Archives of “emotions” tag

rss

Tips to stop the self-destruction

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #

1. Take a Break

When you have experienced successive losses, you should quit trading for a day. Some traders even have a “punishment” that is assumed by a trading plan: had loss, no trading for a week! Market will not disappear and tomorrow have even more opportunities for you. Do not do anger trades, just take a breath and give yourself a break.

2. Shorten Size

Shorten the size of amount traded considerably. In such a way you will be able to distract your mind of trading for a while and become sensible again. Give yourself time and get back to the right size trading only when you are really ready.

3. Add Money You Didn’t Win

Put the amount equal to the winning trade you didn’t take in your forex account. When you see money in your account, it will make you feel better and take wise decisions.

4. Add Amount You Lost

If you experienced a loss, you can add to the amount you have lost back to the account. You will be surprised at how easy it can become normal again when you do not see your account with losses.

5. Use Visual Effects!

Create a poster or make a note which can remind you of not making unreasonable decisions after bad trades. The note will help you to stay sensible and take only the trades that you can completely understand and pass on all the rest.

6. Trade With Reason

Psychology is a critical factor that influences success or failure in trading. You should have the right psychological reasons to do trades.

7. Be Precise

You should be disciplined. Actually, you should become army disciplined. Bear in mind that emotions should have nothing to do with your decision taken as for the trades.

8. Confess and Talk It All Out

Confess about your losses to somebody nearby or even over the internet, a fellow trader or somebody who can understand your pain. Talking will free your mind from negative thoughts and will bring you back to real life.

10 Pitfalls of Trading & Answers

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #

What are the 10 major mistakes that these traders make that cost them dearly?

  1. Having no trading plan

When you don’t have a plan, you don’t have a template to follow. It becomes very costly when your emotions are high and you have to make decisions on the fly.

  1. Using strategies that do not match your personality

You hear of a trading strategy that has worked very well and you are anxious to follow it. One important factor to consider is: does it match who you are and your lifestyle?

  1. Having unrealistic expectations

Most traders assume that it is very easy to make money in trading. They have unrealistic expectations with regard to their initial capital, their risk profile and how much money they can expect to make.

  1. Taking too much risk

Usually when traders are down, they want to make their money back very quickly. Therefore, they increase their position size without thinking about the risk/rewards.

  1. Not having rules to follow

Most traders think if they have rules to follow, they are restricting themselves. It is on the contrary. Having rules allows you to be more flexible since you have thought about lots of issues beforehand.

  1. Not being flexible to market conditions (more…)

Paul Counsel-Trading Wisdom

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #

Successful trading has absolutely nothing to do with making money and everything to do with trading successfully. Making money will only ever be a by-product of successful trading. Successful trading is not a by-product of making money. When you attach trading to money and money to emotions and emotions to money you’ll have taken your first loss but you won’t know it yet.

Trading has everything to do with personal psychology, rules, systems, discipline, focus and skill. Like anything else that’s skill based, once you start it takes time and practice to become skilful.Ultimately trading is about making decisions between two choices, to buy or sell. As simple as these two choices are the variables that effect the decisions surrounding them can be as complex as the human mind can make them.

As a trader your central focus should be on your system. You should know your system inside out, its strengths and weaknesses. Your system should be comprised of a set of rules that ultimately guide you in making either of two decisions, to buy or sell. You should be able to read your system with respect to market conditions and base your trading choices on what your system is telling you.

As a trader you must understand that you’re the weakest link in the system because the complexity will reside with you. Good systems are simple. They are nothing more than a series of instructions called trading rules. The primary thought that should be central in your mind is that it’s the system that makes the money, not you. The more skilled you become at reading market conditions and marrying these conditions to your system the better a trader you’ll be.

Wealth creation is an uncertain activity for most people and, to do something without certainty of outcome, takes courage. It takes courage to do what the majority is not doing. It takes courage to overcome scepticism and cynicism. It takes courage to deal with fear and overcome fear barriers.

Could you Trade Full Time?

