Surrender to the Process: Why the Best ASX Momentum Traders Stop Fighting Their Own System
Updated: Oct 10
Written by Christopher Hall, AdvDipFP | Authorised Representative, AFSL 526688 | Updated October 2026
Analysis sourced from Gary Glover (AR 259215), Authorised Representative, Novus Capital Limited (AFSL 238 168)
Gary Glover has spent two decades trading momentum stocks on the ASX, and one of the clearest lessons he has drawn from studying history's best momentum traders is not a chart pattern at all. It is a discipline: build a trading system, test it, and then stop fighting it once it is running.
What Does "Surrender to the Process" Actually Mean?
In a session reviewing the weekly 30/30 List, Gary Glover described a shift he had noticed among traders connected to Mark Minervini's private trading circle. Discussing a conversation between two fellow traders — named only as "Brandon" and "Richie" in the session — he recounted a shared conclusion: performance improved only once each trader stopped second-guessing a system they had already built and tested.
Gary's own framing of it: "at some point you have to sort of surrender yourself over to the system... you do tend to fight a new system there and then override it, rather than just play strictly to it." His point is not that a system should never change — deliberate revision between trading periods, based on evidence, is different to abandoning a rule mid-trade out of doubt.
How Nicolas Darvas's Volume Filter Shows the Same Discipline
Gary linked the same discipline to a much older example: Nicolas Darvas, the mid-20th-century trader famous for buying stocks breaking out to new 52-week highs. In Gary's account, Darvas was touring internationally as a professional dancer during his most famous trading run, working from delayed prices rather than a live feed.
Gary's point, drawn from Darvas's own writing, is less widely known than the breakout rule itself: Darvas was also filtering for volume. "All his breakouts that he bought, he was looking for increase in trading activities... and some conviction with that movement... those were his biggest winners when there was volume in it."
The detail Gary highlighted is the discipline underneath the filter, not the filter alone. In Gary's account, when Darvas later spent six weeks in New York — close to the market and free to intervene — that stretch was the worst trading of his career. A job that forced him to follow his own rules produced better results than proximity to the market did.
Why Overriding the System Costs More Than It Saves
Gary's own account of the cost of an override, even against a system that is working, points to Kristjan Qullamaggie's experience with his own moving-average exit rule: "every time that he overrides his system [because he] thinks that it's so far extended and he sells, it goes up like another 20 to 40 percent." The system was not wrong — the override was.
Gary frames the payoff of staying with the process in three parts: "good risk management... mathematics... and letting the profits run. That's the holy grail right there." None of the three is complicated in isolation. What Gary's account suggests is that the discipline to apply all three consistently — not only when a trade is going well — is what turns a system into a repeatable process rather than an occasional habit.
What Does This Look Like in Practice on the ASX?
Applied to ASX momentum trading, the discipline plays out at both ends of a trade. On the way in, it means treating a setup that misses the rules as a pass, even when it "feels" like a winner — a point covered in more detail in why the best momentum traders master one setup, rather than trading several patterns loosely. On the way out, it means not cutting a position early out of anxiety about giving back an unrealised gain, and not adding to a position out of frustration that it has not moved yet.
Gary's own account of what happens when the market offers nothing worth trading — sitting out rather than trading a marginal setup — is covered in more depth in Gary Glover's 12–14 week concentration observation, where the same discipline shows up as the reason a small number of weeks each year produce most of a trader's annual return.
Remember that past performance is no guarantee of future results, and all trading involves risk.
Update — 9 October 2026: Why Even Top Traders Lose on Most Trades
During a recorded Finer Market Points session on 9 October 2026, Gary Glover returned to the ego side of this discipline. His anecdotal observation is that the assumption "my view is right all the time" cannot hold for any trader, because, as he put it, "the best traders on the planet only have win rates between 30 and 40%. Some of them actually have lower than that." No source was stated for that range.
Read the other way, a 30–40% win rate is a loss rate of 60–70% — arithmetic from the range Gary gave, not a separate figure. FMP's progressive-exposure interview showed what a trader who loses on roughly 7 in 10 trades looks like in practice: Richard Redpath reported a win rate of about 28% at the 10 June 2026 session (about 34% in stronger markets), and Gary noted that range is consistent with what top swing traders globally report. The mathematics only work, in Gary's framing, when the winners are large relative to the losers and the losers are cut quickly.
For Gary, that is why the answer is process rather than prediction: "They have a really good risk-reward ratio. They can even go lower than that and still make a lot of money... you've got to leave your ego at the door and just have a good process there. That's the key."
Gary Glover's observation is anecdotal, general commentary from a recorded FMP session and is not a formal study, financial advice or a recommendation to trade any security.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does "surrender to the process" mean in trading?
It refers to the discipline of following a pre-defined trading system consistently, rather than overriding it in the moment based on emotion or doubt. Gary Glover has described the shift he observed among traders in Mark Minervini's circle: performance improved once they stopped second-guessing systems they had already built and tested, applying the rules the same way on every trade rather than selectively.
Who was Nicolas Darvas, and why does his approach still matter?
Nicolas Darvas was a mid-20th-century trader known for buying stocks breaking out to new 52-week highs while working from delayed prices during an international dance tour. Gary Glover has highlighted a less-known detail of his method: Darvas also filtered for a genuine increase in trading volume and conviction behind a breakout, not the price level alone, and applied that filter with the same strict discipline regardless of circumstances.
Why do momentum traders lose money by overriding their own system?
Overriding a system substitutes a single moment's emotion for a rule tested across many trades. Gary Glover has pointed to Kristjan Qullamaggie's own account of exiting a position early because it looked extended, only for the stock to continue another 20 to 40 percent higher — the system correctly held the position; the override cut it short.
How can a trader build the discipline to follow a system consistently?
Gary Glover frames the underlying discipline as three combined elements: sound risk management, an understanding of a system's mathematics — the win-loss profile it produces over time — and a willingness to let a winning position run rather than exiting early. Applying all three consistently, not only when a trade is going well, is what turns a system into a repeatable process rather than an occasional habit.
Sources
# | Source | Type |
1 | Gary Glover, Finer Market Points 30/30 List session, 28 March 2025 | Practitioner session (anecdotal) |
2 | Nicolas Darvas, How I Made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market (1960) | Historical practitioner text |
3 | Finer Market Points educational resource | |
4 | Finer Market Points educational resource |
Gary Glover's observations in this article are anecdotal, drawn from his own trading practice, and are not a formal study. The Darvas and Qullamaggie references are attributed to their own published accounts and Gary's recollection of them respectively, and are not independently audited figures.
Related Finer Market Points Educational Resources
This article includes a general trading observation made by Gary Glover (AR 259215), Authorised Representative of Novus Capital Limited (AFSL 238 168), during a recorded Finer Market Points session on 28 March 2025. The observation reflects Gary Glover's general approach and his anecdotal observations developed across his trading career — it is general commentary only, and is not a formal study, not financial advice, and not a recommendation to trade any security. It was made in the course of that session and not in response to any individual's circumstances. Content has been edited and summarised by Finer Market Points for educational purposes.
This content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
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