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Self-esteem and Trading Acccount

Does your self-esteem rise and fall with your account equity? If so, your probably in for some difficult times ahead with you’re trading. For some traders, a trade is more than a trade, it can represent how successful they are as a person, how much status they feel, etc.  When your self-concept is closely tied to your trading outcomes the result is a yo-yo effect in terms of your self-esteem and your internal state.  And our internal state has a lot to do with how well we trade.

Trading already involves a lot of uncertainty, and tying one’s sense of self-worth to the ups and downs of trading is unnecessarily adding emotional volatility to the picture and is usually not a good idea.

Most traders need to work on being more resilient in the face of disappointment. Trading will always involve disappointments, its part of the territory.  A delicate balance between being fully engaged in the trade with a ‘watchful curiosity’ and without being overly attached to the outcome, is how many successful traders describe their internal state.

Damn Algorithms

What more is left to say at this point other than the fact that the hedge fund computers and their damnable algorithms have destroyed the integrity of the US futures markets. The sheer size, extent, ferocity and volatility of the moves that these pestilential computers are creating have rendered these markets basically useless for what they originally came into being for, namely, risk management for commercial entities.

—I am predicting here and now that unless something is done to corral these hedge funds, the futures market is going to become useless as a risk management tool for non-speculative entities.

—Maybe we all should just go the hell to sleep and wake up in a year and see if the chart has actually gone anywhere besides up and down like a stinking yo-yo.

Is Your Self-Esteem Tied To Your Account Equity?

Does your self-esteem rise and fall with your account equity? If so, your probably in for some difficult times ahead with you’re trading. For some traders, a trade is more than a trade, it can represent how successful they are as a person, how much status they feel, etc.  When your self-concept is closely tied to your trading outcomes the result is a yo-yo effect in terms of your self-esteem and your internal state.  And our internal state has a lot to do with how well we trade.

Trading already involves a lot of uncertainty, and tying one’s sense of self-worth to the ups and downs of trading is unnecessarily adding emotional volatility to the picture and is usually not a good idea.

Most traders need to work on being more resilient in the face of disappointment. Trading will always involve disappointments, its part of the territory.  A delicate balance between being fully engaged in the trade with a ‘watchful curiosity’ and without being overly attached to the outcome, is how many successful traders describe their internal state.