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FEAR

  
  Education
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Fear is the main source of superstition, and oneof the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom… Bertrand Russell

Fear is a misunderstood emotion, and one that gets a pretty bad rap these days. We owe our survival as a species to the hard-wired fear that protected and kept us safe from physical threats for hundreds of thousands of years.  But what about the litany of fears that plagues traders every day? Fear of losing, of watching profits disappear, making mistakes, missing out, taking profits too soon…the list goes on.

Perhaps the larger question is this: If there is so much fear and almost every trader feels fear, why do millions of people continue to trade?  The answer lies in the way that fear is perceived. 

For many, fear is a predator that is constantly lurking, sneaking up on them and ready to attack at any moment.  In this brain set, they are always running away from fear, crouching in a corner or looking for a safe place to hide. Fear blinds them to opportunity in much the same way that greed blinds them to danger.

 Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed… Ferdinand Pritchard (more…)

FEAR

  
  Education
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FEAR-Fear is a misunderstood emotion, and one that gets a pretty bad rap these days. We owe our survival as a species to the hard-wired fear that kept us safe from physical threats for hundreds of thousands of years. 
But what about the litanies of fears that plague traders every day? Fear of losing, of watching profits disappear, of making mistakes, of missing out? 
Perhaps the larger question is this: If almost every trader feels fear, why do millions of people continue to trade? The answer lies in the way that fear is perceived.
For many, fear is a predator that’s constantly lurking, sneaking up on them, ready to attack at any moment. In this mindset, they’re always running away from fear, crouching in a corner, or looking for a safe place to hide. Fear blinds them to opportunity. 
For others, fear is the prey. They move steadily and with discipline in the direction of the fear — always keeping it in front of them. As they approach the fear, they see it for what it really is. 
F.E.A.R.: False Evidence Appearing Real. They see fear as something to go through in order to get what they desire — better trades and more profits.  (more…)

MindTraps-Great Book

  
  Education
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I read a great book on trading psychology, called MindTraps by Roland Barach. MindTraps focuses on how the average person tends to think, compared to how we need to think to make money over time in the markets.

 Here’s a summary of points that can benefit you as a trader:

  1. 1.Before entering any trade, you should consider the other side of the trade and state the reasons you’d take the other side of the trade.  This helps you objectively enter a trade with a full understanding of the major risks that involved.
  2. Analyze your behavior from the beginning to the end of the trading process (from idea generation to entry and finally to exit) – what are the areas you can improve to help your trading profitability the most?
  3. Keep a trading journal of your thoughts on open positions and new ideas – writing things down helps you objectively look back and see where you went right and wrong.
  4. Fear blinds us to opportunity; greed blinds us to danger – emotions cause “perceptual distortion” where we only see the part of the picture that our beliefs allow us to see.
  5. We are likely to continue doing things for which we are rewarded -this can cause us to get too bullish after the bulk of the uptrend has occurred, or get too bearish near the lows.
  6. Fear of regret slants stock market behavior toward inaction and conventional thinking –  the person who is afraid of losing is usually defeated by the opponent who concentrates on winning (an analogy for sports fans is the Prevent defense in football – playing “not to lose” only prevents you from winning).
  7. Can’t have a personal agenda to prove your self-worth in the markets –  the focus must be on following your plan to maximize the ability to make money.
  8. Don’t get overly attached to any one view on a stock or market – don’t talk to others about open positions; it just makes it that much harder to exit when your plan says it should.
  9. Our predictions are only as good as the information available to us – objectively look at the indicators and data you use, to get the best quality of information and focus available
  10. People prefer for gains to be taken in several pieces to maximize their feeling good about their ability, while they prefer to take all their losses in one big lump to minimize the pain they feel.
  11. People prefer a sure gain compared to a high probability of a bigger gain, so they can say they made a profit; in contrast, people will speculate on a high probability of a bigger loss over a sure smaller loss, because they don’t want to feel like a loser.  In trading, we must flip around the conventional emotions to allow us to let profits run while cutting losses shorter.

Fear

  
  Education
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  fear-daytrading
 

One of my favorite bits of trading advice was given 85 years ago by Jesse Livermore in Reminiscences of a Stock Operator: 

“The speculator’s chief enemies are always boring from within.

“It is inseparable from human nature to hope and to fear. In speculation when the market goes against you, you hope that every day will be the last day and you lose more than you should had you not listened to hope… to the same ally that is so potent a success-bringer to empire builders and pioneers, big and little. And when the market goes your way you become fearful that the next day will take away your profit, and you get out too soon. Fear keeps you from making as much money as you ought to.

The successful trader has to fight these two deep-seated instincts. He has to reverse what you might call his natural impulses. Instead of hoping he must fear; instead of fearing he must hope. He must fear that his loss may develop into a much bigger loss, and hope that his profit may become a big profit. It is absolutely wrong to gamble in stocks the way the average man does.” (more…)

Some behaviors that virtually guarantee losses in the markets

  
  Education
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• Lack of discipline: It takes an accumulation of knowledge and sharp focus to trade successfully. Many would rather listen to the advice of others. They just want to believe, like Fox Mulder.

• Impatience: Some have an insatiable need for action. The day trading adrenaline rush and the gamblers’ high can have heroin-like addiction pull.

• No objectivity: Some are unable to disengage emotionally from the market. They create a virtual “lifelong” marriage to their trades. Divorce is not an option.

• Greed: A desire for quick profit blinds many from the diligent work needed to actually win in the long run.

• Refusal to accept truth: Some do not want to believe that the only knowable truth is price action. They feel more secure following cult leaders serving Kool-Aid.

• Impulsive behavior: Many jump into investments based on the morning paper or Good Morning America. Thinking that if you act quickly, somehow you will beat everybody else in the great race is a recipe for a messy failure.

• Inability to stay in the moment of now: To be a successful trader, you cannot spend your time thinking about how you are going to spend your profits. Trading because you have to have money is not workable.

• Stay open-minded: Come into the day knowing your future steps. Do not be stubborn when the market does not go your way. Cut your losses and follow your stinking trading plan.

• Avoid false parallels: Just because the market behaved one way in 1995, 2000, or 2008 does not mean a similar pattern today will give you the same result. A great example of this: The Hindenburg Omen. It is a technical analysis pattern that is said to portend a stock market crash. The problem: Sometimes it is right, sometimes not. You don’t want to bet your life savings on a coin flip.

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