time and time again every day of the week.

Far too many “traders” lose their money, and often money they can’t afford to lose because of their greed.

They want 10% per day consistently each and every day. So, they overrisk and blow their accounts time and time again.

Sure, they have a few days that they make 10% per day.

Often it goes like:

+10% Monday.
+10% Tuesday.
-80% Wednesday.

The scam world has a lot to do with trader’s unrealistic and greedy approach to trading. So many scammers promise 10% per day because they never have to deliver it. With so many scammers out there so many new traders think they can get rich quick off 10% per day, and that that return rate is reasonable.

IT REALLY ISN’T!

Instead, what I recommend is that traders hold themselves to reasonable standards. 5-10% per month is a great goal to shoot for. On 5-10% per month you can be financially free in 10 years. It’s not 3 months like we all want it to be, but it’s attainable.

And hey, if you can make way more than 10% per month, then that’s great!

I just find that so many traders lose all their money going for 10% per day, when instead they could be building wealth by just going for 10% per month.

After all, there is nothing wrong with doing what works, instead of reaching for the impossible and losing all you have time and time again.

Have a great day!

Best wishes to you!

Cheers!

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Many novice “traders” want to put in zero work yet reap massive rewards.

Trading is a profession and it requires a lot of work to be good at it.

In the markets you are going up against the richest, smartest, and most powerful people in the world. It is not something where you can make a ton without knowing what you are doing.

So, I recommend 3 main paths then to novice “traders.”

-1: Be an investor instead.

-2: Put in the work.

-3: Back someone who already put in the work.

-1: Be an investor instead. Indeed, being a longer term trader and more of an investor than trader is a great option for many people. You can buy the S&P 500 when it’s low and hold it for years, then keep buying dips along the way.

Instead of trying to make a fortune, you invest and can earn quite a nice bit of money over enough years.

-2: Put in the work. Usually we are talking about thousands of hours of work. It’s well worth it, but it’s a lot of work on trading psychology, strategy development, backtesting, forward testing, etc…

The work is all worth it, but it’s important that you’re ready to do all the work needed over years to get where you want to go, not just trying to find tips or tricks and get rich overnight.

-3: Back someone who already put in the work. This option I can highly recommend. Find someone with great trading and have them manage your account for you. This can work out extremely well, but only if you make sure that your person is good.

Most account managers will just lose your money, so it’s very important to get a good one.

If you’re interested in trying out one of my trading systems for 2 months for free on any demo account from any broker you like, feel free to message me. :)

Anyways, trading is something that takes time and effort. That means it’s not for everyone who isn’t ready to put in the work.

Have a wonderful day!

Best wishes to you!

Cheers!

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A lot of traders come to me asking for advice when they are first starting out.

Usually they’ve found a broker, learned a few technical analysis strategies, but so far aren’t making money, and are simply losing money.

They usually come to me hoping for a tip or two to fix their trading.

Unfortunately their failure usually isn’t a lack of technical knowledge, but rather psychological knowledge.

To succeed as a trader we all must understand the game we are playing and why we are playing it.

Too many new traders try to hit a home run every pitch. They keep trading in their bat every time they don’t hit a home run because they want a home run every time. They think they can get a home run every time and just want a few tips on how to always get a home run.

If you want to be a great baseball player, you have to know you can’t get a home run every hit.

If you want to be a great trader, you have to know that you can’t win every trade.

You don’t need to hit a home run every time to make it to the hall of fame.

You don’t need to win every trade to make a fortune trading.

To those just starting out I always recommend learning the trading psychology first, then the technicals next. That’s a decision you’ll never regret.

Cheers!

A lot of people ask me, “Why bother trying to help others in the trading community?”

They usually then list a reason why helping isn’t worth it.

-“People need to learn on their own.”
-“You can’t educate everyone.”
-“People will always fall for scams because they want to get rich quick.”
-“Having more people win makes it so you can’t win off them as easily.”

And people go on and on with countless reasons like these.

So, why do I help in the trading community?

I help because I care.

When I started out, no one helped me. I had to learn on my own all of what I was doing. But, I always wished there had been someone there to at least give me some good advice here and there.

Now that I’m an expert, I try to give back and help others have an easier time than I ever did.

To address the former statements:

-“People need to learn on their own.”
While learning on your own can be valuable, struggling unnecessarily is not. Learning to trade is a lot easier if someone helps you along the way.

-“You can’t educate everyone.”
Of course not everyone is ready to learn or wants to be helped, but I am happy to help those who are ready to improve their trading from psychology to automation.

