How to know when you are wrong and what to do nextThe feeling of ever admitting that one’s action is wrong is something many people never acknowledges, outside the works of trading, you get to see that even in a bilateral misconduct between two sovereign nations, it’s always difficult or maybe impossible for one of those countries to accept that there were at fault( being wrong), it goes on in every aspect of human endeavors, No one wants to take the blame.
Now let’s take a case study into the current invasion of Russia into Ukraine, you will get to see that none of the presidents according to their speech has accepted to be wrong in their actions.
Russian president Vladimor Putin while delivering his annual state state of the nation’s speech at the Gosting Duor conference center on February 21, 2023 did in his statement puts the blames on West and Ukraine for provoking conflicts while the president of Ukraine while replying to his speech did debunked the allegations of the Russian President. So the big question now is who is to be blamed? Who is Wrong?
It’s the same thing that applies to trading, so many beginners and advanced traders can’t really beat their chest to tell when their analysis becomes invalid so that’s the reason am here to fix things up.
What is wrong in forex?
I won’t quote any dictionary or trader but I will simply put it this way that wrong in forex is a level or stage where you find PERSONALLY that the trade setup you had plan to trade or that you had traded is no more valid, useful or won’t be profitable if traded.
The main keywords there are personally, profitability and traded. As far as wrong is concerned, it has to do with one accepting to the fact that a signal won’t yield profit because it had passed a particular level or structure.
How to know that you are wrong
I will like to drop some factors that will help you know that a setup is soar or is wrong.
You have to set up parameters before entering a trade: wheather you use pending orders or market execution, you shouldn’t rush into a trade because of how attractive or how sweet looking the candles are being printed on the chart without knowing firstly where you will consider being wrong in the market. For me, since we are in a very sensitive environment while trading, then I feel identifying where your wrong zone would be is more important travel where your profit target would be.
Use a well backtested strategy that you trust: Using a strategy that you trust would always enable a trader to quickly identify certain trade management levels. Let’s take a case st udy of a driver who uses one route everyday while going to and fro work at night, then unluckily for him, while returning from work at night on a faithful day, his head light malfunctions and then refuses to work, you will notice that with the aid of streetlight, you will be amazed that even under such mysterious circumstance, the driver would still manage to scale through the road successfully back home. Now you will ask how? This is because he has been using this route repeatedly and knows where there could be portholes and bombs so he would avoid those areas. Same thing applies with trading, when you trade a particular strategy day in day out, you will always at the slight of a fingertip be acquainted with where to identify your wrong level(stoploss) and you right level (take profit).
Be psychologically ready to accept that you are wrong: This is one of the major problems encountered by traders because most traders even when their levels or an intending structure they acknowledged as their wrong level are taken out (those who believes in closing trades manually), they rather believe that things could get better (trades will surely reverse) so they keep holding their losses till it gets out of control. As a trader, you must be ready to boldly acknowledge that a setup you saw due to some factors is wrong and then immediately close it without second thoughts.
Some technical tools and indicators to help you be aware of being wrong
Thank God for the recent innovations that has been seen in the world of trading. With this, trading has been made more smart and rewarding because of there sophisticated tools and indicators that have been made available. Here are some of the tools that can help you identify when you are wrong
Support and Resistance indicator by Luxalgo
As we all know, trading is all about identifying key levels and structures which turns to become support and resistance levels. This indicator by Luxalgo makes it more easy to quickly identify market structures and trends on each timeframe so one could use the indicator to set a particular structure which will be used as his or her wrong level.
ATR indicator
You(Mindset) indicator
This indicator surpasses all other technical indicators and tools because it has to do with the trader itself. Having to make use of those mentioned indicators is all dependent on you. This indicator determines the progress that you make in the industry.
After Losing, What Next?
There are some traders that would love to acknowledge being wrong in its dealings( setups or analysis) but their biggest question would be “After I agree that am wrong, what next should I do”?
