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Emotions and Behaviors in Trading

  
  Education
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Successful trading requires the individual to have more than a certain amount of control over emotions and behaviors.
Emotions may include, but not be limited to, the following items:
1. Anger, anxiety, confusion, depression, disappointment, exhilaration, frustration, insecurity, passion, satisfaction, etc.
Behaviors may include, but not be limited to, the following items:
2. Arrogant, consistent, controlling, denial, following through, [im]patient, [ir]rational, letting go, perseverance, stubbornness, tenacity, etc.
Having control over these and other emotions and behaviors will allow for the trader to execute trades objectively, and more importantly, according to a strategic plan.

Sounds easy enough, does it not? “Execute trades objectively, and more importantly, according to a strategic plan.” Being that traders are human, it is not such an easy task to accomplish. It is not easy to be objective and diligent about sticking to a strategic plan day after day after day – especially with the constant volatility and erratic dynamics of the market tempting and enticing you at every turn to take actions that are NOT necessarily objective and NOT necessarily part of the strategic plan.

10 Obstacles to Success for Traders

  
  Education
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1        Greed, the urge to make as much money as possible, and fear that he will lose it all.

2        Low confidence in himself or his strategy, which makes him enter or exit trades at the wrong time. Low self esteem is also a problem; lots of people are natural victims and believe that they will probably fail, and of course this is what they do.

3        Middle class guilt that makes the trader believe that he should not make super profits because it is morally wrong.

4        Overconfidence. Feeling that after so many winning trades he is invincible.

5        Disbelief. He believes that high rewards cannot possibly be true, and “If trading is that easy, then everyone would be doing it.” He then looks for complicated strategies in the belief that it cannot be easy.

6        Paranoia, believing that the market is conspiring against him.

7        Reward for effort, where he feels that people should be rewarded fairly for the effort that they put in. FX trading does not operate with these rules and that is confusing. The reward can be disproportionately high or can result in punishing losses, and is not dependent on just the work put in.

8        Insecurity, resulting in changing a strategy that is actually winning. All strategies must be tested and then consistently applied in order to engender confidence.

9        The urge to trade simply because he is a trader. This impatience results in entering trades when no real opportunity exists.

10   Low expectation; people with a low expectation of life tend to be less successful. Even though they may be highly intelligent, they aim for less and settle for less. (more…)

Waiting for the market to make sense

  
  Education
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There seems to be an ever increasing chatter about how the market is going to revert to the mean or it is broken or it is undervalued. Whatever it is let me remind you of two important ideas that are found in about any book you will ever read around finance and investing.

The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent and the market’s goal is to extract the most money from the largest group of people.

If I could change the first quote it would say: The market is almost always irrational but when it is rational it pays you enough to forget.

Obviously not an easy sell if you running money. But that does not mean you can not be profitable. In fact, it means the exact opposite. The market gives everyone a chance to win but how much and what you did leading up to that point is the difference.

I would change the second quote to read: The goal of a market is to be healthy, when it is searching for participation equilibrium much money changes hands often to the few that are prepared.

There are many unnatural things that happen to a market. But underlying it wants to find participation equilibrium. It means cutting out the weakest leading the strong lower and allowing the few to pull everything higher. The problem is cycles are getting shorter and power is not as concentrated. If you are confused, imagine how confused the market must be.

Do I think it is important to have those conversations from the start of the post? Yes. But they should be focused on what to do. If the market does x I will look to do y or z and will be more focused on doing z but if m happens I will look more closely at y. (more…)

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