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Trading Psychology Observations

  
  Education
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-From working with developing traders, I’d say that 90% don’t/can’t sustain the process of keeping a substantive journal. Among the group that does journal, well over 90% of the entries are about themselves and their P/L. I almost never see journal entries devoted to figuring out markets.

-A sizable proportion of traders who have been having problems are trading methods and patterns that used to work, but are no longer operative. The inability to change with changing markets affects traders intraday (when volume/volatility/trend patterns shift) and over longer time frames (when intermarket patterns shift).

-Some traders habitually look for tops in a rising market and bottoms in a falling one. There’s much to be said for countertrend methods, but not when the need to be right exceeds the need to make money.

-An underrated element in trading success is mental flexibility: the ability to shift views and perceptions as new data enter the marketplace. It takes a certain lack of ego to form a strong view and then modify it in the face of new evidence.

-Many traders fail because they’re focused on what the market *should* be doing, rather than on what it *is* doing. The stock market leads, not follows, economic fundamentals. Some of the best investment opportunities occur when markets are looking past news, positive or negative.

Justification Mode

  
  Education
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As most experienced traders will tell you, the most difficult thing about trading well is that you’ve got to learn for yourself how to stop protecting your ego and readily own up to mistakes quickly before they do significant and lasting real damage. No matter how hard you try, you will never be able to entirely separate your ego away from your trading. Those who tell you that you can, are, in my view, just wrong and have little understanding about how to trade well. As long as you are human, you are going to trade with both emotion and ego, but the better traders among us simply learn how to work with both in ways that limit their negative influence.

Divorce Ego from the trade

  
  Education
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Divorce
The most important change will only occur when you will learn to DIVORCE  EGO FROM THE TRADE. Trading is a psychological game. Most people think that they’re playing against the market, but the market doesn’t care. You’re really playing against yourself. You have to stop trying to will things to happen in order to prove that you’re right. Listen only to what the market is telling you now. Forget what you thought it was telling you five minutes ago. The sole objective of trading is not to prove you’re right, but to hear the cash register ring.

Be Responsible

  
  Education
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Be responsible for your own trading destiny. Analyze your trading behavior. Understand your own motivations. Traders come into commodity trading with a view to making money. After awhile they find the trading process to be fascinating, entertaining and intellectually challenging. Pretty soon the motivation to make money becomes subordinated to the desire to have fun and meet the challenge. The more you trade to have fun and massage your ego, the more likely you are to lose. The kinds of trading behaviors that are the most entertaining are also the least effective. The more you can emphasize making money over having a good time, the more likely it is you will be successful.

Be wary of depending on others for your success. Most of the people you are likely to trust are probably not effective traders. For instance: brokers, gurus, advisors, system vendors, friends. There are exceptions, but not many. Depend on others only for clerical help or to support your own decision-making process.

Don’t blame others for your failures. This is an easy trap to fall into. No matter what happens, you put yourself into the situation. Therefore, you are responsible for the ultimate result. Until you accept responsibility for everything, you will not be able to change your incorrect behaviors.

Ari Kiev – The 10 Cardinal Rules Of Trading

  
  Education
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The Ten Cardinal Rules

1. Learn to function in a tense, unstructured, and unpredictable environment.
2. Be an independent thinker versus a conventional thinker.
3. Work out a way to handle your emotions and maintain objectivity.
4. Don’t rely on hope and fear in the conventional sense.
5. Work continuously to improve yourself, giving importance to self-examination and recognizing that your personality and way of responding to events are a critical part of the game. This requires continuous coaching.
6. Modify your normal responses to certain events. (more…)

Freudian Trading Techniques

  
  Education
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Attachment

When I was in college, I had a class in investment analysis. On one particular occasion, we had a group project which consisted of selecting a stock and then giving a recommendation on it. We chose a technology company whose earnings were shot and whose outlook was dismal. As we were deciding on what recommendation to offer, I suggested that  the stock was headed down and that we should recommend a sell. One of the gentlemen in the group immediately replied that he thought we might sound stupid for picking a stock and then recommending to sell it.

That’s when it dawned on me that the ego affects stock selection, evaluation, and recommendation significantly. I told this fellow that the data suggested that the stock was a sell. I also reminded him that the OBJECTIVE of the project was to a evaluate a stock, not to pick a winner. After some thought, I recalled that many analysts viewed the industries which they evaluated as THEIR industry. In doing so, those same analysts were often bullish much too often, including times when it was totally unprofitable to be bullish.

