I got an idea last night. Using a pulse monitor ( like a pulse watch) to watch your heart rate whenever you enter or exit a trade... Example: Your normal heart rate in a relax mode is 60 beats per minute ( each one is different ) . Just before you are ready to pull the trigger, look at your pulse watch and write down on the chart you pulse rate. Mark it on you chart on every entry and exit . Now after analysing a few number of trades, you might see a pattern occur . Maybe on average when you took winning entries, your heart rate was at about 60 bpm ( beat per minute) but when you had losing trades, your heart rate was maybe at 100 bpm i.e. usually when stressed, your heart rate goes up. Monitoring your heart rate when entering or exiting a trade could help you when to take a trade or not, based on the stress level ( usually stress is linked with high heart rate ) . My hypothesis is as follow : if you are very stressed when taking a trade then you might not stay with the trade since you were not comfortable with the trade in the first place, therefore taking trades when low heart rate might be the best entries. ( this has to be tested ...who knows..maybe for another person his best trades were when he had high stress...maybe they work best under pressure ). - Another idea, would be to add keywords on your chart that would summaries the psychological state you are in at critical times. ex: if you are close to a support level and you are already in a trade, you could add the word : fear or doubt or panic or excited or anyother key word that described your state at that moment. Taking a screen shot, so that you can learn from that screen shot when reviewing it based on the price action that you were seeing RIGHT THERE at that time, is also a good idea. ========== Anyway this is all food for thought... I am going to play around with this idea myself. It would be nice to have a charting package that would actually monitor your heart rate curve and then superimpose it of your charts so that you could analyse your stress and excitement level compared to all the swings on the chart. ( maybe it could be a great entry signal too..who knows...try it out ) . I think one would learn a lot from it. Let me know if anybody knows of something like that or plans to make it...I would be very much interested. thank you. Sincerely, tradingkevin p.s. I have added a screen shot to show you a little bit what I mean.
My hypothesis is as follow : if you are very stressed when taking a trade then you might not stay with the trade since you were not comfortable with the trade in the first place, therefore taking trades when low heart rate might be the best entries. ------------------------- I like your idea. Personally, I think a higher elevated heart rate going into the trade may be better indicator than a high number under a losing situation. Positive indicators may generate stress and an elevated heart rate. If one does well under stress then you could be thinking more clearly and taking advantage of the stress at the entry. The elevated heart rate at the entry would be the result of different effects and affect the heart rate. A high rate under the circumstances of losing would be the result of different triggers.
There is a reference re heart rate in the book "On Killing" by Dave Grossman. "The range in which stress improves performance - is when our heart rate is between 115 and 145 beats per minute."
I think the more you trade the less your heart rate is affected at all. I'm pretty relaxed these days, because I don't put on a trade that hasn't given me strong signals and I'm ready to bail if it doesn't go my way. (An exception to this would be seeing "Trading Halt" come across the newsline :eek: )
it is not your heart rate, but your testosterone level that affects trading performance. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=124769&highlight=testosterone