Psychology of Trading

Psychological factors influence the process of trading. Unless you are psychologically fit you
can not succeed in the art of trading.It is said that three factors are involved in this game, i.e
hope, greed and fear. One has to control these emotions to master the trading game.Having a
strategy is definitely an advantage.But in manual trading psychology plays a pivotal role.
Especially in the square off decisions and whether to trade or not are governed by
psychological factors. The ideal scenario would be to have no emotions at all. A human
trading like a robo. But that is not possible in actual practice. Ultimately one has to deal with
the emotions at the game of trading whether one like it or not.
So the first and final question is -how to succeed in the art of trading. Is there anyone who
makes profits consistently? Is it really possible to be successful in trading on long term
basis?In the Forex trading the statistics say that a majority of retail traders lose money. i.e
more than 80% of them. Why is that so? Why are the odds are against the individual trader?
Besides the strategy and emotions there are other operating conditions one has to maintain.
One such important parameter is money management. What is money management? Why is
it important? Pay attention to how much you are pledging in a single trade? what percent of
your total account balance you are using as margin in a single trade? The wise people say that
it should be less than 5 % of your total balance. The idea is that you should not get affected
by 3-5 successive losses. And here I am assuming that you are placing stop loss and take
profit targets prudently.