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Emotion and Trading

  
  Education
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While trading I watch my emotional state of mind more than the price action. This has helped me trade better

Here are some of the emotions I feel from time to time and what they mean to me in context of trading

1) hesitation to pull the tigger – something is not right – don’t take the bet

2) anger – start of revenge trading – stop ASAP

3) uncomfortable while watching or not watching the price – non aligned with the market, trading with too much size – reduce size or quit

4) ignoring the little voice and gut feeling – trust the inner voice and take action

5) trading on hope – quit asap

6) thinking after hours or during market hours of money you can make = greed, impatience to make money – focus on how much you can lose

7) stress = wrong side of the market

8) feeling joy = right side of the market

10 Secrets of Trading

  
  Education
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A ROBUST METHOD: Much like a casino you must have an edge in your trading. Your system must be a robust one with the odds on your side either through many more wins than losses with equal capital at risk or small losses and big wins over a long period of time.

CONFIDENCE: You must have the confidence in your method that it is a winner in the long term through proper research or back testing. You also must have confidence in yourself to execute the plan.

DISCIPLINE: A trader must have the discipline to take their predetermined entries and exits. The trader is the weakest link in trading no method works with out the discipline to execute it in a live market.

TRADING PLAN: A trader has to have a plan on what they will trade, how much they will trade, the time frame they are trading on and rules that they will follow for entries and exits.

EMOTIONAL CONTROL: The winning trader must have the ability to not make decisions based on emotions. Winning traders still feel emotions but have the ability to stay on their trading plan instead of making decisions based on fear or greed in the heat of market action.

RISK/REWARD: The best trades to take have the potential to win $3 for each $1  risked. With this ratio a trader can lose on two trades our of three and still make money. This is a defined edge and keeps the trader looking for only the best instruments to trade and taking the best entry points as part of their system.

EGO CONTROL: The destruction of many traders is when they believe they do not need risk management or rules and that they are smarter than the market and begin taking trades based purely on their opinions instead of principles, price action, and chart action. Good traders are humble traders.

RISK OF RUIN: The best traders understand the best way to ensure their survival in trading is with only putting 1% of their total trading capital at risk in any one trade either through great entries with tight stop losses or trading smaller position sizes. Nothing will determine a trader’s success more than their ability to survive a string of 10-15 losses in a row.

MASTER YOUR OWN METHOD: Trader know thyself, know who you are, the trading method that fits your personality and risk tolerance and become a master of that method. Do not wander around when it gets tough, be faithful to your edge. Be the best that you can be at what you are whether you are a day trader, trend follower, option trader, momentum trader, chart reader, technical analyst, or fundamentalist. I know of traders that got reach with any of these methods but do not know any that got rich trading multiple methods.  Pick one, master one.

PERSEVERANCE: Even with all the elements in place there will be rough months and even rough years for almost all traders. Sometimes right at the beginning of a new traders first plunge into the market the price action can act completely contrary to profits for that traders method. All the traders that ended up rich have one thing in common, they did not quit trading until they became rich.


Fear and Greed in Financial Markets: A Clinical Study of Day-Traders

  
  Education
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GreedkillsContrary to common folk wisdom that financial traders share a certain set of personality traits, e.g., aggressiveness or extraversion, we found little correlation between measured traits and trading performance. The study finds that subjects whose emotional reaction to monetary gains and losses was more intense on both the positive and negative side exhibited significantly worse trading performance. Psychological traits derived from a standardized personality inventory survey do not reveal any specific \trader personality profile”, raising the
possibility that trading skills may not necessarily be innate, and that di erent personality types may be able to perform trading functions equally well after proper instruction and practice.

Ten questions to ask yourself before every trade

  
  Education
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  1. Does this trade fit my chosen trading style? Whether it is:  swing trading, momentum, break out, trend following, reversion to the mean, or day trading? Does this trade fit into the parameters of who I am as a trader, or is it just based on my own fear or greed?

  2. How big of a position do I want to trade? How much capital am I going to risk? Am I limiting my risk to 1% or 2% of my trading capital? Knowing where my stop will be how big should my position size be to limit my risk?
  3. What are the odds of my risk of ruin based on my capital at risk?
  4. Why am I entering the trade here? What is the entry trigger to take the trade? Is this a quantified entry on my trading plan?
  5. How will I exit with a profit? A price target or trailing stop? (more…)

6 Mistakes

  
  Education
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Mistake number one: not having any knowledge of the simple visual indications for when to enter a trade based on market behavior and common sense.
Mistake number two: not being on the right time frame at the right time for the current trading opportunity.
Mistake number three: entering trades long AFTER the real entry occurred and exiting way BEFORE the exit occurs.
Mistake number four: no trading plan or direction for a consistent entry and exit strategy.
Mistake number five: following some scam Forex system they recently bought on the internet and using dozens of “proprietary” indicators.
Mistake number six: entering and exiting trades for reasons other than their own trading method. (fear, greed, etc)

Wall Street Its Mysteries Revealed Its Secrets Exposed By William C Moore 1921 – Greed

  
  Education
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Small excerpt is from the book: ‘Wall Street. Its Mysteries Revealed: Its Secrets Exposed’ published in New York, 1921 by William C. Moore. The book contains short and to the point chapters like: ‘The crowd mind’, ‘How the public speculates’, ‘Mental suggestion’ and ‘Market advice’ to name but a few. I chose the one on ‘Greed’ as I consider it great advice and timeless wisdom. Enjoy.

