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Self-Discipline in Trading

  
  Education
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Having self-discipline is having the ability to follow through on your plans and goals.  Often times we get tugged in various directions and enticed by making choices that don’t help us along our path to our goals and fulfillment.

“The path of least resistance is what makes all rivers and some men crooked.”
                                                                                                                               – Napoleon Hill

Self-discipline is the ability to make the conscious choice (ultimately it becomes a habit) of doing the thing that will move you towards your goal – and sometimes it’s the hard or unnatural or unpopular thing to do.  It’s foregoing instant gratification for the longer term objective.  Typically, however, people operate on autopilot and this is dangerous when you have not yet developed the right ‘habits’ for success.

In the trading game, you must have self-discipline. You must look at the entire forest and not focus on one tree.  If you get too caught up in each and every trade, you will lose sight of the larger goal.

The key is to care a lot about your overall trading progress, but not care too much about any individual trade.

Your Identity also plays a huge role in this because if you see yourself as someone who lacks self-discipline, then all the will power in the world will not overpower this.  You are someone, in your mind, who lacks self-discipline.

So the key components to have self-discipline in Trading are: (more…)

Are Great Traders Born or Bred?

  
  Education
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Harvard Business School Mark Sellers, founder of Chicago-based hedge fund Sellers Capital, argues that great traders are born and not bred. He believes that there are seven “structural assets” that cannot be taught, adding, ” They have to do with psychology. You can’t do much about that.”The traits:
1) The ability to buy when others are panicking, and vice versa
2) An obsession with the trading game
3) A willingness to learn from past mistakes
4) An inherent sense of risk based on common sense
5) A confidence in your convictions and a willingness to stick with them
6) An ability to have “both sides of your brain working” (i.e. to go beyond the math)
7) The ability to live through volatility without changing your investment thought process
I  think that some of the concepts discussed here are spot on (and I spend a great deal of time hammering home the importance of #7) , but I disagree with the overall idea that great traders are born, not made. I believe success in trading is not about a specific style, but rather about understanding your personality traits and then developing a trading style (and which product – i.e. stocks, commodities, fx) that fits you best.

31 Trading Rules

  
  Education
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  1. We are who we are and we start from where we start
  2. Each of us brings unique strengths to the markets
  3. Every morning we agree to play as delighted beginners
  4. Reality Pays. The more our minds model the market, the more in synch we get
  5. We build on our strengths and manage everything else.
  6. The outcome we have is the outcome we want
  7. If what you are doing isn’t working over and over again, re-examine your internal models
  8. Our internal process is more important than anything else because it drives everything else
  9. You have the resources to improve your mental trading game. Coaching just helps find them
  10. We begin our trading practice slowly and build it with flow and grace
  11. Lean into fear. Fear is a primary cause of failure
  12. If you are frustrated with the markets, that means they aren’t following the internal model you have projected on them
  13. We increase the level of our awareness rather than the intensity of trading
  14. As we expand our awareness, our interventions will happen sooner and be more creative and effective
  15. We respect ourselves and celebrate our profits no matter how large
  16. If we can experience a new behavior for a moment, we can experience it for a minute, an hour, a week, a year.
  17. Change happens when we experience a new behavior that is aligned with who we are, feels emotionally satisfying in the moment and takes us to where we want to go
  18. Avoidance is buying pain on credit with interest
  19. If self-criticism made us trade better we would all be rich
  20. We allow the markets to breathe through us
  21. The markets are messy, our information is imperfect, our systems will fail and we can still make money
  22. All trading systems are successful in some markets, all trading systems will eventually fail in all markets
  23. The markets don’t care about you or your position
  24. We seek the practice rather than the result
  25. Learn about yourself with the delight of an anthropologist finding a lost tribe
  26. We make internal maps of the market, but our maps are always distorted
  27. Our negative responses are created by our maps, not the market
  28. By changing our map, we change how we respond to the markets
  29. All our trading errors have an ultimate positive purpose or intention
  30. There is no “failure” just feedback
  31. You have all the resources you need, although some may be out of your awareness

Trade Your Plan

  
  Education
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After yesterday’s close, we received an e-mail from a long-time subscriber, who asked us the following question, “When you see a position that is going against you and the market is dropping, and you are losing money on a trade, but your stop loss hasn’t been hit yet, how do you stay with the position? What is your secret? Do you pullback and look at the big picture or do you simple assume its all noise as long as it doesn’t hit that lower low? This is my biggest problem with tracking your trades and most of the time you are right in holding on.” … Because we thought our answer to his question may be beneficial to other traders as well, we wanted to share our reply to his e-mail, which was…

“The key point you stated is ‘but your stop loss hasn’t been hit yet.’ When we put on a trade, it’s like entering into a contract, so we try to stay the course and simply follow the plan. Over the years, we’ve found it’s best to stick with our original analysis because we usually plan a trade at night, or in the pre-market, without the stress of live trading. During the trading session, in the heat of the moment, there is so much pressure that we have to fight the voice in our heads telling us to sell the position when everything around is crumbling. It basically comes down to planning the trade and trading the plan…easier said than done, right? Sometimes, if you have a feeling things are going bad, and you’re an active trader, you can maybe sell 1/4 or 1/3 of the position to ease your mind. However, you must have the discipline to get back in once the coast is clear. Try to lay out a plan, write it on paper, and stick to it. The one thing every trader must accept, in order to be successful, is a loss. You must be fully prepared to lose what you’re risking. Once you accept losses as part of the trading game, the pressure to be right is not so intense.

