Last summer, I got the incredible privilege of traveling to Germany to officiate the wedding of two of my favorite people.
It was a dream come true in many ways, not least because Germany had been the #1 destination on my world travel list for my entire life.
My heritage is largely German, my dad was stationed in Germany during the Vietnam War, and they’d always had a large poster of Neuschwanstein hanging over their bed for as long as I can remember.
So finally getting to go to Germany, especially for such a noble and exciting reason, was beyond belief.
You know how they say “never meet your heroes?”
Well, the same certainly isn’t true for travel, at least not for me. Because every single aspect of going to Germany was perfect.
It’s one of the best memories in my life.
Except for one teeny, tiny, almost insignificant little thing that made every day just a little bit less pleasant.
They didn’t have air conditioning…
Other than in our actual hotel room, there wasn’t air conditioning anywhere in the city. And who wants to sit in the hotel room to cool off when you’ve got an entire new country to explore?
Now, the German friends I had and the new ones I made when I came there all said the same thing: “well, why do you need air conditioning? It doesn’t normally get this hot!”
With respect to my German friends, that kind of thinking has never made sense to me.
Traders do the same thing all the time:
“Why do I need to learn spreads? Calls and puts normally do just fine!”
“Why should I learn to protect my accounts? Big corrections aren’t normal…”
“Why do I need to learn how to trade in bear markets? They’re not normal!”
Well, some of that might be true… and it might be true that German restaurants don’t “normally” need air conditioning.
But 100% of the days I’ve personally spent in Germany would have been improved by the presence of air conditioning.
And 100% of the time the market does enter a big correction, or a bear market, you’ll be better off if you know how to trade them.
Now, the air conditioning thing is a bit silly, because being a little uncomfortable in a hotel lobby is hardly the end of the world.
But when the markets reverse and traders have no idea what to do, it becomes very serious very quickly.
So, if there’s one lesson I want traders to take away from this most recent 10% correction, it’s this:
If you were prepared and knew how to protect your accounts, great. Congratulations. Keep doing that!
But if you weren’t, and didn’t know how or when to get out, and got hurt big time by the big move lower, here’s the thing:
Don’t beat yourself up. At all. It’s not your fault.
But also: don’t let it happen again!
Come to our workshops, ask our traders how to prepare for corrections before they happen.
I believe Chris Pulver is doing something this weekend that you’ll absolutely not want to miss, so join him on Telegram to make sure you don’t miss that.
Because the markets are a “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” situation.
Let this correction be a learning opportunity, so that when the next one comes, you’ll know exactly what to do.
To your prosperity,
Stephen Ground
Editor-in-Chief, ProsperityPub
P.S.: One good way to avoid corrections is to shorten your trade window and focus short-term. And Nate Tucci is showing you how to do that right here