-“People will always fall for scams because they want to get rich quick.”
This only happens because people aren’t educated on how to tell the difference between scams and real results. Teaching this has helped a lot of people not get scammed. Also, on social media, demanding myfxbook and 3rd party verification has really shut down a ton of scammers with screenshots and nothing else.

-“Having more people win makes it so you can’t win off them as easily.”
This is a simplistic attitude that fails to take into account the size of the market and the opportunities out there. Very few will learn to be successful traders, so there’s always dumb money out there to get. Teaching others doesn’t mean that then everyone will become great traders and that all opportunities will be gone tomorrow.

Thanks for reading!

If you ever want my advice or help, just comment or message me. I’m happy to help.

Cheers!

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No one likes waiting, but it’s an incredibly important part of trading and investing.

The impatient trader will lose their money in no time at all, because they are leaping into trades to satisfy their emotions, not because it’s a real opportunity.

Most of trading is waiting, whether you’re trading yourself, having a robot do it for you, or having someone else do it for you. There is no way to rush the process, waiting is a necessity.

An opportunity isn’t there every 3 seconds, so learn to be patient and act on your edge when it appears, not when you’d like it to appear.

Cheers and have a wonderful day!

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Often people fail because they approach trading like it’s a chain. After all, “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.”

So, with trading, people tend to ditch systems that lose or have losses, because they think that if one trade loses, then the chain is going to fall apart.

However, there is no successful trading system that can win every trade all of the time.

Psychologically we’re conditioned to still think of trading like a chain and we feel the need for trades to win every time or else we feel that the system is flawed, even if intellectually we know better.

Our emotions keep saying to us, “If the system can lose one then it can lose everything.”

This isn’t true, but our emotions naturally set us up to feel this way and to seek out systems that win every time, despite the fact that such systems do not exist.

Instead, there is another way to believe in your trading system while not being unrealistic and needing the system to win every single trade.

This process requires two sets of beliefs.

-1: The outcome of a single trade is random. There is no way to know if it will win or lose.

-2: The outcome of a large series of trades is consistent and knowable.

When you have an edge in the market you simply win more than lose. There is no way to know which trades will win or lose. After all, we all want to win all the trades and don’t want any losses.

Yet, with these two beliefs and a real edge it’s easy to emotionally feel good about trading.

If you believe that the single trade’s outcome is random, then you don’t feel like it has to win for you to be ok.

If you believe that over a large series of trades that you have an edge, then you trust that overall you will win.

Of course, a necessary step is actually testing your edge, rigorously. Mere belief will not help you, only a well backtested and forward tested system is worth believing in.

Still, once you have a good edge, these two sets of beliefs will allow you to use it without anguish or unfairly judging a system because it has a few losses.

These two beliefs are the key to great trading psychology.

Cheers and have a great day!

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I meet a lot of “traders” who have a hard time financially because they’ve traded with money they couldn’t afford to lose.

Many people have taken out large loans to trade with, have traded with money off their credit cards, have borrowed from friends to trade, etc…

These stories rarely end well. Usually, they end with massive losses and then a life filled with compounding debts.

So, I always recommend that you NEVER trade with money you CAN’T afford to lose.

In the markets and in life, you do have to take some risks, but it’s important not to take stupid risks that leave you with a lifetime of crushing debt.

There is nothing wrong with starting small and gaining consistency before scaling up your trading and making the big money that you want.

So NEVER trade with money you CAN’T afford to lose.

Cheers and have a great day!

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Nearly everyone who goes into trading thinks they’re going to get rich quickly. That never ends up working out.

I’m not sure where the get rich quick idea comes from, but it’s an infectious and problematic idea that gets to nearly all of us.

Obviously, we all want to be rich tomorrow and not in 10 years. After all, it would be great to be rich tomorrow and not have to wait.

However, riches overnight aren’t a real thing that works out for people, particularly in the world of trading.

I know many traders who try to make 500% per month. Instead, they lose 100% per month consistently. Extremely high return rates simply aren’t maintainable.

Now, if you know what you are doing, you can make a lot lot of money trading. There’s no denying that, but it’s not going to come from making 500% per month. Instead, it’s primarily best to manage large investor funds once you prove you can deliver desirable results. (And of course only do this when legally you are allowed to!)

At the end of the day, consistency is king and fast money in trading isn’t something that works out well.

I personally recommend seeking financial freedom in a 5 to 10 year period. If you can do it in less, then great for you! However, I find that too many people go for 2 to 3 months and not 5 to 10 years, so things rarely work out for them.

