Im not sure why you got the impression I made a DAX trade. I just made the comment this morning that it was pretty erratic. Its too thin for me. I know I have some psychological problems. Thanks for trying to help.
No worries. No bad intents at all! I'm not saying you have psychological problems, by the way. I'm only pointing out psychological traps! We all have them, but the biggest challenge is to admit & face them - As soon as they appear! And point at them with a stretched index finger! Unless we're prepared to do so, and do so every time it happens, we can't get anywhere as traders. There is nothing more important that honesty, and particularly honesty with yourself. This is probably my #1 rule.
Why not look on eSignal's site? They've got a comprehensive symbol guide. Take one minute. Be inquisitive, but please don't be lazy. Cheers!
Well, there's no point in trying to tell you "it just will", so do you mind if I tell you a few stories? I have just finished an Advanced NLP Practitioner Course, which lasted several months, over many, many modules. It has enlightened me in many ways, it has incredibly increased my productivity, confidence, performance, communications, health, and many more. Through it I have eliminated some of my worst problems, fears and health issues. Sounds crazy? I would have said the same some time ago. I think very differently now. Most of your world and your reality is in your head, and rooted right there. Getting ahead in NLP, I've seen some amazing things. Not sure if I told you, but I used to have probably the worst hayfever in the world. I used to sneeze about 3 times a minute, could hardly see or breathe, for almost 2 months a year. It took my NLP coach about 15 minutes of eliminating a subconscious belief, 3 days later I realized it was gone - Apparently forever. It took my weeks to believe it myself, but it's really happened. Is it astounding? Well, to most NLP'ers it isn't. The hayfever cure or quit smoking cure is what NLP'ers a "party trick". No kidding. The master practitioners do much more powerful stuff, such as deleting phantom pain, curing disease, reframing limiting beliefs, re-building people's model of the world, curing phobias, making people enjoy the things they hate most (again, no kidding), and particularly psychological problems. Oh, and of course deleting cell memory (making scars disappear), that is another really amazing one. Myself, I've had to do the reframing, model-of-world modification, Godiva Chocolate Pattern (making you love things you hate), aversion/association cure and phobia cure so many times for qualification, it's not funny. I've done the phobia cure on several people. I tell you, nothing is more amazing than doing a 15-minute session with a serious arachnophobe (as in: merely hears the word "spider", will get pale white, sweating, and risk of seizure, you would be terrified just at the sight of it), and then have that same person sleep a night over it, then pick up a huge crossed-back spider and let it walk over her hand, saying "how interesting". Mind you, I don't fear spiders, but even I still don't pick them up unless I really have to. Not a good idea in Australia, anyway... Anyway. I think you know what I'm getting at. The most amazing thing though is a lady beknownst to me, who was a master NLP practitioner and cured herself from a tumour the size of a basketball, to evade a potentially deadly operation and chemotherapy. The doctor gave her a month, and she did it in a month. Afterwards, the tumour was diagnosed as "never there". Many people know (have seen) that she was suffering heavily from that huge tumour. Nevertheless, the doctor denied all of this and labelled her medical record as "misdiagnosed", to protect his own credibility, integrity and that of the medical association. That's the reality of the medical world. In old China, doctors were paid as long as people were healthy. As they got sick, the doctor's salary went to 0. If they didn't find a solution soon, they were fired and exiled. Do you think those doctors would have denied any kind of medical breakthrough or opportunity? No. Today's pharmaceutical and medical industry is the exact opposite. The deeper you get in, the sicker you get. Your doctor only earns as long as you're sick. Why am I saying all this? Because I'm making a point about beliefs and attitudes. All this lady did to cure her cancer was modify her beliefs. As typical for NLP, she deleted/reframed the subconscious secondary reason for having the tumour (in this case it was merely having an excuse, being pitied and getting attention, some people have all kinds of reasons), she realized it, realized her situation, did it, slept over it, and her tumour started shrinking and being absorbed into her body. As there was no more reason for a tumour to be there, it simply vanished. To the uninitiated, this sounds like something from a story-book, but it's nothing surprising (yet still amazing) to any NLP student and practitioner. Reason? The #1 rule of NLP is that nothing in the universe can exist without reason. Nothing. There must be a reason for anything of matter to exist and cohere. As the reason for existence vanishes, the existence of the state or matter itself must, by necessity, vanish, to make place for things justified in existence. Both Einstein and Hawking were (are) major thinkers in this field, and built a lot of fundament for this in nuclear and quantum physics, declaring anything being only energy by origin, until concentrated into matter. Thoughts, as Douglas (Trading in the Zone) also pointed out, are energy, since they fall under no other definition. Therefore, the transformation of thought energy into materialization is only the next step. You may say "Well, it takes a lot more energy to transform anything into matter than just that." No, it doesn't really. Well it does, but it doesn't have to happen in a single, 1-second implosion. All transformation of energy into matter happens, and generally slowly. How about plants? How about yourself? Weren't you energy once? Well, you were younger once, much smaller, even smaller, just a baby, just a foetus, a division of cells, a single cell, a single spermium, the desoxyribonucleic acid components in a spermium's head, the molecules in those acid components, the atoms in those molecules, the neutrons, protons and electrons in that atom, the single quarks in those neutrons, protons, electrons, and finally, on the sub-quark level, a reaction of non-material energy, an energetic encounter. You are nothing but the result of an energetic encounter. You can take that many ways. I don't know if you can still follow me, but that's basically it. Coming to cancer, it's exactly the same. Cancer originates from a single cell, from a single occasion or thought or impact of energy. Proof? Skin