Today I went through the free resources on elliottwave.com (three short PDFs worth reading) and then went through theharmonictrader.com patterns again to put the images in my screensaver. I already had the patterns except the reciprocal ab=bc in my screensaver, but wanted better images of the other gartley-like patterns then I currently have from my scans of Suri Duddellaâs book. Okay, I have a few minutes so Iâd like to talk about the importance of mindset and approach to the market, namely the idea that the market is what you make it. When I started this game paper trading, I went straight for the 1 min timeframe, an environment of extremely fast-paced action where surely only the true professionals can survive. It was my belief that the experience would be an enormous learning curve but possibly the quickest to being a professional trader. However, after a certain amount of time, my mind couldnât handle it anymore. It was too much information too quickly, and I fell off the learning curve. Every time I thought I was making progress by seeing some patterns, I saw as many that failed. I couldnât filter the noise from the meaning, I couldnât have confidence in anything I was doing, and I wasnât learning much as I was letting my mind be tossed around with the emotions of the market. The amount of pressure I had on myself was immense, and I was trading without any concrete guidelines or strategies, meaning every trade came purely from my thoughts on price action, which came crashing down when I was wrong. I was in far over my head. In comparison, simply watching the 15 min and hourly is practically the opposite. I donât commit myself to positions so I look on it from afar and with open eyes, I have time to analyze and to think, and I have time to learn. Trends are larger and more important, so I can reason far more out of them. Trading the daily or weekly, although it would seem to put more stress on individual trades and decisions (each one more directly decides if you meet living expensesâ¦) as well as slow the learning process of trading (days or weeks for a trade to turn out) it, seems like it could actually involve very little market stress. Of course, my guess is that experienced traders no longer feel the wide emotional swings, and instead view the market with a positive expectation, and trade with a strategy that suits them. Likely comfortable, nearly risk free approach that quality money management and tact. In conclusion, the mental approach to the market is very crucial. I believe it is important for all traders to analyze themselves and their personality, and how they want to view, learn, and trade the markets very carefully. This should involve careful anticipation of how the market might exploit your weaknesses, whether or not you think it will have an impact. If the market wins, it is time for a reconstruction of your approach. Unfortunately, as a beginner trader, I never fully appreciated the concept of taking in the market and trading in a way that suits my personality, even after traders told me this dozens of times. Ironically, I think this experience may have been better to my trading then adhering to other traders. Having the market completely conquer me mentally and emotionally (although I'm sure not in the same way as Rsikit), only to start over gave me an entirely new view of its power over people as individuals. I would like to tie this up, but I really canât reflect on what this means in becoming a trader. I guess keep up with the thread and we will both find out.
I'm continuing this thread in the journal section, especially that all I'm doing now is reflecting on me watching the market lol. http://elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=147949 Please post any replies there, and thanks for everyone's help and support. Regards, Greg