Everyone knows that the Holy Grail of investing and trading is a myth. A trading system holy grail would be one that never has a losing trade, not to mention consecutive losing trades, never has an equity curve drawdown, and after five winning trades in a row will just keep on delivering winning trades forever! There is simply no method or system that wins on every trade.

Then why do most losing traders act as if there is or should be a trading system holy grail? You know the symptoms. When considering a new system to trade, losing traders will only consider those that have had a strong winning record for the prior month or quarter. They will jump from one system to another looking for the latest "hot" system, passing up or abandoning good systems that have had a good long-term track record simply because they may have lost on the last three, four, or five trades. A good system can and will have five losers in a row. Likewise, a bad system can and will have five winners in a row. So selecting a trading system based on its most recent short term record is a losers game - it's the loser looking for the next system with a "holy grail" mentality.

Winners, on the other hand, know how to properly evaluate a trading system to determine if it is good or not. Once they have found a good system that has the potential to deliver superior returns consistently over a long period of time (years), they stick with it. Even after they have had five losing trades in a row, they stick with it. Because they know while the holy grail does not exist, a good system will potentially follow those losing trades with winners that more than offset the losers and potentially deliver superior returns.

Think like a winner.

Good Trading, Bill Poulos http://www.instantprofitstoday.com