I recommend going for the right period of time, and getting the freedom you deserve.

Cheers!

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Based on my recent poll it appears many people don’t know what timing the market is and where it is flawed. So, I’m going through that today.

First off, there is a major difference between timing the market and the use of time in trading. Trading is all about timing. You have to be able to act quickly and to do so at the right time of day.

Every session is different from every other and certain strategies don’t work in one session while they work great in another.

That’s not what timing the market means.

Timing the market is where you attempt to predict the future market price at a specific time.

For example:

“Gold will top out at 1900 on March 1.”

“The stock market will bottom out in August.”

These examples are clearly ones where a person believes that the market will be at a certain price at a certain time, and will act accordingly.

Timing the market is not a smart strategy, because there are many factors that go into where price will be at a certain time and the likelihood of it being there.

It’s easy to predict what will likely happen and act on it accordingly, but the idea that future prices can be known is an amateur idea.

You can predict, but knowing is not part of it.

Instead of timing the market it’s much better to use a well tested strategy and act on the edge whenever it appears. Don’t wait for a certain day when you think things will be there, actually define what you’re looking for and not what date you’re looking for it on.

So, if you think the market will bottom out on a certain date, drop the date and define the bottom level you are looking for and what you’ll do accordingly.

At the end of the day, timing the market is not a great strategy compared to using well tested and effective strategies.

Again, you can be right on your predictions and win more than you lose, but you cannot know what will happen in all cases.

Have a great day everyone! Best wishes to you all!

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Let me tell you a story of passive income.

A parent walks in and sees their teenager just playing video games and accomplishing nothing all day.

Parent: “Hey, go out and get some passive income you lazy bum!”

Teen: “What?”

Parent: “You see this whole house? You see all I have here? How do you think I got all this?”

Teen: “Working hard?”

Parent: “Not at all! I earned it all through passive income. I was sitting on that very couch and I earned a fortune. You could be earning money just sitting on the couch too you know.”

Teen: “Really?”

Parent: “Yes. Passive income is the best income! Those video games for example; why not record them, put them on youtube, and earn an extra $500 a year off that? You’re already playing the games anyways, you might as well earn off them.”

It’s a funny story, and it’s also rather true.

Unfortunately, most of us get told to get a job instead of passive income. There’s nothing wrong with working for money, but if you don’t make your money work for you then there’s a major problem.

Many people understand that passive income is valuable. It’s very nice to earn money while you sleep. However, most people don’t know where to begin and where to get passive income beyond looking up an internet article that tells them to buy bonds and long term stocks.

The best forms of passive income are time intensive in the front and then require no time on the back end. Unlike buying bonds which doesn’t take much time and isn’t going to get you a large payoff.

Most people tend to avoid the time intensive things that have no immediate rewards and that’s why most people don’t have passive income.

I always recommend learning to get some passive income and always figuring out how to automate yourself out of many money making enterprises that you don’t want to have to put time into every second of the day.

Passive Income = Best Income.

I get a ton of messages every day from people asking for me to give them trading accounts to manage.

I know thousands upon thousands of traders, so these messages are a part of life.

And I’m always happy to help other traders however I can.

For many, I give them prop firm demo challenges to pass. If they succeed then they get opportunities through me later on to trade real accounts.

For others, I give them long term demos to prove their ability.

As I said, I’m always happy to help as best I can.

However, I tend to find that many people are just in search of fast capital and think they can simply talk their way into getting funding.

This always surprises me, because talk and screenshots really mean nothing.

Talking means you have a mouth, screenshots mean you can take a picture of a demo account.

At the end of the day, anyone with reasonable trading expectations will always expect to see a 3rd party verified track record of your result, or will want you to prove your results on a demo account.

The people who will give you capital based on just your talk alone aren’t the kind of people you want to work with. Often they have huge and unreasonable expectations. Many are looking for you to make them 30% per day or more, and these are exactly the wrong type of clients. They are far too naive and aren’t worth your time. They also tend to hate your good results because they want impossibly good results, and tend to be incredibly rude and impatient.

So, if you really want to manage money and get capital for your trading, always have a great 3rd party verified track record.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great day everyone!

Best wishes to you all!

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I know many traders who believe that indicators tell them what WILL happen next in the market.

Unfortunately, indicators only tell you what will LIKELY happen in the future, not what WILL happen in the future.

I’m often shocked by how many people think the future in the market can be known. Without a time machine, you cannot know the future.