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #

Take this quick quiz and honestly determine if you are built to trade full time:

  • Are you properly capitalized?
    I wouldn’t suggest anyone start to think about trading full time until they have at least six figures that can be used solely for trading. Living expenses must come from other income or saved funds. Without six figures (and the more then better), I suggest you continue to build your stake.
  • Are you a successful part time trader?
    Why do you think you can succeed being a full time trader if you haven’t made money as a part time trader? Have you built your own stake to six figures trading part time? If so, you pass this question with flying colors.
  • Have you developed a system that works?
    Does your system have a     positive expectancy? Have you back tested the system (I don’t hold too much weight to this question)? Do you understand position sizing and do you implement it properly so you don’t blow-up with one or two trades?
  • Does your system offer enough opportunity?
    Without opportunity (multiple trading signals per day/ week), you will not be able to achieve your system’s expectancy. A lack of opportunity may skew your results and turn your anticipated positive expectancy to a negative expectancy and cause you to go broke.
  • Can you handle your emotions?
    How do you handle your emotions now with longer term positions or part time trading? Do you follow your rules, all the time? Will you have pressure to make money every month, week or day? Can you handle being alone (most cases) and staring at a computer for large portions of the day?
  • Finally, do you have spouse or other influence that will interfere with your endeavor?
    A spouse, friend or family (member) can have a negative affect on your trading that may result in subconscious sabotage.     Outside negative forces or nagging pressure people may lead you down a path that is not controllable because you are trying to prove something rather than “just trade” based on your acquired skills. Make sure the closest people in your life support you while making the move to full time trading.

Jack Schwager on Market Sense and Nonsense

  
Education, Video
#  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #

This is Jack as analyst, not as trader interviewer. I think the insights herein will benefit investors especially over traders, although both are served well. Jack totally destroys the EMH in this book. He also debunks a great deal of conventional wisdom for the investor, which I think will be shocking at first. Why? Conventional wisdom “feels good” and to go against the grain so to speak as an investor takes a great deal of emotional intelligence — and a strong inner voice — which most investors don’t have. Good trading and investing oftentimes does not “feel” good at all. It’s much easier for a newbie or amateur to go with the crowd and succumb to one’s emotions. What feels safe is normally not a proper risk management decision for the untrained.

At the end of each chapter, Jack delineates several “Misconceptions” that I believe are worth the price of the book. One in particular deals with when it’s NOT a good idea to just blindly buy the S&P 500 after it’s gone up a certain amount.

Market Sense and Nonsense is an objective take on popular investment themes that is backed with a great deal of data to support its claims. I think the conclusions in this book will surprise most of its readers and that’s a good thing. At least they will be armed with strong arguments to bring up with their advisors.

Traders' Resolutions for the New Year-2013

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #

What are our top trading resolutions for 2013?

D  iscipline
R  esults
I  ntegrity
V  ictory (Over Emotions)
E  ducation

Discipline

Most traders could benefit from being more disciplined with their trading. Discipline in trading takes many forms. But it can be summarized as just doing what we know needs to be done.
For example, a common New Year’s resolution is to lose weight. Losing weight is simple in theory—we just need to eat healthy foods and exercise more. Just say no to the doughnut and yes to the salad—simple! Of course, sticking to your plan is anything but easy, which is where discipline comes into play. Just do what we know needs to be done.
If I could target only two things to be more disciplined in next year’s trading they would be:

  1. Cut losing trades: Do everything to keep losses small.
  2. Let profits run: Don’t fall prey to the fear of a small profit slipping away. (more…)

Everyone is afraid of each other

  
  Education
#  #  #

The warrior of the light knows: everyone is afraid of each other.

This fear can generally be seen in two forms: through aggression, or through submission. They are two sides of the same problem.

That is why, upon being confronted by a someone who inspires terror, the warrior recalls: the other man is insecure, stressed, or scared. He has overcome similar obstacles, and has lived the same problems.

But he knows how to deal with the situation better.
Why? Because he uses fear as a motor, not as a brake.

Thus the warrior learns from his opponent, and keep cool, waiting for the storm to pass

Learning from Mistakes…

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #

A Reader of our Blog had sent me the following question …

“When should a trader know when to say it is enough and I need to get out of the position. More importantly, how do you find a balance between learning from a mistake and not being weighed down by it on your next trading decision.”

