[Episode 1] This is what a "Day of Doing Nothing" looks like
Why do top traders have
“days when they do nothing”...
To be honest, my old self didn’t understand the meaning of this at all.
“If you want to make money from trading, the more entries the better”
“There are always opportunities”
“If you watch, you’ll win somewhere”
That’s what I used to think.
Rather, when I saw traders who did nothing on certain days,
I even felt, “Isn’t this opportunity loss?”
But at a certain point I clearly realized.
It’s not “a person who has days of doing nothing,” but
a person who can choose days of doing nothing
who keeps winningas a fact.
The sense of losing despite the same setup
When you trade, you will experience this at least once.
You enter thinking “this is a winning setup,” but you lose
When you go back later, the setup itself isn’t wrong
Rather—
the same patterns as those that have won many times before.
Yet you lose
This misalignment has always felt strange to me.
A single, decisive realization
One day I thoroughly reviewed a losing trade.
What I did then was not only look at the chart I usually watch
but also check the movements of other markets at the same time.
Then there was a clear finding.
The moment I entered,
there was a mismatch with the overall market flow
What happened as a result?
I was being dragged by something
“to lose”
It was then I understood for the first time.
One decisive insight: charts aren’t complete in one sheet
Until then, I thought
“Chart = just look at that instrument”
But reality is different.
The market does not move in isolation but is always interconnected.
This linkage, that is,
“strength and correlation”
If you ignore this,
no matter how perfect your entry is
it can easily be overturned.
Why top traders don’t do certain things
Back to the initial question.
Why do excellent traders have “days when they do nothing”?
The answer is simple.
Because they don’t engage on days they can’t win
To be more precise,
they don’t act on days when correlation isn’t aligned
.
Winning days vs. days not to trade
There are only two types of trading days.
- Days you should trade
- Days you should not trade
Yet many people think
“I should trade every day”
So in the end, you lose.
Not trading on days is not “逃げる (escape)”
My old self thought
“Not trading = running away”
But now it’s the opposite.
Not doing anything = the most advanced judgment
Because,
- you prevent unnecessary entries
- you don’t exhaust your mental state
- you protect your capital
In other words,
you are “avoiding losses.”
The limits of tool-dependence
Now for an important discussion.
Many people think,
“Good tools will make me win.”
Indeed, that is half correct.
Tools can
- improve entry precision
- visualize timing
This is definitely effective.
But—
tools don’t tell you about market misalignment.
Why you still can’t win with tools alone
No matter how excellent the tool is,
- the market environment changes
- volatility changes
- correlations break
In that moment, it stops working.
What happens as a result?
Winning suddenly turns into a losing streak.
This isn’t a problem with the tools.
It’s just that you lack the right perspective.
Correlation is not about winning, but not losing
This is the most important part.
The purpose of understanding correlation is
not to increase win rate.
to eliminate situations where you lose.
.
Actual changes that occurred
Since I started being mindful of correlations,
the biggest change is this.
“unnecessary trades disappeared”
- the moments to enter become clear
- you can make the decision not to enter
- as a result, the losing streak lessens
And I realize.
It’s not that you are winning, you are not losing.
Something that will never change?
Advantageous logic changes.
Advantageous methods also change.
And the market changes as well.
But,
“strength and correlation” do not change.
Because,
this is the very structure of the market.
If you are now
- repeating the same losses
- winning the setup but losing anyway
- the losing streak won’t stop
then please consider this once.
“Are you really judging with only that chart?”
For exceptional traders, days when they do nothing are not a coincidence.
“There is a clear reason for not doing it.”
And many of those reasons are
that strength and correlation are not aligned
.
If you’ve read this far,
and you understand, then move to the next level.
- can you explain why a single chart is insufficient?
- can you imagine the misalignment of correlation?
- can you accept the importance of the decision not to act?
Only those who have internalized these three can proceed further.
In other words, if you don’t understand this, no matter what tools you use, your results won’t change.
To be continued in [Chapter 2].
Trading isn’t about “where to enter,” but
“where not to enter.”
This is where everything is decided.