Jack has heard about trading and thinks that it offers the opportunity to get rich quick, but he has no real understanding of how it works.

He has put £200 in his account and has almost blown it through over-leveraging (he doesn’t properly understand the concept) and running losses.

He almost blew his account in one trade due to not putting a stop loss in place. He won’t last much longer.

Jack has heard about trading and thinks that it offers the opportunity to get rich quick, but he has no real understanding of how it works.

He has put £200 in his account and has almost blown it through over-leveraging (he doesn’t properly understand the concept) and running losses. He almost blew his account in one trade due to not putting a stop loss in place. He won’t last much longer.

John is interested in trading as he sees it as a way of making money quickly. He is reasonably knowledgeable but lacks ‘probabilistic thinking’, meaning that he puts too much emphasis on individual trades, leading to cutting gains and running losses.

He has been stuck in this pattern since early on. He has an unrealistically positive view of his ability because he tends to focus on his wins more than his losses, which he often puts down to bad luck.

Has had a couple of occasions when he feels he has been ripped off by previous broker and moved as a result

Like all Aspiring traders, John has become stuck in a pattern of trading that causes him to consistently lose money.

While he only carries out superficial analysis and relies to a large extent on instinct, others in this segment will be more systematic.

However, like John most of them will lack discipline and so still end up losing money.

Peter has recently retired. He enjoys trading and is keen to learn, experimenting until he finds a winning analysis system. He is very chart focussed but also consumes financial media.

While he learns he is putting on small stakes. He is trading at highly volatile times of day which is risky for a beginner, but gives learning opportunities.

Peter mostly trades off charts which is common within this segment. However, there are also Diligent traders who will be more news focussed.

A key characteristic of a developing Diligent trader is that they will try different strategies and approaches, learning and refining them.

Rodney works full time and has a busy family life. He manages to find an hour per evening for trading.

He is trading outside UK and Europe market hours, so focusses on live trading forex pairs and places conditional buy/sell orders on indices which are executed the next day provided the criteria are met.

Established Diligent traders have found a way of trading that works for them. Others in this segment may have very different systems to Rodney.

However, like Rodney, they will stick to them in a disciplined manner and learn from their mistakes.

Paul has vast experience and knowledge of trading. He treats his trading like a profession and is extremely disciplined about when and how he trades.

Has established a system based on a single index and has gained an implicit knowledge of its behaviour patterns enabling him to use instinct effectively from time to time.

Different Experts have different strategies and trade different products. Although Paul only trades the FTSE index, others may trade a wide range of products and use different analysis techniques to him.

His discipline and risk management is something common across the segment.

Cynthia is disappointed at the rate of return that she has been getting on her savings and investments. She is looking at options for getting a better return, one of which is trading.

She is under no illusion about how difficult and time consuming it is making her cautious about getting involved. Nevertheless she is open to exploring it further.

Like many investors who don’t trade Cynthia is wary of the difficulties associated with it and the time required to do it well.

She is more cautious and rational and unlike some other investors, indifferent to the excitement and image that go with trading.

A very small percentage of retail traders are women. She may access different media channels and respond to different messages to her male counterparts in this segment.