Greed p. 123-124

An avaricious or keen desire for profits is one of the most prevalent causes of failure in speculation. This weakness is general among traders. They desire “just a little more ” profit. If the stock or commodity bought advances, then that’s proof to them that it will advance further and so they hang on. They usually overstay and thus miss their market. If they fail to obtain the top price and it reacts, then they assure or console themselves by the expression: “Oh, it will come back.” It may “come back” but often it does not, and instead, declines to below the purchase price and frequently results in a loss. The same observations apply to a short sale for a further anticipated decline. It is a good policy to be satisfied with a reasonable profit and be willing to leave some for the other fellow. The market is always there and other opportunities for making profits will present themselves while the greedy trader is waiting to get the last eighth. (more…)

Book Review: Priceless

  
  Education
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This book, Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It), covers rationality in decision making, and how markets and marketers take advantage of the deficiencies in rationality in average people.

There are many in the investment community that admire behavioral finance, and many who say that it might be true, but where are the big profits to be made from it?

This book doesn’t cover behavioral finance per se, but it does cover its analogue in pricing and marketing.  In a negotiation, the first person to put a price on the table tends to push the final price agreed to closer to his price.  Leaving aside no-haggle dealerships, why do car dealers post high prices for vehicles?  Because only a minority does the research to understand what the minimum price is that a dealer will accept.  The rest pay more, often a lot more.  Personally, I do a lot of research before I buy a car, and it helps me spot dealer errors in pricing.

The book is replete with examples of how there is no “fair” way to price things out.  What are the proper damages for a jury settlement?  The attorney for the plaintiff is incented to come up with the highest believable amount for the jury, because they will render a verdict less than that.  Make the ceiling as high as possible, and the plaintiff will get more.

We call placing the first price on the table “anchoring,” because it pulls the final result toward itself.  The book is filled with experiments dealing with anchoring.

The book also spends a lot of time on the “ultimatum game,” where a person gets $10, and must offer some of it to a second person, but if the second person turns him down, the first person gets nothing.  The main lesson here is that pride is stronger than greed.  Yes, it can be construed as a question of fairness, but when someone gives up money to deny money to someone else, it is not fairness but envy.  Why pay to make someone else worse off?  To teach him a lesson?  What an expensive lesson.

Much of this book was a walk down memory lane for me.  I discovered Kahneman and Tversky in the Fall of 1982, and I found their ideas to be more cogent than much of the “individuals maximize utility” cant that was commonly heard from most professors teaching microeconomics.  People are far more complex than homo oeconomicus.  Small surprise that most tests of microeconomics as a system are not confirmed by the data.

Kahneman and Tversky showed via a wide array of examples that the decisions people make are affected by the way they are presented to them.  People can be manipulated in limited ways in order to affect the decisions that they make. (more…)

The Power of Regret

  
  Education
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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.

Chasing a trade is the fear of missing out. The fear of missing out is associated with various emotions, including regret. In my work with traders and in my own trading, I’ve seen the incredible power of regret. There’s a lot of talk about fear and greed in trading, but the power of regret is often overlooked. Some of my own worst trades, and those of my clients, often have a ‘regret from missing a prior opportunity’ component. When I finally finish my book on the psychology of financial risk taking, I will include much about this overlooked but very powerful emotion. (more…)

Trading Wisdom From Jesse Livermore

  
  Education
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Don’t Avoid Exit Strategies

“It was the same with all. They would not take a small loss at first but had held on, in the hope of a recovery that would let them out even. And prices had sunk and sunk until the loss was so great that it seemed only proper to hold on, if need be a year, for sooner or later prices must come back. But the break shook them out, and prices just went so much lower because so many people had to sell, whether they would or not.”
Jesse Livermore

Hope, Fear and Greed

“The spectator’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. 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.”
Jesse Livermore

Courage and Trading

  
  Education
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According to Plutarch, “Courage stands halfway between cowardice and rashness…” Clearly, we don’t want to be reckless; and clearly, we don’t want to be hesitant and timid. What we need is a balance. As we go about our trading moderating our greed and our fear to a combination of healthy desire and clear minded caution, we use courage to go forward.

Courage doesn’t mean closing your eyes, holding your nose, and jumping into the deep end. It does mean moving forward with clean and clear perception as well as steadfastness of purpose.

You don’t need courage if you’re totally confident and unafraid. Courage, according to John Wayne, is being scared to death and saddling up anyway. Because people tend to fear the unknown, and the unknown is all that is certain about any given trade, we need to employ courage. Since trading is always new, since anything can happen and it often does, since the wildness lies in wait, we need to overcome uncertainty and fear so that we can appropriately enter, exit, and remain in trades.

When asked what he meant by “guts”, Ernest Hemingway told Dorothy Parker in an interview “grace under pressure”. Trading is all about grace and gracefulness under pressure.

The good news is that courage is like any muscle. It grows and becomes stronger the more you use it. Often as I trade I’m unaware of utilizing courage. I know I’m extremely alert. I may even be excited. I’m not aware of any fear until something starts to go wrong. However, that alertness and excitement is a product of adrenalin running. Excitement or fear comes from the interpretation you give to the adrenalin high. The more you act as if you’re unafraid, the less afraid you become. It all gets easier. Act the part and become the part. Make it your goal to trade with increasing grace under pressure.

The difference between excitement and fear depends of what you are imagining.

Are you imagining loss or are you imagining profit? Of course, you always have to keep the alternative in mind as trading is all about balancing the alternatives, profit with loss. But you don’t have to put loss into the foreground of your mind, because you never would put on a trade unless profit was the probable outcome. Direct your imagination towards profit, and suspend all thoughts of loss–once you’ve put your stops in.

“Don’t cry before you’re hurt.” says a proverb. I would add, don’t mourn a loss before you experience it. Don’t even mourn it after you take it, get on with the next trade, and the next, and the next. Anticipate profit. That’s what you’re there to experience. Ah yes, and as another proverb states: “Fortune favors the brave.”

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