Kosta Ouzas explains that the main vulnerability in trading systems is human emotion — fear and doubt lead traders to override automated rules, often causing worse outcomes. He contrasts disciplined, hands-off users of trading bots who outperform those who obsessively intervene, using anecdotes (e.g., unplugging bots mid-drawdown) and analogies (self-driving car) to illustrate the point.
Every trader eventually learns the hard way. And the weakest link in any system isn't the system itself, it's actually the person that's touching it. Because fear makes you override your own rules. Doubt makes you unplug something that's already working. I've seen it happen with our own clients. The ones that just leave it, go about their day and live their lives and they come back in a few weeks or a few months to check it. They always outperform the ones that are staring at the charts all day. It's like they just want something to happen. It's not going to do more because you're looking at it. You know, I've seen clients unplug their bots mid drawdown, only to check back later and realize it would have just simply recovered on its own. It's kind of like having a self driving car. You know, you order one, you get into one, I want to have this self driving car. But what you keep doing is you keep dragging the wheel every time you get nervous, and that's usually when you end up in a ditch. Because the algorithm never gets scared. It's only humans that actually do.
