Just Just read this. Thanks Redneck. Good stuff in there! I am becoming person #3... I can feel the change starting to happen.
I am very emotional in life and especially trading, in beginning I would throw things, smash keyboards like you would not believe, walls, lights, windows, whatever I could get my hands on. Nothing worked to get rid of my emotions to losses, nothing. So it came down to building systems that I noticed when risk, my emotions reduced, I kept working and still work many hours a week on money management and very few hours at getting in. Well, as far as long term and day trading I am happy as risk is always as low as I can and still make consistent profits. I started two years ago learning options and after two long years of many hours been able to get risks very low as well. Trading is not like building a method and that's it, it is ongoing, have to check it each month or even each week during non trading periods, building new rules to keep you from trading is as important to know when to add to a position, you have to work beyond what everything you have read or talked about, you can ALWAYS do more, learn more. But I took an area called emotions and made a twenty year journal, and you can use it to one's advantage, you can score it and mark charts and even color bars to show what you feel when, to use to your advantage, I have become decent at knowing when highs/lows come in on ES based on happiness and fear. I often wonder if funds and brokerage companies have done so as well.
Day#4 - Went into the day, again, reminding myself to try and only trade from a calm place... and to make sure to identify market state throughout the day. Today was a tough day for me trading wise. I must have missed five or more entries by only 1 tick, or even traded at my price but no fill.... only to see the market move my direction substantially. Once or twice, you just write it off as bad luck... after five times, you are frustrated. So I had to work through that. Get up... get away... get relaxed and come back and trade. I started reminding myself, "Entering a trade, is like buying a ticket to see how things will work out." That analogy, seemed to relax me. Then I saw the market setup to turn lower, and I wanted to get short... But then I just had to fight with the fear of being wrong, the fear of losing. I must have pulled my order three or four times... then I realized, I wasn't in that calm place. I breathed, I got short... however, I was really pressed for time.... and I could just feel the angst. Suddenly, I realized what was happening... and at first I wanted to just keep trading, but I told myself... "HOW ON EARTH CAN YOU OBJECTIVELY LOOK AT THE MARKET WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE THIS?" That was it, I closed the trade... and unwittingly used a stop order to exit, which basically punched me out at market. Proving again, a rookie mistake like that, I really wasn't in the right frame of mind. However, I stopped... that was my goal. I also have had a major breakthrough in my thinking, which I will share later... some might say a miracle. I am good enough. +5
Bout damn time you figured out what the rest of us already knew btw If we didn't think so - we wouldn't be hanging out here Now..., along with this new found knowledge - comes the responsibility to act like it - every day..., every trade RN
Actually I come for the free donuts that am wondering if RN will ever provide. Yukoner, when you have emotional breaking points, what is the market actually doing? OK, in morn you was not getting filled, hey it happens. I have rules where if I don't make so much per hour, I don't trade and that is based on back testing, stats. So where else you emotions come in? What is the market doing to cause it, pretty simple. I have found each emotional thoughts I have is saying something to me and I am wrong 99% percent of the time of what I am seeing and what brain sees. Market rising, get excited watching it, I want to buy more and what would end up I buying high price only to watch it come down.
Day #5 - Once again, today I still had to face that fear of being wrong. Today was an amazing day for me to trade. I could see the setups so clearly. Saw the EIA number disappoint, and knew exactly what to do. But could I do it? It was like there was this huge internal struggle to enter the trade, and stay in the trade... even when it was so obviously the correct thing to do. It is this part of me that kicks in, worried about risk, worried about loss... rather than just focusing on the correct trade execution. So a few times, I had to just stop.... get away... calm down... and then I could see what to do. However, executing it and staying in it was much harder. Plus, once I knew the trade would have been profitable...then you want to chase it... or trade bigger. The good thing is this... I have at least figured out where a big part of this is coming from. For me, it isn't just the "lizard brain"... but it is the fundamentalist upbringing of a belief system that if you weren't perfect, you most likely were going to hell. So I have had to work through some of that the last several weeks. I can at least recognize more and more where it is coming into play... and with that recognition, I am able to start to change. Knowing that I grew up this way, certainly makes me understand why the fear of loss is so powerful to me.... or of doing something wrong in trading. (Note: One way I have found to release this... is to forgive.) In the meantime, this TST trading combine is an amazing (non-human) teacher... and my psych coach has been a huge help! And of course, gotta personally thank the two top guys contributing in this journal... @Redneck and @Handle123 with their unique trading wisdom.. and everyone else who reads or contributes here. Tomorrow is a new day. +2
I use to believe in all the same religion as you do, did..., one day it came to me, what if our time on Earth is Hell, I can't see living through all of this time of pain and suffering and working at stages of being a better person and mankind to end up in something worse than this? You say "forgive" and I say "accept", can't force anyone to do much until they want. I have noticed this week you are taking it personal again, you are the just the operator of the Trading plan, you not the designer when you are trading, that is a different part of you and that person either takes the profits or losses, the trading you is there just to take the trades as correctly as possible, trading you don't have losses. If you were the guy making the donuts, you not the owner. Some of my best days ever were couple bucks profit, usually fighting to come back. Just stay positive, you doing good.