Yes. Without emotion you will not have success. Paul Tudor Jones seems pretty emotional. Good video, suggest watching in its entirety. Shout out to Elliott wave @ 10:55 Timestamp 49:38 for his feelings about feelings in trading.
Self-sabotage is a thing and effects everyone even corporations and countries. However you make money in the world it will potentially manifest in subtle ways. Having a system could help solve this or it could help expose this phenomenon.
You are describing a trading strategy that is not common. Intraday and highly leveraged? Doing that for a while will turn anyone into a basketcase. Most traders are not basketcases or as unstable emotionally as I think you are implying. If most traders start from the same position, just average intelligence and common emotional control, then emotions are only going to negatively impact their trading when they are making poor decisions in trading. Could be their timing, their guidance, bad assumptions, ignoring fundamentals, trusting the wrong people, inability to read charts, etc. This is why the longer I trade, the more I see the importance of developing a good trading system and my own emotional difficulties are becoming less of a problem.... because I am developing a system of trading that prevents a lot of mistakes and helps to identify the setups I am looking for. Building a strategy that is successful and learning how to use it will provide the positive experience that keeps traders in the game. Even a Spock couldn't make money in trading without a good trading system or strategies. I think your description of the quick intraday trading is an example where emotions can momentarily kick you out of the game for a day, but a good trading system will get you right back on track. Edited to add: maybe I should describe the emotions that I am referring to. I am thinking anger, excitement, frustration, impulse trading, revenge trading, etc. The impulsive reactions that cause many errors that kick us out of the game. A trading system, meanwhile, includes some risk management and position sizing but I wanted to list that separately in my op.
Bonuses were allocated from my boss. Company had to make money or no bonus. Department had to make money or no bonus and the department would likely be dissolved. Each trader had to meet target returns or no bonus and likely firing. The amount of bonus had allot to do with amount of funds allocated. If a trader made x or x+10% it didn't make much difference in bonus. My pnl was never down much so I didn't think much about it. I concentrated on the process not the outcome. My largest losing trade came on the first day of the ground war in Iraq. I had a short position going into it. I left work and by the time I got home my position was stopped out with a larger than expected loss. I beat myself up for a day and made it up in a couple of days. My boss was much more emotional. I had a short position on during the mini crash in October 1989. I had called to close the position but I didn't get a confirmation for a couple of hours because everything was backed up. My boss called me every 10 min. to find out where I got out of the position. He went crazy we he found out his department was net positive for the day. To me it was just another trade.
It’s not that I think / imply that most traders are emotionally unstable basket cases. Everyone has emotions; however, the key point is to understand that the best traders don’t let their emotions interfere with their clarity of mind. We’re all (including you and me) biologically wired to lose money in the markets. It is called ‘Prospect Theory’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospect_theory Unfortunately, sometimes trading attracts people who are not suited to trading, for example those who are attracted to make lots of money, or willing to take high risks, or seek excitement, or simply react to trading’s wins/losses with emotional intensity which causes them to lose their clarity of mind. The statistics seem to confirm that most traders fail. The best traders (learn to) think differently. It’s not so much that they’d have superior technical edge, but rather psychological/mental edge. "Everyone gets what they want from the market". ~Ed Seykota~
The best timestamp in that video is at 16:54, PTJ demonstrates how to control your emotions while trading..
Hello TradeBlazer, Emotions, mental thinking, has NOTHING to do with sucessful trading. To be sucessful at trading, you have to Make alot of money.
The ONLY way to control emotion is if you don't over size. If you only have a 10k account and are risking 1k you are going to hate trading. If you have 100k and are only risking $300 you won't give an f.
Are you an active trader who frequently scans the markets for new opportunities and enters and exits trades?