Adrian Reid argues traders should focus on portfolio-level outcomes and a portfolio of trading systems rather than obsessing over individual trades. He stresses that systems reduce the emotional impact of single losses, and that holding a diversified set (e.g., 10–15 systems) makes decisions (like turning off a broken system) less emotionally charged and less consequential to overall performance.
Most people are obsessed about making money on this trade. What stock should I buy so I can make money, so I don't go broke, so I don't go out the back door, so I don't have to tell my partner I lost money so I can feel like a good trader? That's what most people are doing. That's a disaster. We know better. We've got a system. The trades don't matter that much because I'm following a system. The system hasn't managed as a portfolio and so on. But we also know better than that because we have a portfolio, portfolio of systems that we allocate capital to, and each system doesn't matter all that much. If each system doesn't matter all that much, does it matter what the market conditions are when you're introducing said system?
Not that much. If you've got 10 systems or 15 systems and one of them looks like it's broken, you want to turn it off, does it matter that much? Just turn it off. The aspiration is that when you've got a portfolio that's more diversified, these decisions become emotionally easier because it doesn't have as big an impact.
