“Rich people don’t make big bets. Really rich-and smart-people don’t make big bets. First they are not out to “prove” anything, they are out to make more money, and second, they know that risk control is as important as the other two legs of speculation, selection and timing. That is all this business of … trading gets down to, selection, timing, and risk control.” “Trading well is not easy, but it is something you can learn if you have the perseverance combined with the humility to be realistic about your own strengths and weaknesses.” “Most often, traders have four fears. There’s the fear of being wrong, the fear of losing money, the fear of missing out and the fear of leaving money on the table. I found that basically, those four fears accounted for probably 90% to 95% of the trading errors that we make. Let’s put it this way: If you can recognize opportunity, what’s going to prevent you from executing your trades properly? Your fear. Your fears immobilize you. Your fears distort your perception of market information in ways that don’t allow you to utilize what you know.” |
Archives of “fear” tag
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| Know what your tolerance for risk is.Traders who are able to make smart decisions can beat the market. However, the greatest hurdle to doing so is overcoming the emotional traps that cause traders to make bad decisions.The reason we succumb to our emotions is because we are afraid of losing. It is the risk we take that creates emotion; take too much risk and you are likely to make bad decisions.Therefore, you need to know what your limits are. What dollar amount of risk causes you anxiety? If you can not make a trade with out fear then you are taking too much risk. For some, that means never trading since they simply can not handle the risk of financial loss. However, over time and with success you will begin to build up your tolerance for risk, just take it one step at a time. |
How can you avoid the four poisons of the trading mind: fear, confusion, hesitation and surprise?
Replace fear with faith—faith in your trading model and trading plan
Replace confusion with the attitude of being comfortable with uncertainty
Replace hesitation with decisive action
Replace surprise with taking nothing for granted and preparing yourself for anything.
4 Trading Fear
The fear of being wrong: Traders fear being wrong so much they will hold a small loss until it becomes a huge loss. Even adding to the loss in the hopes of it coming back and getting to even. Don’t do this, holding on to a loser after it hits your predetermined stop loss is like being a reverse trend trader. Do not be afraid of being wrong small be afraid of being wrong BIG.
The fear of losing money: New traders hate to lose money, they do not quite understand yet that they will lose 40%-60% of the time in the long term. We should come to expect the small losses and wait for the big wins patiently. Many times traders fear this so much that they have a hard time taking an entry out of fear of losing. If you can’t handle the losses as part of the business, you can’t trade.
The fear of missing out: The opposite of the fear of losing money is the fear of losing potential profits. This causes traders to watch a stock go up and up, miss the primary trend, then not being able to take it any more and get in late just in time for the trend to reverse and lose money. Trade at your systems proper entry point do not chase a stock because you are afraid to miss out on some profits.
The fear of leaving money on the table: When your trailing stop is hit get out of the trade. If your rules tell you to get out after a parabolic run up and stall then exit. You must be disciplined on taking money off the table while it is there. Being greedy for that last few dollars when your system says to sell could lead to major losses of paper profits. Let your winners run but when the runner gets to tired to continue: bank your profits.
Deadly Emotions
REVENGE, we all know it and have done it. It happens when you are tricked by the market and decide to take another trade before looking at the big picture, then BAM you are on the wrong side of the trade again. Pissed off and refusing to move while your money is going further down the drain. Scared to let go for fear that you are going to get tricked again.
PANIC, that is when you lack the confidence to enter or ride a profitable trade. This happens when you have taken some hits and now you lack the confidence to trade profitably.
IMPATIENCE, this happens when you can’t wait for a proper trade set-up and jump on a price hiccup/retracement, often finding yourself on the wrong side of the trade.
ANGER, you know that feeling that comes over you when you have taken a hit or two and you want to kill your computer.
SELF PITY, when you come to the market hoping for crumbs and get none, and can’t see why THEY won’t let you have just a little bit.
DEPRESSION, something perhaps outside of the market has you at an extreme low point.
INDIFFERENCE, it happens when you have gotten hit so many times that you just don’t care any more because no matter what you can win any way.
All of these emotions work hard against you clouding your clarity and give other traders the advantage over you.
