I was born in the year of Pac-Man. As a matter of fact, I think it’s no coincidence that it debuted a week after my birth. They knew I was coming. And as far back as I can remember remembering, a large portion of my life has been dedicated to gaming. In those 30 years of gaming I believe I’ve picked up some skills that are useful when day trading.
Gamer’s Trigger Finger
When it comes time to pull the trigger, we gamers do so without hesitation. We are no stranger to watching a screen all day and having to point and shoot at exactly the right moment. We expect accurate and precise results every time, and can accept the consequences, good or bad. If you’re new to trading and you have trouble pulling the trigger, whether out of fear or a slow reaction time, I recommend you install a good first-person shooter like Counter Strike or Call of Duty 4 and hone those no nonsense point-and-shoot skills. You’ll be a stone cold stock sniper in no time.
Ability to Take Losses
We are also no stranger to losing or “dying.” That’s the beauty of proper risk management. If you only risk 1% of your account on a given trade, you have the video game equivalent of 100 lives. Every 1% you increase your account is an extra life! Just don’t let that account dwindle too low or it’s GAME OVER. (For you math lovers who are thinking “Wouldn’t only risking 1% of your account on each trade theoretically imply that you would have infinite lives?” – use your imagination for the purposes of the analogy. I’m sticking with some very basic concepts here. Or you can just go UP DOWN UP DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT A B A B <select> <start> yourself.)
Persistence
Like any gamer, I’ve seen the dreaded GAME OVER screen many times. I have also reached this point on my trading account a couple of times. This will likely happen to most traders as they develop. This is where most traders tend to give up and contribute to the 90% failure rate that is often talked about for day traders. How do you think like a gamer in this situation? A gamer would find a strategy guide, check out GameFaqs.com, or simply restart the game with an adjustment in mind to get past the offending obstacle. The key is learning from your mistakes and having the ability to move on and continue playing.
A Love of Dull and Repetitive Tasks
In order for a gamer to hone their skills, it requires a love of the mundane. I didn’t get to the point where I could beat “Zelda 2″ in 1 life without about a million tries where I could not. This guy did not beat Mario 3 in 10 minutes the first time he picked up the controller. He’s not Jimmy Woods. And my college roommate didn’t achieve the world’s fastest Super Metroid run-through (at the time) without hours and hours of screen time. I’m saying 2 things here: 1) We obviously didn’t get laid much and 2) and to be successful we had to do the same things over and over again for hours and hours until we achieved perfection. And we loved every second of it. The same holds true for trading. It is often very repetitive. You see the same set-ups and day after day and while some days play out differently from others, every day is very similar to a day you’ve seen a 100 times before. And the same goes for every trade. This does not mean you can stop learning, however, because there are always way to improve. Ways to shave a few seconds off of that game run or ways squeeze a few more pennies out of a trade. You must stay alert to the opportunities that come along and not become complacent.
Conclusion: Gamers and Day Traders Are Very Similar
And if you still have doubts about the similarities between trading and gaming, behold the following pair of videos. They are strikingly similar.
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