Archives of “January 4, 2019” day
rssGoal-Setting, Discipline, and the Emotions of Traders
Discipline problems typically begin with experiences of frustration.
Frustration is a function of not meeting goals and expectations.
Many times, traders try to adopt psychological strategies for combating frustration. These can be helpful, but they don’t get at the root of the frustration problem.
If we do not set challenging, but feasible goals, we cannot experience ourselves as effective, successful people. Goals that are perfectionistic cannot be met and thus generate frustration.
The failure to set goals robs us of opportunities for cultivating a sense of purpose and well-being.
Goal-setting is not just essential to mastering markets; it’s essential as a tool of psychological management. We shape our experience of ourselves by controlling what we pursue and how we evaluate the pursuit.
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“The Stock Market is Rigged!”
Once upon a time in the late 1700′s, there were two types of sonofabitches trading the earliest version of securities in Lower Manhattan: There were the auctioneer sonofabitches and there were the merchant sonofabitches.
The auctioneers were all-powerful and totally destructive at times. They presided over trade, which took place outside under a Buttonwood Tree on Wall Street. What the auctioneers did that was most maddening to the rest of the participants in these protozoic markets was charge exorbitant commissions and allow for securities to trade in a lawless fashion, without regard for fairness of any kind.
Meanwhile, the cutthroat speculators were growing to be quite fed up with this arrangement so they did what all would-be conspirators do – they met in secret to plot an overthrow. In March of 1792, twenty four of these merchant sonofabitches snuck into the Corre’s Hotel, which occupied what is now 68 Wall Street (which has since been absorbed into 40 Wall Street, aka the Trump Building), for their clandestine sitdown.
Two months later, they hatched their scheme, signing a document called the Buttonwood Agreement (at left), named for the tree they’d been wheeling and dealing under each day. The accord meant that all twenty four signers were bound to trade securities only amongst each other, to deny entry into their clique to outsiders who’d not been accepted by the membership and to fix commissions on trades at a set amount (.25% of face value for all shares of stock or similar instrument). This banding together made these twenty four large-scale merchant sonofabitches into the de facto monopoly that controlled all trade and it sent the other sonofabitches, the auctioneers, out of business. (more…)
"Adam Smith" on the end of a bull market.
Google was the 21st search engine to enter the market in 1998. Know your competition, but don’t copy it.
Our Trading Stratgey -Simplicity is key
5 Trading Lessons-Must Read
- Most of the time, markets are very close to efficient (in the academic sense of the word.) This means that most of the time, price movement is random and we have no reason, from a technical perspective, to be involved in those markets.
- There are, however, repeatable patterns in prices. This is the good news; it means we can make money using technical tools to trade.
- The biases and statistical edges provided by these patterns are very, very small. This is the bad news; it means that it is exceedingly difficult to make money trading. We must be able to identify those points where markets are something a little “less than random” and where there might be a statistical edge present, and then put on trades in very competitive markets.
- Technical trading is nothing more than a statistical game. The parallels to gambling and other games of chance are very, very close. A technical trader simply identifies the patterns where an edge might be present, takes the correct position at the correct time, and manages the risk in the trade. This is, of course, a very simplified summary of the trading process, but it is useful to see things from this perspective. This is the essence of trading: find the pattern, put on the trade, manage the risk, and take profits.
- Because all we are doing is playing the small edges as they occur in the markets, it is important to be utterly consistent in every aspect of our trading. Many markets have gotten harder (i.e. more efficient, more of the time) over the past decade and things that once worked no longer work. Iron discipline is a key component of successful trading. If you are not disciplined every time, every moment of your interaction with the market, do not say you are disciplined.
Trading Plan & Discipline
Just remember, without discipline, a clear strategy, and a concise plan, the speculator will fall into all the emotional pitfalls of the market and jump from one stock to another, hold a losing position too long, cut out of a winner too soon and for no reason other than fear of losing the profit.
Greed, Fear, Impatience, Ignorance, and Hope will all fight for mental dominance over the speculator. Then, after a few failures and catastrophes the speculator may become demoralized, depressed, despondent, and abandon the market and the chance to make a fortune from what the market has to offer.
Losing and Winning Traders
Losing traders spend a great deal of time forecasting where the market will be tomorrow. Winning traders spend most of their time thinking about how traders will react to what the market is doing now, and they plan their strategy accordingly.
CONCLUSION:
Success of a trade is much more likely to occur if a trader can predict what type of crowd reaction a particular market event will incur. Being able to respond to irrational buying or selling with a rational and well thought out plan of attack will always increase your probability of success. It can also be concluded that being a successful trader is easier than being a successful analyst since analysts must in effect forecast ultimate outcome and project ultimate profit. If one were to ask a successful trader where he thought a particular market was going to be tomorrow, the most likely response would be a shrug of the shoulders and a simple comment that he would follow the market wherever it wanted to go. By the time we have reached the end of our observations and conclusions, what may have seemed like a rather inane response may be reconsidered as a very prescient view of the market.
Trading Psychology Quotes
Anyone who claims to be intrigued by the “intellectual challenge of the markets” is not a trader. The markets are as intellectually challenging as a fistfight. Ultimately, trading is an exercise in self-mastery and endurance.
The key to trading success is emotional discipline. If intelligence were the key, there would be a lot more people making money trading.
Just remember, without discipline, a clear strategy, and a concise plan, the speculator will fall into all the emotional pitfalls of the market – jump from one stock to another, hold a losing position too long, and cut out of a winner too soon, for no reason other than fear of losing profit. Greed, Fear, Impatience, Ignorance, and Hope will all fight for mental dominance over the speculator. Then, after a few failures and catastrophes the speculator may become demoralised, depressed, despondent, and abandon the market and the chance to make a fortune from what the market has to offer. (more…)