After all, the market is made up of millions of people pushing buttons based on how they’re feeling today. One other person somewhere entirely different in the world can ruin a trade of yours. After all, there is no way to know absolutely what everyone else in the world will do at every given moment.

However, indicators are a great way to predict what people will do based on what they’ve done before. Often people repeat the patterns they have used in the past, so that can be relied upon to win more than lose in your trading.

At the end of the day, the idea that there is a way to know the future is ridiculous. There are only ways to predict the future with high probability, never to know the future.

Thanks for reading!
Have a great day!
Best wishes to you all!
Happy trading!

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One of the nice things about trading is that anyone can trade.

To be a trader you don’t have to have an ivy league degree, be privileged, be well connected, be ultra intelligent, or have any natural talents.

It doesn’t matter where you are from or who you are, you can learn to be a great trader.

That’s not to say trading is easy, as it’s psychologically one of the hardest things to do. But, if you really desire it then you can be a great and successful trader.

Trading is great and it really is something that anyone can do. That’s something that I find so beautiful about it.

I’m often surprised how many people go into trading with little to no money, yet expect to make a fortune quickly.

Trading doesn’t pull money out of thin air, it’s simply a way to grow the wealth you already have.

Of course, it can grow small wealth into massive wealth. At 200% per year, $100 becomes $5,904,900 in 10 years. That’s quite a growth rate, but often people are looking to do that in a couple of months, not 10 years.

It really surprises me because people go to school for so many years to become doctors and lawyers, yet people think they can become traders overnight and earn riches overnight.

People also think they can become traders starting with $20. And while you can start an account with $20, don’t expect to be growing that to over $60 consistently within a year’s time.

The unrealistic expectation of riches from trading really ruins a lot of people. They go into trading wanting to get rich, as we all want to, then end up in a permanent boom and bust cycle because they go for huge return rates and have no lower risk long term investments.

As always, I recommend diversifying between high risk and low risk systems. Always have some safe long term money, then feel free to go high risk on some of your trading accounts. Just don’t go high risk on everything.

At the end of the day, trading doesn’t create capital, it merely multiplies what you have if you do it correctly.

Cheers!

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Many traders aim to escape wage slavery through quick market gains. Unfortunately this seldom works out.

Still, the goal to escape wage slavery is a good goal and trading can certainly be a way to achieve this goal.

After all, the average person’s life has issues in the world of wage slavery.

Let’s take the example of the average person at age 25. They go to work, work hard, and earn a paycheck. If they are lucky they put away about 5-10% of that money into savings, assets, and retirement. Usually they put away nothing and only acquire liabilities and debts, leaving retirement in jeopardy.

Even if a person puts away $5,000 per year, which few people ever do, and they put it into an investment that earns 7% per year or more, which most people don’t, then still it takes them 40 years to have a million dollars. At age 65, they want to be off playing golf or laying on the beach, but are instead just scraping by with a modest life instead of a great life.

Let’s face it, this way of living life isn’t the best option. So, many traders go for retirement next week instead of in 40 years. They go for 100% plus per day and try to retire next week.

Unfortunately none of them make it, because getting rich quick isn’t a likely thing. Even for those who do get rich quick, such as lottery winners, more than 80% of them lose it just as quickly if not quicker.

The “get rich quick” idea really appeals to people, but it doesn’t work.

So, instead of all that, what I recommend is a 5-10 year focused goal to get to your retirement. It doesn’t need to take 40 years, but it won’t be overnight either.

If you want to trade there by yourself, then you just need to reach 200% per year. (Like that’s easy to do, lol.) It’s doable consistently, unlike 100% per day, but it’s certainly not easy. With any starting capital over $100 at 200% per year you can retire in 10 years.

What I recommend instead of going for 200% per year and doing it all on your own, is trading consistently for at least 6 months then getting investors and institutions backing your trading. Earning smaller, more achievable percentages, but doing it on more capital is a far easier path to your financial goals.

After all, earning 20% per year on $10,000,000 gets you a lot more money than earning 200% per year on $1,000.

Overall I find this path to be the best option for traders because it’s achievable and doesn’t take a lifetime.

Cheers! Thanks for reading! Have a great day!

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I’m so often surprised how many people trade without knowing what trading is or how it works.

So, today I want to talk about the basics of what trading is and how it works.

Trading is a pattern recognition minus sum numbers game. Really, that’s what it is.

A zero sum game is where when one person wins the other loses. Say for example, when you win at a casino, the casino loses. When you lose at the casino, the casino wins. That’s a zero sum game.