If you are experiencing any of these emotions when you enter your platform; abandon your trading until you have yourself under control and have the clarity of mind to trade. Not doing so greatly increases your chances of handing your money over to a trader who is more emotionally fit and controlled than you are.
We are all human and it happens to us all, but what weighs heavy in your mind will often weigh heavily in your pocket.
Come to your trading platform, well rested, focused and ready to trade. You may take an occasional hit so what it is a LESSON. We all get them and if we learn the lesson that the loss has taught us; it will make us much better traders.
DO NOT TRADE YOUR EMOTIONS!!!!!—-
31 Trading Rules
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3 stages to becoming a successful trader
- Your ability to execute your trades is a function of the amount of fear you generate or the lack of it. Fear is always the result of your beliefs about the threating nature of the environment.
- Essentially, what you fear is not the markets but rather your inability to do what you need to do, when you need to do it, without the hesitation.
- If you can’t execute your trades properly, even when you perceive the most perfect opportunity, it is because you have not released yourself from the pain contained in the memories of past trading experiences and because you still don’t trust yourself to act appropriately in any given set of conditions.
- You were either immobilized by the fear of failure or you are struggling with a belief (value) system that say you don’t deserve the money. Otherwise, you would have acted on your perception.
Dr.Elizabeth Lombardo, Better Than Perfect-Book REVIEW
Perfectionism as it is usually understood can be a terrible curse, especially for a trader. It leads a person to act out of fear rather than passion—and sometimes not to act at all (why bother? I’ll botch it anyway). The perfectionist has both an “incessant drive to control the future” and “the unsatisfying feeling that, no matter how hard [he tries, he] will always come up short.” (p. 7)
In Better Than Perfect: 7 Strategies to Crush Your Inner Critic and Create a Life You Love (Seal Press, forthcoming September 23) Elizabeth Lombardo, a clinical psychologist and author of the national bestseller A Happy You, tackles the problems perfectionists create for themselves and suggests ways to overcome them.
For the most part Lombardo’s solutions involve reframing attitudes and motivations. Take the fear/passion dichotomy. “When you are fueled by fear, you focus on what you don’t want. Your goal is to do everything in your power to reduce the possibility of an undesired outcome. … Just by switching your perspective from one of fear to one of passion—working toward a desired outcome instead of avoiding an unwanted result—you can begin to feel more motivated, engaged, positive, and hopeful.” (p. 50)
Perfectionists are inclined to compare themselves to others and to judge themselves negatively. Of course, it’s not only perfectionists who do this; they are simply more intensely competitive. As Lombardo says, “Perfectionists don’t just want to ‘keep up with the Joneses,’ they want to kick the Joneses’ butts!” (p. 185) Well, that sounds more like trader talk; maybe a dose of perfectionism is actually a good thing, at least professionally. Lombardo admits that “many champion athletes, prominent scientists, and celebrities demonstrate perfectionist traits.” (p. 6)
Don't Chase A Trade
Everyone knows that chasing price is usually not beneficial, we either end up catching the move too late, or we get poor trade location, which makes it more difficult to manage the trade.
However, there are other forms of chasing that are just as common, maybe more common, and just as counter-productive. As a trading psychologist I see these all the time.
Traders who are not profitable are often too quick to chase after new set-ups and indicators, or a different chat room, if that’s your thing. Obviously, we need to have a trading edge, whether it is from the statistical perspective of a positive expectancy, or simply the confidence in a particular discretionary strategy such as tape reading, following order flow, market profile, etc. (more…)
What is the probability of…
- A sideways market?
- A trending market?
- A trend continuing;
- A trend reversal?
- Getting stopped out of a trade?
- Winning a trade?
- Breaking even?
- Losing a trade?
All questions that need to be answered if you are to have confidence in your trading system. For it is confidence that allows you to profit from the markets.
Ridiculous notion? Perhaps. But true nonetheless.
You see, despite our civilized veneer, we are still animals that react to fear, the most powerful of emotions. And it is fear that supercedes our thoughts when we trade.
To circumvent fear, you should develop trading plans, trade according to plan, and analyze your trades in a trading journal. As do this, you will build a database that will create statistical patterns of your trades. This can be studied and help you to predict the outcome of future trades. (more…)