ETMarkets Smart Talk | From stop-loss discipline to mental strength: Vishal Malkan’s 30-year market playbook

After three decades in the markets, Vishal Malkan believes that survival — not prediction — is the ultimate edge for traders.

From mastering stop-loss discipline to building mental resilience, the Co-Founder of Malkansview says long-term success hinges more on psychology than strategy.

In a conversation with Kshitij Anand of ETMarkets on the sidelines of IOC 7.0 in Surat, Malkan shared lessons from his 30-year journey — beginning as a teenage market enthusiast in the 1990s to mentoring over four lakh students today.

He spoke about the importance of risk management in volatile times, adapting to tighter regulations, and why keeping capital intact is the first rule of the game.

Blending technical expertise with mindset training, Malkan outlined what he calls a trader’s real playbook: discipline, adaptability, patience, and unwavering focus. Edited Excerpts -

Kshitij Anand: First of all, congratulations to you. You have been the guiding light for many students — four-and-a-half lakh and counting. How do you see this journey from when you trained your first student to now, when you are training the new lot, especially Gen Z?

Vishal Malkan: I think it has been a long journey. We officially started in 2007–2008. In fact, during this journey, I learned a lot while teaching so many students. Initially, I thought I would not be able to teach this person or that person or a particular category of people. But then I found that the common factor between successful and unsuccessful students is commitment — those who truly want to do something about it succeed. It does not matter what their background is. We have trained engineers, doctors, chartered accountants, and lawyers, but also security guards, Uber drivers, farmers, and homemakers. All of them have been part of our journey.

Kshitij Anand: Very nice. It is very interesting to see the hunger for knowledge across every stratum of society. Technical analysis is not something that is very easy, but I am sure you make it easy for everyone to understand.

Vishal Malkan: Yes, that is our main goal. It is my endeavour to make things so simple that even a 10-, 12-, or 15-year-old can understand the market. I always try to use that kind of language. My coach, when I was training to become a trainer, told me that I should always imagine a 10-year-old sitting in front of me and teach in that language. That has been my endeavour, and that is how we have been able to cater to so many people.

Kshitij Anand: If we look at the current circumstances, regulations are also getting tighter. Without getting too specific, we are in an environment where the breathing room we had five years ago is now contracting. Are you also making traders and investors more agile so they can tweak their strategies to suit current needs?

Vishal Malkan: I believe all regulations are eventually good. When seatbelt rules were introduced, we found them inconvenient, but they eventually became the norm. New rules and new developments keep emerging in markets, just as in life, and we should be adaptive. There is a quote that is often misquoted — “survival of the fittest.” In fact, it is “survival of the most adaptive.”

So, we adapt to new norms and regulations because that is essential to becoming a successful trader or investor. Trends keep changing, and the most important trait of a successful trader or investor is adaptability. I do not think there is any special or new requirement to adapt. The standard remains the same: if you want to become a professional trader or investor, you need a fixed approach. There are 10,000 ways to make money in the stock market. You choose one and stick to it for a long period until you master it.

Kshitij Anand: Let me get your perspective on the risk management aspect because we are seeing a lot of geopolitical concerns impacting the market. Most of these factors are external and not internal to our environment, yet they are affecting our markets.

Vishal Malkan: Risk management is very simple for us. As a technical trader, I follow stop losses. One of my favourite incidents, which I narrate in almost every podcast and interview, dates back to when I was 16 and joined the stock market in 1996.

There was an elderly gentleman standing with a group of around 20 people. He was considered the expert. He noticed my enthusiasm for learning and called me aside one day. He asked me what I was trying to do. I said I was trying to learn. He then asked, “Do you think people make money here?” I said, “I hope so.” He replied, “No. I have been here for 15–20 years and have given this advice to everyone. Nobody follows it. But I am giving it to you because you are new in the market. If you follow it, you will become a long-distance runner.”

I asked him what the advice was. His golden advice was that the only thing that will help you survive in the market is learning how to book a loss. If you learn to book a loss, you will survive. And if you survive, you will eventually make money. He also gave me a line in Gujarati, which I say in English as: either you cut the finger or you cut the hand — if you do not cut the finger in time, you may have to cut the hand.

Over 30 years of trading experience, I have understood that in the market, there are only two things I can control: my entry and my stop loss. Everything else is beyond my control — what FIIs do, what DIIs do, what news channels say, geopolitical events, budgets, elections, mutual funds, or even price targets. The only thing in my control is that if I buy at 100, I place a stop loss at 95. These are the only two variables I can manage, and I should focus only on them. That is how I survive.

I also give the example of cricket. The most important thing in cricket, if you want to score runs, is to keep your wickets intact. Similarly, if you want to make money in the market, you must keep your capital intact — that is your wicket. This game is not about winning a single match. A one-day match, a five-day match, or a T20 ends, and you move to the next one. But the market never ends. So the goal here is not just winning; it is survival.

If you survive in the market for five years without losing much of your capital, you have already won. In those five years, you will have seen uptrends, downtrends, gap-ups, gap-downs, elections, budgets, tariffs, crises, wars — everything. Only then can you truly analyse markets. If you have seen only one year of a bull market, you have not experienced the worst phases, and that is when difficulties arise.

So I would advise anyone listening, watching, or reading this to spend three to five years in the market, trading slowly and steadily with smaller positions so that you do not lose all your wickets while still learning the game.

Kshitij Anand: You are also very focused on mental health, which I am personally very invested in as well. How does that shape a trader?

Vishal Malkan: We have been students of Tony Robbins, one of the greatest coaches, and his favourite quote is that success in anything is 80% psychology and 20% strategy. I completely believe this, and it is true for the stock market as well.

What I teach in the stock market involves technical tools and techniques, which I share extensively — including in over 1,400 videos on YouTube. However, success comes only when you work on your mindset. That is why we have integrated principles from Art of Living and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey into our programs. We aim to provide a holistic approach — building the mind, body, and soul alongside financial growth.

This is not an additional feature; it is a requirement. Unless you are mentally strong, you cannot survive in the market. Recently, there has been a popular dialogue in the film Dhurandhar which says that in our business, two things are most important — patience and focus. In the stock market, you need both. Opportunities will come, but you must have the patience to wait and the focus to act when the time is right.

That, in essence, is what mindset in trading is all about.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views, and opinions given by experts are their own. These do not represent the views of the Economic Times)