One trader who had the right mindset was W D Gann and he built a $50 million dollar fortune.

What actually do we mean by the right mindset? Well lets consider a startling fact first:

Fact: 90% of traders lose because they cannot control their emotions. Getting the right mindset is essential and will help you make big profits

What is more amazing is this statistic has remained constant since trading records were kept and this is despite the fact the massive advance in communications and forecasting methods.

The reason for this is that most traders can learn a method but they cannot adopt the right mindset to apply it properly.

In trading, the two emotions that are constantly causing traders to fail are hope and fear as Gann points out.

Hope and fear: I have written about this often in my books and I feel I cannot repeat it too often. The average person buys commodities because they hope they will go up, or because someone advises them, they will go up. This is the most dangerous thing to do, never trade on hope. Hope wrecks more peoples lives than anything else. Face the facts, and when you trade, trade on the facts, eliminating hope

Fear causes many losses. People sell out because they fear commodities are going lower, but they often wait until the decline has run its course and sell near the bottom - never make a trade on fear

How to trade for big profits

Gann realized that to make money you need not just a good system, but the right mindset for success. He developed a technical trading plan that he had total confidence in and was able to apply for profit. Most traders dont do this

They try to follow systems they dont understand or gurus who they think can give them trading success.

Of course, when the method they have picked starts losing they dont have enough confidence to follow the method with discipline and they fail.

In fact, if you dont have discipline you dont have a trading method.

So how to you get mental discipline?

It all stems from confidence in your method when it starts to have losses you need to stick with it and make sure that you dont lose discipline.

This is one thing Gann knew and he applied a technical trading system with rigid discipline for huge financial gains.

Many people when they discuss Gann simply talk about his innovative methods. His writings on trading psychology and mindset dont get the recognition they perhaps deserve, but they were an essential part of his success.

As Gann summed up:

Emotion is part of human nature. We cannot avoid it. All we can do is to:

Act in a way to overcome the weak points that have caused the ruin of others

If you can control your emotions, which most traders cant you can gain an edge in your quest for trading success. Adopt the right mindset and get set for big profit potential.

There have been some excellent writers on trading psychology since Gann died and they include:

Jake Bernstein, Larry Williams, Dr Van Tharpe, Jack Shwager and Alexander Elder to name a few, but there is still no better starting place than the works of Gann.