According to a book titled “Mastering trading psychology “ written collaboratively by Andrew Aziz( founder and CEO, Peak Capital Trading Founder,Bear Bull Traders) and Mike Baehr( Chief training officer , Peak Capital Trading Couch, Bear Bull Traders), one of their est technical analysis trainee who they had in mind to reserve as their full time trader after encountering a loss( wrong) had this to say and I quote “This is embarrassing. I was doing so well alternating between real and simulator this whole week. These were my results:
Monday: 4 green trades out of 4
Tuesday: 3 green trades out of 5 trades
Wednesday: 1 green trade out of 1 trade
Thursday: 2 green trades out of 2 trades
Total: 10 green trades out of a total of 12 trades: nice profits, and feeling on top of the world!
And today it all fell apart in spectacular fashion. I traded like a maniac and finished with a huge loss. It was all a blur, but this is my recollection of the events in question:
After two small losses 10 minutes after the open, I was a bit shook. Then on my 3rd trade, I made a hotkey mistake and doubled up my position rather than exiting. That ended in a huge loss. Shortly after that, I made another hotkey mistake and took another big hit. I was a psycho- logical mess. Rather than walking away, I went on a rampage. I started trading stocks not in play (JD, BABA, MU), and was reckless and vengeful. I said to myself,
‘Fuck it, let’s go!’ (literally out loud) and fired away at my hotkeys like there was no tomorrow. By 10:30 AM ET, I was 0 for 7. By noon, I had made 13 trades. When it was all said and done, I had made 20 trades total (not tickets, but trades). Only 2 of them turned out to be winners. Talk about lack of self-control...
I violated every single rule that I had been following reli- giously all week. I stopped caring about those A+ setups and traded anything that looked marginally good. And since SPY was a roller coaster today, I got destroyed by questionable entries and ‘make-believe’ strategies. I kept trading the same stocks over and over, even after admit- ting they were not in play. I was trading like it was going out of style. I thought I could outsmart the market and get back at it. It wasn’t even about the money anymore. The losses were a foregone conclusion and had evaporated to currency heaven.
The sad part about this whole tirade was that I knew I was breaking the rules while violating them—and I didn’t give a damn about it. In the moment, I turned into the Incredible Hulk and everything switched to autopi- lot mode. I smashed at my keyboard like a savage. Everything I had learned up to this point in my (short- lived) trading career was thrown out the window. I had literally unleashed an animal that I had no control of. I’ve never experienced such poor self-discipline in my normal life—ever.
Today was a reminder of how fragile the trading mindset can be. All it takes is one moment—a FILG one —to send you spiraling out of control. All of these rules and checklists I had been adhering to were useless in the face of such madness. They were nothing but delicate paper walls I had erected to trick myself into believing that my emotions were in check. They came crumbling down under the slightest pressure. It was all an illusion; I was delusional.
I have a lot of reflecting and contemplating to do this weekend. I might take a break from trading to rebuild my psyche. Maybe I’ll visit a monastery to cleanse myself of all these trading sins. But first I need to forgive myself. Now I’m just rambling like a fool.
Thanks for reading, and remember—don’t trade like a crackhead”.
I know being wrong hurts but here are the remedies to do in such circumstances.
Shut down your computer sets for that day: The is a saying that “He who doesn’t bet the farm on one trade lives to trade another day. Setups as far as trading is concerned is a repeatable outcome, as far as your strategy has an edge, then your setups will always come. Move away for that day and return the next day.
Have a source of happiness: It’s not just shutting down the system but what do you do after putting the system off, you must as a trader have something that brings happiness to you naturally, it could be hanging out with friends, playing soccer or having some cool time with your kids or maybe taking some yummy ice cream or whatever. Personally when bad days or wrong days usually comes around, I do play virtual games and this just has its own way of making me happy. After shutting down, make sure you locate your source of happiness immediately.
Return like a baby the next day: The mind of a baby according to research is like a flowing river, it always keeps moving without thoughts of what happened previously, your mind as a trader should be like a baby. You should learn from your mistakes but don’t let it weigh you down. Resume office the next day with joy forgetting what occurred the previous day. Take trading decisions according to your strategy and let the trades play out.
Conclusion
The key take away from this write up is learn to adjust, learn to accept your wrongs and act accordingly to it. Digest this my write up efficiently and still check out for other other resources I will be dropping soon. Always try as much as possible to see how you can improve both yourself and your trading carrier everyday of your life.