Mine is Better Than Yours

Another example is when I went for an educational seminar. There was no selling whatsoever and it was strictly educational. There were teachers from fixed income, equities, and real estate. Each speaker spoke about how the investment they were discussing was the best performing asset class in history. It was ridiculous but very illuminating. Individuals become emotionally attached when they use the word “my”. “My shoes, my car, my profession, and even my stocks are superior!” Then, I began wandering how detrimental this sort of thinking was. It eats away at profits and increases losses! (more…)

5 Signs You’ve Matured as a Trader

  
  Education
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1) Are Self Reliant: When you stop asking other people: “What do you think of the market?” While I respect the opinions of my colleagues, I DO NOT rely on them. I prefer to do my own homework, research and analysis. I LET THE MARKET tell me if I’m right or wrong.

The ultimate goal for traders is to make confident decisions on your own and trade with complete independence. You should not have to rely on the opinions of others because you should have conviction in your OWN ideas.

2) Stop Celebrating Winners: When you stop feeling the need to pound your chest every time you make 30 cents on a stock. (It is the flip side  of not getting depressed over every loss). Recognize what you did correctly and move on to the next trade.

The great Pittsburgh Steelers coach Chuck Noll used to say, after you score a touchdown there’s no need to start dancing. Simply hand the ball to the referee, head back to the bench and “Act like you’ve been there before!”

Same thing goes for the stock market. Don’t act like you’ve never had success trading before.

3) Let the Trades Come to You:  When you stop feeling the need to trade every day and you get over the “fear of missing out.” This is the downfall of most traders.

It took me a while to shift my focus from worrying about “missing out” to playing great defense. Once I did this, I noticed an increase in my confidence level as a trader. Keep in mind, there will ALWAYS be opportunities and it’s okay if you miss a few.

4) Feel No Need to Brag: Those traders who compulsively tell everyone about every winner are over compensating for their insecurities. It is a sign of lack of confidence. When you make a good trade or a good call on the market, and you don’t feel the need to remind everyone — its because that is what is supposed to happen.

The key is to be consistent and to separate your ego from your trading. If you are doing a good job, people will notice.

5) Loss Management: When you learn to cut losses without hesitation. No one likes to lose, but cutting losses is part of the game. I have studied the best traders throughout history and they all have the same number one rule: CUT YOUR LOSSES! Learn to accept when you are wrong and move on!

Accept you will make many mistakes

  
  Education
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Those who learn how to minimize the damage when they are wrong and who readily own up to the mistakes they make will do far better over the long haul. Making mistakes is a part of this game, but knowing how to handle them is everything. Likewise, if you attach your ego to your portfolio’s performance you are destined for failure. The market absolutely loves to kill those with big giant egos and who look for the markets as a place to prove how smart they are. Markets chew and spit out these folks routinely for good reason and they will continue to do so at every available opportunity.

Better to Be Profitable Than Right

  
  Education
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ego” when trading futures.Mark Cook, a well-respected trader and trading educator from rural Ohio, for many years has stressed that traders need to lose their egos before getting into trading futures markets. He is also an advocate of survival in futures trading. 
One must survive in this challenging arena before one can succeed. I enjoyed listening to Mark at a trading seminar a few years ago. He even used to wear bib-overalls (with no shirt) at some of his trading seminars—just to drive home the point that trading futures is not easy and that ultimate success takes a lot of hard work. 
My good friend and respected trader and educator Glen Ring also espouses the notion, and may have even coined the phrase, “it’s better to be profitable than right in futures trading.” Those who know or have talked to Glen know he, too, is a no-nonsense, no-hype trader who takes a yeoman’s approach to the business. When asked what direction a specific market “will” go in the future, Glen is never afraid to say, “I don’t know,” before he adds that, “successful trading is nota business of predictions but one of probabilities based on past price history.”  (more…)

We want to be right

  
  Education
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 Two wrongs don’t make a right in life but in the stock market two wrongs (and plenty more) will help you get on the right road to making money.   The market says the trading game is about making money not about stroking the ego.  The “right” road is the “wrong” road when your on Wall Street.  Hey, if  you doing it to be right, then you’re “doing it wrong!”

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