Look at trading like a pie chart

  
  Education
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  • Risk Management:  Stop loss, profit target, Risk / Reward, and position sizing.
  • Trading Game Plan:  expectations for the next session, Levels of Interest, and intraday tape reading.
  • Psychological Health:  Staying positive and keeping your head.
Notice the three green segments in the middle of the circle (that, as I was told today by a friend of mine, looks like the Google Chrome icon).  These three segments are isolated to remind you how crucial it is to have ALL of those pieces full of their green color while you’re trading – if one of them is missing, the other two will have to compensate for its absence.  If we took the above example, we would notice that the psychological health was damaged right away, as the trader immediately went into denial about the initial failure of his position.  The trader then got pissed off, and risked more money in order to compensate for his initial loss, damaging both his trading game plan and his risk management.  The center circle is now empty for this particular trader, and he has become a loose cannon.

Tharp, Trading Beyond the Matrix

  
  Education
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MATRIXVan K. Tharp came up with a terrific title for his latest book—Trading Beyond the Matrix: The Red Pill for Traders and Investors (Wiley, 2013). The reference, of course, is to the film The Matrix. “We live in a world of illusion shaped by our programming. And at some level, we seem to know that, and we seem to know that there is something better. At this point, you have a choice. You can take the blue pill and go back into a comfortable sleep where nothing changes. … Or you take the red pill and, as Morpheus says in the movie, ‘see how deep the rabbit hole goes.’” (pp. xxiv-xxv) (more…)

5 Thoughts for Traders-Must Read

  
  Education
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1.  We want all trades to be winners. The foolproof system for trading profits is attractive and the seller of such systems can be convincing, yet the profits are elusive.  The market could care less about our system, a past trading record, or the trading record of the one selling the system.  You do know that the market’s attorney requires that the following be posted in a prominent place…like on our foreheads beside the big L sign!: “Past results are not indicative of future returns.”  By the way, the market says, “you’re doing it wrong”.

2.  We want to add to losers. The last time I checked the only reason we add to a loser is when the discussion is about our weight!  Get on the scales and add up more losing pounds!  Be the BIGGEST LOSER!  The market, however, says the way to tip the scales in our favor is to add to the winners and lighten up on the losers.  To do otherwise is to “do it wrong”.

3.  We want to be right.  Two wrongs don’t make a right in life but in the stock market two wrongs (and plenty more) will help you get on the right road to making money.   The market says the trading game is about making money not about stroking the ego.  The “right” road is the “wrong” road when your on Wall Street.  Hey, if  you doing it to be right, then you’re “doing it wrong!” (more…)

6 Effective Ways to Trading Success

  
  Education
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1.  Identify if you really want to be a trader. Is this truly your desire?

Before you can develop persistence and eventually achieve success in the tough trading game, you need to first identify if this is truly what you want to do. If you are only doing this for the money then the odds of you making it through the learning process is very slim. You have to be ‘foolish’ enough through your initial losses to believe that you can rise to the top 10% of profitable traders. Most traders learning curves are measured in years not weeks so trading is more like getting a degree than reading a book over the weekend.

2. Determine your motivation. Why do you want to be a trader?

Motivation comes from a deep reason why we want to achieve or have something.  If you know why you’re doing what you’re doing, it gives you more energy to keep moving forward in learning and getting experience. If you are trading to make a quick buck, then you do not make that buck quickly you will join the quitters. If you are trading to have enough money to pay off your house in 5 years that will create the energy to drive you forward against the odds.

You can get through this first learning stage by writing down specifically all the things you want to have or accomplish through your trading.  List all your desires and wants, all the rewards that will come through you not quitting the trading game. This is what will get you through if your heart is in it. You need a very big bucket of carrots waiting for you on the other side of trading success to get through the whips the market will hit you with while you are learning.

3. Outline Your Definite Action Step

Identifying your wants or desires speaks of what you want to achieve.  Determining your motivation shows the reasons why you want to achieve what you want.  Outlining your definite action step is necessary to know howyou will be able to achieve what you want.

When you know how to get what you want, it makes it easier to achieve it.  To know how, it pays to do some research and planning of what needs to be done on your part.  Be specific on each step you need to take.  Identify at least two ways and plans on how you can achieve your goals.

4. Keep the right mindset, believe that you are going to be a winning trader. (more…)

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