Experience and mindset maybe the key to avoiding trading anxiety . Anxiety can be a problem for traders that have suffered losses. Anxiety can cause a loss of confidence, fear of mistakes, and take away your ability to be objective http://www.conqueranxiety.com/PDFs/Top100InspirationalQuotesforLivingAnxietyFree.pdf http://www.yourtradingcoach.com/Art...ing-Trading-Anxiety-through-Clean-Charts.html How do you trade anxiety free?
Is it not more to do with character ,bias,instincts ,traits ,emotions, etc? Does having a valid approach guarantee anxiety free trading?
No, it doesn't. I think what Lornz meant to say was "By trading a valid approach." Many people have a valid approach, but seem to be psychologically incapable of trading it because of bias, emotions, and certain character traits. When I was in my first year of trading I had the daily opportunity to mirror every trade of an experienced trader who utilized a valid approach (and produced around a 150% return that year), yet I never once took a trade with him because of my personal bias and belief systems. Once you trade a valid approach by the rules and experience a profitable end result despite having both winning and losing trades on a regular basis, it becomes routine.
It's impossible to trade anxiety free or stress free as if they don't exist. In reality, you can learn how to manage or control your anxiety or stress to minimize their impact on your trading. How do you manage or control such? * Grow trading experience * Get professional help (e.g. psychologist) to determine and resolve the causes when you strongly suspect that trading problems you're having is YOU and not trading related. Instead, you have personal baggage that's sabotaging your trading. * Maintain a simple trading routine * Stay physically and mentally healthy along with eating healthy * Learn relaxation techniques and make it part of your daily routine By the way, you had a similar thread like this in the past along with other topic involving stress, brain and so on. Have you discover that "trading psychology" is a key to your trading career in contrast to your mechanical/automated trading systems that many programmers say removes the "trader psychology" issue.
All jokes aside , trading psychology is more important than systems/methods.I really would like to understand how stress and anxiety affects trading .Sometimes anxiety prevents a trader from being profitable ,sometimes stress hormones affect decision making eg those panic attacks to cut profits shorts or cut good trades is all psychological errors. Most rule based programs fail because the rules for market conditions change regularly.
It has been reported that exposure to continuous stress is much more powerful then finite/discreet process. In other words, imagine someone in a poker hand for days/weeks at a time versus in a series of discreet hands. Due to this, I try to make the majority of my trades of a discreet nature -- that is clearly bounded in time and price. I think this is a large part of my success. I define my trades by time (and price) so that I'm not holding onto a losing position for a long time. For longer term trades, I am experimenting with vertical spreads which have give me a defined risk/reward and is therefore again bounded. I make a prediction or trade and its over. Then I start again... It helps to keep balance. If I start to lose then I'm done for the day -- sometimes it hurts my performance but having that discreet cut off is worth possibly losing a bit of performance. The long term benefits will probably outweigh the short term lost opportunity.
how can anyone you use the word "guarantee" with anything remotely having to do with trading? I guess like everything else, people want it all to be so easy; no effort, no stress, no anxiety, no sacrifices, no work. No wonder Europe and USA are in such bad shape. no wonder people blow up and can't make money in the markets which offer all the money in the world, daily. lol There are many things to do that are more anxiety-free; why did you decide to trade volatile markets??! And, yes, having a plan and feeling some control over your decisions tends to reduce anxiety. How is that different than any part of life!!??????
What markets are you trading ? What is your sizing relative to your account size, and what is your typical holding period timeframe ? BTW, I second iceman's comment regarding the use of the term 'guarantee' in the same sentence with the profession of trading - if you really need to deal in absolutes, this is the wrong business to be in. Any vendor or C2 fantasy ranger that implies otherwise - run.