1) Understand the true realities of the markets. 2) Be responsible for your own trading destiny. 3) Trade only with proven methods. 4) Trade in correct proportion to your capital. 5) Manage risk. 6) Stay long-term oriented. 7) Keep trading in correct perspective and as part of a balanced life. The common theme is self-control. As I’ve often said, if you can master yourself, you can master the markets.
Archives of “self control” tag
rssWays to Increase Willpower For Traders
- Plan in advance and operate on the basis of habit
- You need to have a trading plan that covers all permutations that the market can possibly throw at you. You need less willpower to follow a clearly defined plan than to try adhering to broad principles in reaction to the market.
- Keep practicing applying your trading plan, so that you can make following the rules a habit. It is like driving, the more you do the less effort it requires progressively.
- Motivate yourself, remind yourself of the importance of what you are doing
- You need to remind yourself of the importance of achieving good trading results, of the importance of not throwing your hard-earned money away.
- Use visualization techniques to picture situations where you follow your trading plan successfully. Thinking that you have lots of willpower actually makes it so.
- Think of some trader you admire that have lots of self-control and unfazed by market movements (e.g. Ed Seykota)
- Exercise your willpower
- Willpower is like a muscle, the more you exert your willpower in whatever tasks, the greater your capacity for self-control.
- You can get yourself to follow rules such as sitting up straight, opening doors with your left hand, etc.
- Have sufficient food
- Exercising willpower uses up glucose. Being hungry means you don’t have the energy to exert willpower.
- Have sufficient rest
- You can replenish your ‘willpower’ stores through sleep. Get sufficient sleep every day.
12 Quotes From ‘Trading In The Zone
I spent hours reading and re-reading this book, and eventually made a summary of all the key quotes. In a series of posts I’ll be sharing these quotes with you, and hopefully they will inspire you to take your trading to the next level. I hope you enjoy my first selections:
1. You will need to learn how to adjust your attitudes and beliefs about trading in such a way that you can trade without the slightest bit of fear, but at the same time keep a framework in place that does not allow you to become reckless.
2. Trading is an activity that offers the individual unlimited freedom of creative expression.
3. The unlimited characteristics of the trading environment require that we act with some degree of restraint and self-control, at least if we want to create some measure of consistent success.
4. The hard reality of trading is that, if you want to create consistency, you have to start from the premise that no matter what the outcome, you are completely responsible.
5. One of the principal reasons so many successful people have failed miserably at trading is that their success is partly attributable to their superior ability to manipulate and control the social environment, to respond to what they want. (Unfortunately) the market doesn’t respond to control and manipulation (unless you’re a very large trader).
6. The tools you will use to create this new version of yourself are your willingness and desire to learn, fuelled by your passion to be successful. Successful traders have virtually eliminated the effects of fear and recklessness from their trading.
7. Attitude produces better overall results than analysis or technique. (more…)
Traits of a Successful Trader
We urge you to use this checklist for your own trading and investing preparation. We truly feel that these traits are very important for you to understand. These trader traits coupled with the proper psychology can make a huge positive difference in your overall trading performance.
• The ability to act on your decisions.
• The ability to accept responsibility for your actions.
• You must have emotional detachment from the markets.
• The ability to accept risk and take losses (you’ll never be right 100% of the time). (more…)
Seven habits of successful traders
1) Understand the true realities of the markets. 2) Be responsible for your own trading destiny. 3) Trade only with proven methods. 4) Trade in correct proportion to your capital. 5) Manage risk. 6) Stay long-term oriented. 7) Keep trading in correct perspective and as part of a balanced life. The common theme is self-control. As I’ve often said, if you can master yourself, you can master the markets
12 Difference between Losers & Winners Traders
1. Losers trade against the trend, but winners trade the impulsive wave of the current trend.
2. Losers have no money management because they aim quick profit; but winners target steady profits by risking 2 or 3% of their investment.
3. Losers don’t set stop loss order expecting to be faster then the market in case of reversal; winners know that any time news can make the price reacts suddenly. Therefore use protective stop loss in case of news release.
4. Losers have no trading plan, they emotionally jump in and out of the market when the price moves; winners build solid entry and exit plans.
5. Losers cut early their winning trades and let losses run and wipe out their account; but winner s cut quickly their losses. When the trade is positive, they set the stop loss to the break even to protecting their profit. Otherwise, they open to 2 lots to closing the first lot when the stop loss value is reached and let the second winning trade run with a trailing stop from the breakeven until it is touched.
6. Losers do trade many strategies at the same time, but have mastered none of them; winners master one successful strategy and move to the other.
7. Losers think the market or the broker is against them, winners don’t fight against the market they try to understand it; they know how to choose between brokers with objective criterions.
8. Losers think Forex is gambling; but winners develop skills, discipline, self control, and patience, they work hard for being successful traders. Winners learn from their mistakes and constantly improve their main trading strategy.
9. Losers perform emotional trading after the release of alarming news, winners respect their trading plans.
10. Losers do overtrading, they even trade at the daily pivot point; winners trade the best opportunities at support or resistance according to the price reaction.
11. Losers can trade a bad risk reward opportunity; winners aim good risk reward with ratio such as 1/3 or 1/4. A won trade protects their portfolio from several small losses.
12. Losers use any strategy or expert advisor without back testing it; but winners know that long term profitability is one of the key of Forex trading success. Winners don’t focus on the percentage of winning trades.
