Making too many trades is one of the most common (and destructive) mistakes traders make.

You might think it would be something more complicated. Something like misinterpreting patterns, setting stops too loosely, or violating trading rules. But it’s not. It’s trading too frequently.

Why is this? I can’t say for sure, but I have a theory…

Most traders hold onto wrong ideas about money because of how they were raised. They think making money must always involve hard work. They have a hard time believing it could be easy.

Unfortunately, this causes a lot of traders to “work hard” when they trade. And hard work almost always means trading too frequently.

Frequent trading wouldn’t be so bad if every trade was perfect. But that’s not that case at all.

Traders who are stuck in their thinking and believe they must work hard to make money trading end up settling for bad trades just so they can feel like they’re putting in enough effort. Instead of exercising patience and waiting for a really good trade, they enter new positions regularly, no matter what!

This “trade-as-often-as-you-can” approach is highly counterproductive. Chances are you’ll suffer big losses.

Here’s a real-life example. Jack R. traded 41 times in Sep 2007. Fortunately, he turned a small profit, even though he was trading at least once and sometimes twice per day.

Then October came and his wife literally forced him to take an extended vacation. So he packed up his Cadillac SUV to drive around the country for a while and do some sight-seeing with his wife.

Naturally, Jack brought his laptop along. He planned to do some trading while he was on the road. But even though he had his laptop, he didn’t have a good Internet connection.

Jack only made 26 trades in October 2007 because of his limited Internet access. The trades he did make were more strategic and better planned.

End result: Jack made more than twice the profits in October than in September. And it was almost half the work.

Here’s the lesson…

Trading doesn’t require you to work hard. Indeed, you might be sacrificing profits if you think of it this way.

So practice being a lazy trader instead.

Be patient and wait for the right moment to enter a trade. Make a handful of really solid trades instead of dozens of mediocre trades.

Never compromise on your trading rules to make yourself feel like a “hard worker.” Just practice patience and wait for the right set-ups. This is the way to wealth, and why you should value laziness as a trader.