First of all - Happy New Year. I don't consider it New Year for trading till well into week 2 as it's often low on volume (and I also like an excuse to extend the vacation). January is typically a tight month where a lot of people are paying for the Christmas and New Year excess but it's also a month to which many people attach a lot of hope. Setting a New Years Resolution and then somehow blowing that out the window with a single point of failure and then back to the old bad habits. The New Year should not be set up as a line in the sand, which when crossed means any good intentions get binned. So if you gave up drinking on Jan 1st and had a tipple on the 5th, that doesn't mean you should now spend the rest of the year totally blasted. The New Year "line in the sand" is completely artificial. Pats on the back for good days are much better for you than jumping off a cliff after a single screw up.. The Perils I spent a lot of 1 on 1 time with traders in 2019 and it seems that the biggest issue we dealt with was going off plan. I don't mean the odd one or two trades, I mean completely off the rails for a day. We've discussed this in webinars before. Previously, when I'd start working with people, we'd start to look at technique first, to quantify the edge, then move on to the application part. Now, I don't bother with that, we start with what they have now (or a cut down version if there's too many setups) and just see if they can stick to it. In 90% of cases, people cannot stick to a set of rules for a straight run of 5 trading sessions. It's fascinating and frustrating, to some I've recommended going for NLP/CBT sessions because they cannot align their behavior to their goals. Continued here.....
Real edge takes priority over discipline. If you have a real edge and it's actually quantifiable you can delegate most of it to a robot. All this psychology stuff is needed cause most are just trading randomness
Plenty of action this start of year. Has been great from the start and I'm forgetting about the crappy 2019.
Many traders are in a chicken and egg situation when it comes to edge & discipline. Most lack perhaps the most important edge that most interns at prop firms have - the ability to get fired for not being disciplined.
Good and bad disciplines feed on themselves. Assuming you have a viable plan and methods, when you follow your plan and make money it is not too difficult to stay on track. A few thing that tend to throw people off track: Huge winning streak and then go into a boredom what the heck trade. Error in analysis by missing a trade entry rule resulting in a losing trade. Exiting a profitable trade early and leaving a lot on the table. Missing a large move that your rules didn't pickup. If any of these things happen forget they did and continue with your plan,don't alter a good plan and try and grab anything to get your money back,the market will punish you dearly. Just my 2 cents coming from past disasters. PS..Stay away from the computer if there has recently been an event which has upset you.The market is ready to take some of your money to put you in a worse mood.