Here was my advice:

* if you have “edge” in a trade, then winning or losing on a trade will be determined long before you find out the outcome (profit/loss) on the trade.

* important to focus on the process of the trade… making ONLY high quality trades

* your job as a trader is not to determine or decide how much you make or lose…that is up to the market. Your job is to put on trades with “edge.”

as far as not being weighed down by the mistakes, my suggestion is to begin a “lessons learned” spreadsheet where you document mistakes you make and the lesson you learned from it.

I also suggest you start a qualitative trading journal that way you can get the emotions out of your head and onto the paper.

this will help you move past your barriers and get some closure on them so you can be focused on the next trade.

The Trading Mindset & Common Psychological Issues

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #

Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions


How does someone know that they reached the trader’s mindset? Here are a few characteristics:

1. No anger whatsoever.
2. Confidence and being in control of the self
3. A sense of not forcing the markets
4. An absence of feeling victimized by the markets
5. Trading with money you can afford to risk
6. Trading using a chosen approach or system
7. Not influenced by others
8. Trading is enjoyable
9. Accepting both winning and losing trades equally
10. An open mind approach at all times
11. Equity curve grows as skills improve
12. Constantly learning on a daily basis
13. Consistently aligning trades with the market’s direction
14. Ability to focus on the present reality
15. Taking full responsibility for your actions

Developing the trader’s mindset takes time. It usually takes traders 2-5 years before they can read through the above list and honestly say that it describes themselves.

Let’s take 100 traders using the same trading system or approach. It is highly likely that no two of them will trade it exactly the same way in all aspects. Why is this? Because our mindsets, beliefs, and understandings are unique. It is no surprise that most traders fail and the reason why is because they lack the trader’s mindset. This article covers those in Stage III and IV within the 4 Stages of Learning. More importantly, it applies to those that survived Stage II.

There are two parts to fixing any psychological problems:

1. Recognizing that it exists
2. Accepting it so you can move on

In trading, this is where it’s so crucial to take responsibility for your own actions because it induces change and you can start making improvements. If you don’t recognize and accept a problem, then you won’t get anywhere!

What are some of these issues that I speak of? Here are a few along with their causes and/or effects:

1. Anger over a losing trade – Traders usually feel as if they are victims of the market. This is usually because they either 1) care too much about the trade and/or 2) have unrealistic expectations. They seek approval from the markets, something the markets cannot provide.

2. Trading too much – Traders that do this have some personal need to “conquer” the market. The sole motivation here is greed and about “getting even” with the market. It is impossible to get “even” with the market.

3. Trading the wrong size – Traders ignore or don’t recognize the risk of each trade or do not understand money management. There is no personal responsibility here.

4. PMSing after the day is over – Traders are on a wild emotional roller coaster that is fueled by a plethora of emotions ranging throughout the spectrum. Focus is taken off of the process and is placed too heavily on the money. These people are very irritable akin to the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome.

5. Using money you can’t afford to lose – Usually, a trader is pinning his/her last hopes to make money. Traders fear “losing” the “last best opportunity”. Self-discipline is quickly forgotten but the power of greed drives them, usually over a cliff.

6. Wishing, hoping, or praying – Do this in church, but leave this out of the market. Traders do not take control of their trades and cannot accept the present reality of what’s happening in the market.

7. Getting high after a huge win – These traders tie their self-worth to their success in the markets or by the value of their account. Usually, these folks have an unrealistic feeling of being “in control” of the markets. A huge loss usually sobers them up pretty quickly.

8. Adding to a losing position – Also known as doubling, tripling, quadrupling down, typically, this means that the trader does not want to admit the trade is wrong. The trader’s ego is at stake and #6 comes into effect as the trader is hoping the markets will “work in their favor”.

9. Compulsive trading – Similar to #2, except these traders have an addiction to trading and quite possibly gambling issues. They need to constantly be trading, even if there is no rational reason to do so. They are always excited whether they win or lose.

10. Afraid of “pulling the trigger” – This usually means that the trader does not have a system or approach already in place. They have not calculated risk/reward and many times, these trades are unplanned. This also comes after a string of losses. They don’t want to be “wrong again”. There is no trust from within. (more…)

Go to top