SEE YOU AT THE TOP!!
Stophunting
Good analysts are not always good traders [Principle vs Emotion]#TommyLecture #PrincipleofTrading #TheoryofTrading #Emotion #Management
Hello traders from all over the world. This is Tommy.
How were your trades lately? The market was quite unpredictable recently showing high level of fluctuation which makes it harder for us retail traders to follow up. It sort of seems like a sideway trend in a big horizontal box but also within that, it also keeps surprising us time to time by showing extensive bullish or bearish rallies at unexpected price and time zones.
In this foggy arena, we traders make decisions to minimize risks based on strict criteria and standards of our own. Whether you are a long-term holder, a swing trader, a daily trader, or a scalper, we must take at least some risk for reward(return) and there is no complete risk-free strategy, market, or product in this world. Despite all these uncertainties in the market, as long as proper risk reward ratio and win-rate are secured in every trade, traders eventually will end up profiting theoretically and this is what makes trading different from gambling. To some people, what we do might seem like gambling on certain direction of trends and price action zones, but it surely is different from that we deal with numbers and consistency based on a highly reliable source called ‘Technical Analysis’.
Since all of us are humans carrying emotions, we often tend to narrow our sights desperately expecting only the best scenario. We easily get disturbed just by thinking about the unwanted results or potential losses and ignore the risks that we have to face every time. However, there are thousands of possible scenarios that can happen, and the market is not always on our side. Just remember that there can only be two possible outcomes for every trade we take; we either win or lose.
There is nobody on Earth who can win every trade maintaining 100% win-rate (Even you, Elon Musk!). Whether you like it or not, we are destined to encounter circumstances when market is just totally not on your side and if you are a wise trader, you would normally admit this very situation as soon as possible. Just because market did not flow as expected, it doesn’t mean that you suck trading. Good traders are not the ones that win every single trade but are the ones that can maximize their profit when market is on their side and minimize the losses when market is against their side. Nevertheless, there are some traders, many actually, who just hate to admit the fact that they are losing during position and they start to let their emotions kick in. Unfortunately, now or later, these types usually end up being in worse situation.
In this world, establishing and following consistent principles is much more important than analyzing the market (TA or FA). No matter how good you are at analyzing market, if you keep breaking promises to yourself, you eventually won’t be the survival in this market. I have seen so many traders thriving but end up losing all their money with just one tiny mistake. Always keep in mind that there are many traders who win 99 times and lose everything just by one simple mistake, letting their emotions be involved. Emotion in fact, is the biggest risk here.
For example, if you designed your stoploss and target price, execute your trade as you have planned. Don’t change your mind being agitated by lowering your stoploss or exiting position before reaching the target price. Also, if you have set your daily profits and losses, do comply! I have seen so many traders who could not just admit their loss and become irrational, insisting to take more trades and eventually losing much more. You should be familiar with calling a day if the maximum loss for the day, week, or month has been reached. I know very well more than anyone that you desperately want to recover all the losses and I even know that by 50% chance, you will successfully restore all the loss. However, by 50% chance you won’t. This terrible situation will seduce you to lose control, make biased judgement, and you will probably end up regretting.
Observing many of my fellow traders, students, and followers, I have performed some researches deeply about psychology and mentality of traders. When and where do most of the retail traders start to not obey their principles and in what process? Compared to the past, in recent market with numerous untraditional patterns and phenomenon, there are much more variables that easily lure traders to trade with emotions. In technical perspective, widening/broadening pattern, V-shaped bounce, long-tailed candle, double SR flip and master pattern, etc. are some of the major occurrences that weren’t quite common in the past. From these unfamiliar price momentum and flow, traders are highly likely to lose their temper and break their principle especially when they face these cases: stoploss hunting, bull/bear trap, target price missed closely, entry price missed closely, and breakout entry hunting, etc.