In a minus sum game, what you gain when you win is less than what the loser loses, and vice versa. Trading is a minus sum game because brokers take spread and commission. In order to win in a minus sum game you have to have higher margins and can’t just operate on tiny margins because you have to cover the spread and commission.

Trading is a game because you can choose to play it or choose not to play it as you wish.

Now, success in trading is based on pattern recognition. This applies both to fundamental and technical analysis. Patterns on charts in the case of technical analysis, patterns in the numbers, models, behaviors, etc in the case of fundamental analysis.

In order to win in the markets, you need to have an edge. An edge gives you the ability to win more than you lose. Casinos have an edge over the gamblers, because even if gamblers play games perfectly they still only win about 47% of the time. That leaves the casino winning 53% of the time in a zero sum game, and that 6% margin is their profit margin.

In trading the goal is simply to create such an edge, as the casinos do, and execute it whenever it appears without emotion.

Where most traders fail is in testing their edge. Few traders ever stress test their edge. It’s like a casino putting rock paper scissors into their collection of games. Without stress testing their edge they could lose an absolute fortune on it.

At the end of the day, that’s what trading really is, a pattern recognition minus sum numbers game.

In the future I hope to see more traders learning what trading is before diving head first into it.

Cheers! Have a great day!

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No real trader will hide their myfxbook. They’ll be proud to show it to you.

I find that 90% plus of “traders” are unwilling to produce their myfxbook page. There is no good reason for this.

Myfxbook takes 10 minutes or less to set up. It’s very easy to use and to link an account from over 3,000 brokers to.

Myfxbook is a great and useful service that vets the results of traders. Unlike screenshots, myfxbook shows the full story of a trader’s account and lots of analysis on that account.

If a trader doesn’t want to show you their myfxbook then they have something to hide.

To improve the trading community we need to hold everyone to proving their results. Everyone should have a myfxbook account and be ready to produce it.

With this practice we can remove 99% of all scammers with ease. So, whenever anyone posts a screenshot of their trading results, make sure to ask, “Myfxbook to back that up?”

Thanks for reading! Have a great day! Best wishes to you!

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When it comes to trading, few are consistently successful.

30% of traders lose their money consistently. They have a downward sloping equity curve and continue to do nothing but lose month after month.

Being a losing trader though isn’t that dangerous, because they risk little and quit eventually.

After all, losing consistently shows you can’t trade forever, and often they give up trading eventually or learn to not be consistent losers.

The harmful group are the boom and busters. Boom and busters are 60% plus of all traders out there.

Boom and busters suffer the most because they have solid winning periods, then everything busts. Often boom and busters make huge gains that can go on for weeks even months, but it all ends in a quick disaster.

Booming and busting is the most harmful thing because boom and busters think they are winners and big winners. They think they have everything all figured out, so they put more capital behind their strategy and shoot for the moon. Unfortunately, they never make it…

Sadly booming and busting is just a reality for a majority of traders. Very few are consistent winners.

The consistent winners are consistent because they use well tested methods that have real statistical edges. Most people approach trading like a gambler at a casino, while consistent winners approach it as the house at a casino does.

With a well tested and well executed strategy, the consistent winners have a consistently rising equity curve over time and generate consistent profits month after month.

What separates the boom and busters from the winners is usually a matter of risk and how well tested the edge actually is.

My main advice to anyone who struggles is to focus on the long haul. Getting consistent profit is what gets your investors and more money behind your strategy. You don’t have to do everything on your own. With a good enough track record on myfxbook it’s easy enough to get capital.

I wish you all the best! Cheers!

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Many traders want to win every trade they take.

They stay out of every trade until they are sure they will win it, then their only expectation is that they will win it.

This usually is a problem because these traders will over risk on their trades. Because they are sure they will win, they don’t think there is any risk.

However, when their trade starts to lose, emotionally they panic. They were sure they’d win and instead are losing. With risk management entirely based on confidence, that’s now all gone and they are on the road to lose everything.

Some stay with bad trades until they kill them. Others bail out of good trades due to their emotions.

Regardless, when traders expect to win every trade they are expecting the impossible. There is no way to win every trade all of the time.

So, what should traders do instead?

Treat trading like the house treats their games at a casino. In a casino the house always wins in the long run. As long as people keep playing the games the house wins in the end.

Often the house only wins 53 / 100 times, but that margin is where all those casino profits are made.

In trading it’s best to have an edge like the house has and simply win more trades than you lose.

No one will win every trade, but it’s easy to win more than lose with appropriate risk management in the long run.

Thanks for reading, have a great day! Best wishes to you all!

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