cancer, for example. People slap on lots of sunscreen, it's a waste of time 99.9% of the time. But in 0.1% of the time, it takes a single UVC ray (attention : sunlight = energy!) to hit your skin, corrupt a single cell and start an evil melanom. Australia's skin cancer death rate is the highest in the world. All it takes is energy. They did an experiment once, exposing a monkey in space to what was only a few seconds of "unfiltered" sunlight. Within a day, the monkey developed more than 2,000 terminal tumours on his body and died shortly thereafter. Astronauts usually have helmets and suits covered in ultra-thin gold foil, which looks golden, but is so thin you can see through it. Gold is 100% impenetrable to UV-C radiation, yet allows you to see through it. Now all this is why our ozone hole is such a worry. Getting back to the point of cancer: NLP says that most forms of cancer, at least internal, have a "secondary reason", something that is in some way "beneficial" to you. I know it sounds paradox, it sounded even more paradox to me with my hayfever, having a reason for it made no sense whatsoever. However, I had one. Mine was : Having an excuse for staying inside, to read books and spend time on the computer, when I was a very young boy. As I developed hayfever, I suffered so much that I couldn't be forced to play outside, so I stayed inside and read and read and programmed, whatever. All along, of course I didn't know any of this. It was a pain in the arse to me all along. Retrospectively, however, it all made perfect sense. As my coach went into my subconscious, found the reason and re-framed it, I went back into my past, talked to the "younger me", and told him that he is now grown-up and no longer needs to have an excuse, since he can do whatever he likes, whenever he likes. He no longer needs hayfever, since it's unnecessary in every sense. Then I came back to the "present", and in the present state, the person that has been truly convinced to change in the past is logically already long modified in the now. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Well, I was surprised at the outcome myself. It took 2 or 3 days until I realized all my hayfever had disappeared. It didn't come back. This was a major physiological change to me, caused by nothing but my (subconscious!) mind. Today, nothing has changed. I still don't want to go outside much (LOL), but I no longer suffer from something that takes my freedom to do so even when I choose to do so. I am no longer a slave of my subconscious mind. Isn't this just another wake-up call for the power your subconscious can have over you? Worse even, our subconscious even constantly tries to take control of entire parts of our life, sometimes to a terrible and notorious extent! We simply call them 'habits'.
Whether you choose to do so is up to you. But it would be smart to internalize the reality of the impact of every conscious thought on your subconscious. For trading, for life, for anything. Whenever you think something negative, this can have a massive, all-encumbering, universal effect on your mental state, health, and physical state and health, plus with every negative thought, you immediately release neuro-toxins and free radicals, which cause cell-ageing, stress, heart disease and cancer. If you, on the other hand, think a positive thought (or have great sex LOL), you will release endorphins, which in fact swarm out to fight free radicals and neutralize neuro-toxins. This sounds like planet of the apes, but this is real stuff that's been proven to happen inside our bodies, merely caused by thoughts - energy inside our brain. Talk about "the chemicals between us"... Bottom line is to think positive. As the book title goes "You can't afford the luxury of a negative thought". Don't even think about it. There is no benefit, whatsoever, in thinking negative - ever. No matter how bad you feel. This is, ironically, particularly important WHEN you feel bad! The worse you may feel, the more you have to think of things that make you happy. The more positive you have to be. If you're in pain, don't give that pain or disease the right to make you feel bad. Take away it's ammunition and counterattack with endorphins. In one sentence: "Don't Worry - Be Happy!" Honestly: NLP isn't just about happiness, or curing diseases or conflicts - It is a complete path of change. NLP was developed by John Grinder and Richard Bandler, a linguist and a computer scientist (who participated largely in the development of C at the time) at the university of California, about 30 years ago. They wondered to each other if there was a way that we could program our brains to do certain things with language, the same way we can do with computers. Therefore the name "Neuro Linguistic Programming". It's not charlatanism. It works. And particularly many traders use it. A very known man in the field of NLP for traders is Charles Faulkner, who has been portrayed in "Market Wizards". The basic rules of NLP are very basic. But the in-depth understanding and application of permanent change and self-accomplishment require a more in-depth education. I recommend you find an internationally accredited NLP trainer through INLPTA and take a course. The qualification will also look good in your resume, if you're ever intending to work in your life. Scientist.
Yea.. I've got that book in my library. I think these books are good to get some ideas and to establish a framework but I've learned over the years it comes from deep inside ones self. I still like the analogy to music, I play and have studied classical music for over 30 years. Early on you focus on learning to read music and learning all the technicals of playing an instrument, I've spent countless hours listening to Casal, Yo Yo Ma and Seqovia but in the end you have to find it and pull it up from deep inside for yourself. Trading and getting past these mental issues is the same thing. I acknowledge that it's a constant battle for me but I trade pretty much at peace and I generally realize when I"m off balance and keep myself under control. Douglas' concept of draining energy from bad fears and redirecting those energies to good experiences probably has some validity. However I think in the end you have to just decide to deal with that stuff and do it. For me it boils down to making a living and enjoying doing so. You sound like you have many opinions about the best way to do it and I'm sure there's alot of good stuff if I could muster up the will to read thru it all but I'm really not looking for an "answer", I've found a way to pay the bills and have a little nest egg, I have a a happy family life and the flexibility to appreciate the value of my llama compost. I'll let you guys deal with the inter workings of the mind Hope 2004 is prosperous for everyone.