Is to find the high probability trade set ups all day every day. Once found, to jump in, If it works to add as much as possible and try to help exacerbate the move. The plan is to bail when I have a reason to. The plan is to take a loser as fast as possible when wrong and to enjoy seeing how fast I can grab my tail between my legs. The plan is to remember that it is work waiting for these set ups and reminding oneself that when emotions take over, the speed of damage to ones account is unreal. The plan is to appreciate doing this for a living and to work hard following these rules every day, all day.
you can't remove emotions (even when computers do trade, there's someone, somewhere who can get nervous and pull the plug in extreme market conditions). so you can't remove emotions. you can play tricks with them. it's not a typo. what matters are the actions your emotions trigger. know your emotions and the actions they cause. know the bad reactions and replace them with good reactions to these emotions. it's not a problem to have fear and hope (I read 'hope' by another member, I love it. it's not greed, it's 'fear and hope' that drive us nuts). the problem is when you react on them. accept these emotions. they are part of life. prevent them from forcing you in the bad habits you follow : the reactions. .. let me go further, with a great concept I pushed several times : fade yourself. if your reaction to fear is to leave the trade too soon, acknowledge the fear and stay in. if your hope keeps you too long in a trade and not trigger your stop, acknowledge your hope and replace the reaction : hit the 'close position' button. you see, the difficult path is to try to suppress emotions. it takes years to do that for a monk or an aikido expert. an easier path is to control the reaction. it's easier because you will 'feel' the trigger each time (fear or hope). as we know, this kind of self control is not enough to make money ! you need consistency in your trading. you need to lose money because you screw up your trading plan. if you don't have a trading plan with positive outcome, self control won't help you ! but if you do, consider my remarks. tntneo
tnt, good post. i particularly like the concept of fading one's self. i have effectively used this idea when in losing streaks--for example--- if nothing is working for you, when you see a perfect long set up--SHORT, and the opposite also applies. when one's intuition is in tune with the market, of course this is not what to do--but for those days when you are out of sync--give it a try, it works ! fade surf
some systems can't be faded. this is usually because the expectancy is negative in both directions. ie : stops (or exit with loss) are much wider than the average win. so I am not saying you can always fade yourself. what I am saying is this : - you should fade your psychological weakness. - you may fade yourself if your wins are much smaller than your losers (and you see few losers and many small winners). you can't really fade a 50% or 55% method with larger losers than winners. anyway, you probably want another system than that... tntneo
dorian had some issues painting his portrait according to oscar wilde, 777. he was a trader to himself, not a fader of trades. best, surf