I still remember the first time I traded futures, I only had 8,000 yuan, and I was so reckless that I opened 100x leverage. Guess what happened? The market moved slightly, and in less than fifteen minutes, half of my position was gone. I was sitting in front of my computer, heart pounding like a drum, red numbers flashing all over the screen, and I was completely stunned.

That was when I truly understood what a liquidation means. It’s not some unexpected event; it’s the market’s “welcome ceremony” for newbies—seemingly gentle, but actually brutal.

**The Market’s Cure for All Disobedience**

I used to think that all those “discipline” and “risk control” rules were nonsense, until I actually lost money myself and realized why these things are so important. The market is like a machine that never stops, built on the real gold and silver of countless traders. I’ve seen those who make a little profit and then think they’re the chosen ones, only to get liquidated in three or five days. And there are even more ruthless cases—losing so much that they can’t sleep, staring at the screen at 4 or 5 a.m., finally eaten up by their own emotions.

Futures trading is just a tool. Saying it’s a flood or a beast is wrong, and saying it can make you rich quickly is also wrong. The real deciding factor is how you use this tool.

**The Secret of Experts: Waiting Often Is More Valuable Than Trading**

After so many years of playing, I’ve come to a core realization: true experts spend most of their time waiting. Maybe 70% of the time they are out of the market, waiting for that one opportunity that appears in the remaining 30%, then they go all in and make a clean profit.

Many people, they just can’t sit still, always wanting to open positions every moment. For them, being out of the market feels worse than losing money. But where are all those opportunities? If you can catch one or two truly good opportunities in a year, that’s already very good. This principle sounds simple, but actually doing it is really hard.