To illustrate in depth about the fundamental process why emotions are regarded as poisons when trading, I developed a simple model that depicts the relationship between trade setup phase and performance. In this world, ideally, if we can manage emotions perfectly like robots, our trading performance (profit or loss) should not affect the trading preparation/setup phase (Designing EP, SL, TP based on the deducted trend) and thus it would be a causal relationship where an independent variable (preparation phase) affects the dependent variable (performance) only in one-way. However, the more we let emotions kick in by breaking our principles, the more it becomes correlated between these two variables. In other words, as we fail to control our emotions, the performance will no longer be independent, and start to affect our judgement when setting up our next trades, either positively or negatively. This will eventually create a vicious cycle where factor A affects B, B affects A, and A affects B again, getting worse and worse just like sinking into a swamp. Therefore, as a wise trader whose task is to manage risk, it is integral to be able to cut this cycle before things get worse. We should know how to stop with a small loss, before it becomes a big loss due to that cycle.
Hence, it is extremely critical for us to properly design and obey the strategies consistently and carefully and regardless of the latest trading outcome, we should be as neutral, objective, and prudent as possible. Which set of principles, strategy, and mindset should be adopted to effectively eradicate emotional trades? I hate to say this, but the answer would be different depending on your trading preferences and your economical/technical/physical conditions. So first you need to know yourself. Here’s a fun fact; this thing called ‘trading’ lets you learn deeply about yourself that you did not even know before. Pretty cool huh? It explicitly lets you know how greedy, fearful, doubtful, and jealous you are under this social system called capitalism.
Once you find out about yourself through decent self-reflection, you then need to figure out your trading propensities and the strategies you are fond of. It is definitely going to be different for everyone. For some traders, a high RR ratio & low win-rate strategy might suit and vice versa for some else. Some long or short, some short-term or long-term, and some high or low leverage. It is significant to find the optimal combination of trading strategies, theories, and indicators as well as trading products and platforms, that fits your trading preferences and behaviors.
To give you a tip, make habit to always consider the risk first, before the reward. Consider the status when you lose money rather than thinking about the profit. In this way, you will naturally get a sense of weighting risks that you are facing. By prioritize risk over rewards, you will be less affected by negative emotions when you actually lose trading and will also help you efficiently manage your risk in advance.
Let's all become a wise and smart trader who are always prepared for the worst possible scenario. Remember, it’s not the win-rate that makes you a successful trader. It’s all about minimizing loss and maximizing profit. Thanks for reading my post.
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Stop Loss HuntingInstitutional investors have a profound impact on financial instruments prices because of their large volume trading activities. They can greatly impact the price of financial instruments, however making a material impact and hence decreasing liquidity to the point where there may be no one to take the other side of the trade is not something they desire. To fill their large in size orders with better price levels, Institutional investors need liquidity, they cannot just enter a trade at once, but they split trades over time and slowly have to build a position by hunting for liquidity. One of their strategic approach and the best way to get liquidity without making a material impact of the price and get filled in better price levels is Stop Loss Hunting .
A stop-loss order is an order placed to buy or sell a financial instrument when it reaches a certain price with the aim to limit loss on a position or protect profits.
Where do we usually place our stop orders? For a long trade example, usually we set them just below a support level, a trend line, a longer-term moving average, previous day low or a specific ATR percentage etc, which are highly predictable.
Institutional investors simply need to trigger stop loss orders of thousand of traders and since a key level is borken new traders joins by entering positions, making them take trades in the wrong direction, which as a result creates a huge supply with enough liquidity to absorb Institutional investor's demand with better prices
Some examples
Stop Loss houting can be observed frequently
Stop hunts - The retail traders worst enemy.STOP LOSING TO THE SHARKS
Why do 95% of traders fail? Because you learn from the masses, then you lose with the masses. You are being fooled by the banks & institutions.
The very core of technical trading revolves around support & resistance. You are taught to sell if price breaks support and buy if price breaks resistance, but you aren't taught to win - you are taught to lose.
The big cats in the market want you to follow these procedures so that they can manipulate the market to their benefit. When price breaks support, all the retail traders start closing out their buys - (stop losses hit) - and entering sells to follow the 'newly formed trend.' But after a 10-50 pip drop beneath support, price sharply reverses and shifts back to the upside with strong momentum, once again wiping out retail traders - and providing market makers with the best possible prices for optimal trades.
So stop trading like a retail trader, start thinking like a shark. Until then, you WILL lose.