Self-Control and Discipline
Cultivating discipline and self-control is vital for consistent and profitable trading. You implement proven trading strategies, over and over, so that across a series of trades, the strategies work enough to produce an overall profit. It’s like making shot after shot on the basketball court so as to accumulate a winning number of points. The more shots you take, the more likely you will amass points. But the winning player is the person who first develops the skill to make the shot consistently, so that at every possible opportunity, the ball is likely to go through the basket. To a great extent, consistency is the key. If the player uses one approach one time and a different approach at another time, performance is haphazard.
It’s the same for trading. One must trade consistently, following a specific trading plan on each and every single trade. This allows the law of averages to work in your favor, so that across the series of trades, you will make an overall profit. If you follow the plan sometimes and abandon it at other times, you throw off the probabilities. Suppose you used a strategy that had a track record of 80%. Under the best-case scenario, you could only expect to win 80% of the time. But since history doesn’t always repeat itself, it’s likely that you will win less than 80% of the time. If you don’t execute the trading strategy the same way each time, you will decrease your winning odds. And fewer winning trades may mean an overall loss. That’s why discipline and self-control are so important. (more…)
The 'Self-Factors' of Successful traders
- – Knowledge of oneself and how one acts and behaves in situations and environments.
- Self-Belief; – Self-Confidence – assuredness in one’s actions, judgments and abilities.
- Self-Trust; -The ability to have faith in oneself under duress and pressure.
- Self-Reliance; – Ability to depend on one’s own capabilities, judgment, and resources , and acceptance that nobody else is responsible for profits and losses.
- Self-discipline; – A structured approach that keeps a person focused and grounded against negative forces and pressures.
- Self-Control; – Is the ability of exert mind muscle and will-power to overcome the negative effects which can so easily distract and distort perceptions and judgments.
- Self-Motivation; – Describes the initiative to undertake risks and activities when the mood and environment have been counterproductive.
- Self-Esteem; – High regard, respect or value for one’s self, but not to the level of being conceited, or having an over-inflated opinion of their worth.
- Self-efficacy; – Belief in one’s own competency and ability.
In summary, successful traders take responsibility for their own actions, but rarely beat themselves up. – If I was to sum it up succinctly, they know themselves, they like themselves, they believe in themselves, and above all – ‘they are comfortable in their own skin’. (more…)
Control in Trading
New traders may get lucky for awhile and bad traders may win big in the short term but in the long term the market gives every trader exactly what they have earned. While traders can win in the long term with many different types of robust trading methods a trader with no self control will not even survive long, they will not be able to make a plan and follow it, they will let fear and greed over take their mind and end up with large losses and the belief “trading is just too hard” but trading is not hard what is hard is self control, discipline, focus, and keeping the ego in check.
What a trader can control:
- Their entry.
- Their exit.
- Their trading plan.
- Their emotions.
- Their ego.
- Their method.
- Their position size.
- Whether to trade or not to trade.
- How much you are willing to risk per trade.
- Themselves.
What a trader can not control.
- Market movements.
- Volatility.
- The trend.
- Whip saws.
- Political decisions.
- News Headlines.
- Macro economics.
- Every other traders decisions.
- The future.
- The past.
One key to trading is to only focus on what you can control, do not worry and stress about what you can not control, and most importantly, be able to know the difference.
50 Trading Rules
1. Plan your trades. Trade your plan.
2. Keep records of your trading results.
3. Keep a positive attitude, no matter how much you lose.
4. Don’t take the market home.
5. Continually set higher trading goals.
6. Successful traders buy into bad news and sell into good news.
7. Successful traders are not afraid to buy high and sell low.
8. Successful traders have a well-scheduled planned time for studying the markets.
9. Successful traders isolate themselves from the opinions of others.
10. Continually strive for patience, perseverance, determination, and rational action.
11. Limit your losses – use stops!
12. Never cancel a stop loss order after you have placed it!
13. Place the stop at the time you make your trade.
14. Never get into the market because you are anxious because of waiting.
15. Avoid getting in or out of the market too often.
16. Losses make the trader studious – not profits. Take advantage of every loss to improve your knowledge of market action.
17. The most difficult task in speculation is not prediction but self-control. Successful trading is difficult and frustrating. You are the most important element in the equation for success.
18. Always discipline yourself by following a pre-determined set of rules.
19. Remember that a bear market will give back in one month what a bull market has taken three months to build.
20. Don’t ever allow a big winning trade to turn into a loser. Stop yourself out if the market moves against you 20% from your peak profit point.
21. You must have a program, you must know your program, and you must follow your program.
22. Expect and accept losses gracefully. Those who brood over losses always miss the next opportunity, which more than likely will be profitable.
23. Split your profits right down the middle and never risk more than 50% of them again in the market.
24. The key to successful trading is knowing yourself and your stress point.
25. The difference between winners and losers isn’t so much native ability as it is discipline exercised in avoiding mistakes.
26. In trading as in fencing there are the quick and the dead.
27. Speech may be silver but silence is golden. Traders with the golden touch do not talk about their success.
28. Dream big dreams and think tall. Very few people set goals too high. A man becomes what he thinks about all day long.
29. Accept failure as a step towards victory.
30. Have you taken a loss? Forget it quickly. Have you taken a profit? Forget it even quicker! Don’t let ego and greed inhibit clear thinking and hard work. (more…)