Market Learning For The Older Trader

Sometime ago, Sebi put out the data about successful traders in the market and it carried an abysmal figure of just some 7% winners.

 

One of the elements of the various details provided in that report was also the fact that a large majority of older traders (60 and beyond) were losers compared younger traders. Why should this be so?

 

Ideally, older traders, logically, would be the more experienced players. They would also be the more mature players, largely bereft of the impetuosity or impatience of the young.

 

While grey hair is certainly an advantage in normal life for those very qualities, these often prove to be hindrances in the market. Many times, the age and wisdom for which older people are respected are or become too set in their ways and find flexibility a difficult trait to learn anew.  The more successful or well placed they are in the Society, greater is the vanity and higher the self-importance  image they give themselves.

 

Compared to the older players, the youngsters may be impatient and rash but they have not yet reached a stage where they create these kinds of self-important images about themselves. Neither have they achieved any great degree of success that Society at large should give them some form of pedestal to stand on (like it does with Doctors, Lawyers and other professionals etc.). So, vanity is not one of their problems and the only vanity they perhaps carry is related to their personality and looks and dressing etc.

 

Market is a place for Action at all points of time. Market is also a place of high dynamism, leading to changes frequently. Hence any player, no matter their age, needs to be continuously conscious of the changes that is occurring in the markets. This requires for all to develop an ability to be on continuous learning mode.

 

Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one’s self-esteem. That is why the young, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all.

 

And that is the reason why Sebi data is the way it is. It proves starkly the point that the failure to keep up with the learning process (because the older players think they “know”) is the reason behind their lack of success.

 

While everyone in the market needs to learn how to deal with it, the elder players must make it a practice to shed their vanity and get into the learning mode. Profits may come visiting then!