Tharp reminds us that it is Trader Psychology that accounts for 60% of trading success compared with 30% importance for Money Management and 10% for Trading System Development.

Following on from Trading Idols: Nicolas Darvas, my next trading idol is legendary trader Jesse Livermore. Although Livermore published his own book ‘How To Trade In Stocks’ which contains many of his pearls of trading wisdom.

We all have our trading idols. One of my trading idols happens to be Nicolas Darvas, the ballroom dancer turned stock trader whom I first became aware of some years ago…

When trading, do you live in fear of missing the boat? How many times have you kicked yourself that you should have bought into the stock or other financial instrument that has just skyrocketed?

Are you in the spread betting business? I’m referring towhether you approach spread betting as you would approach a traditional business, rather than treating it as a mere hobby.

When spread betting company WorldSpreads collapsed, it had a knock-on effect on some of its “white label” and partner spread betting brands, including potentially Ladbrokes. Indeed, if I view my overall Ladbrokes account now – which also encompases other forms of gaming – I see that the balance in my Financial Spread Betting wallet is… Unavailable.

It was a toss up between titling this article ‘Who wants to be average anyway?’ and titling it ‘Can you beat the market?’ Either way, it amounts to the same thing.

Most of the spread betting companies allow you to trade most of the big-name equities, but not all spread betting companies provide equal access to the lesser known stocks.

Do you ‘day trade’ for short-term profits, or do you take a longer-term view of building a spread bet portfolio? I do a bit of both, in an attempt to become ‘income statement rich’ and ‘balance sheet rich’.