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Setandforget

Set and Forget TradingThe Psychological Advantages of Set and Forget Trading Regimes Set and forget trading is a phrase that I coined in about a year back while taking classes with my students. It’s a trading approach that works if you follow it, to put it simply. For this reason, I write about it often, and my students no doubt understand the main benefits of the set and forget trading approach. However, in today’s lesson, I want to focus on the psychological aspects and benefits of the set and forget approach and why it will help your trading performance, based on my personal experiences. I get many of my students who email me regularly with success stories after they have adopted the set and forget approach. Hopefully, more of you will start trialing this concept because there is nothing that makes me happier than hearing my students’ success stories. Set and forget trading works partially because of the way it helps you to systemize the entry, stop and target of your trades. By allowing the edge to play out uninterrupted, without you fiddling with it for arbitrary reasons, your long-term trading performance will improve simply as a ‘side-effect’. However, there are also some very important mental benefits of set and forget trading which I don’t often discuss. In this lesson, I want to focus on the psychological benefits of set and forget trading to help more of you make the mental transition to this style of trading. By committing to the trade completely before you even place it, it means you’re identifying the trade, placing the orders and walking away with very little monitoring. It also means being at peace and avoiding the emotional ups and downs that come with watching your trades as they are live. It means walking away and letting the market ‘do the work’ whilst you go do something more productive or fun. It means removing yourself from the temptations of chart-watching and getting influenced by chart whipsaws from news releases, short-term volatility and so on. In short, it means setting and forgetting! Mental advantages… By understanding the mental advantages of set and forget trading, perhaps you will gain a deeper understanding of its power and begin trading this way sooner. Significantly Reduce Stress & Emotional Ups & Downs Trading can be as stressful or as stress-free as you want it to be, it all depends on what you do. If you sit there staring at the charts all night when you should be asleep, you are doing to drive-up your body’s stress response and your cortisol (stress hormone) levels will sky-rocket both from the lack of sleep and from over-thinking about your trades . Now, as if the stress wasn’t bad enough, it’s going to get worse. You’re also going to hurt your trading performance by doing what I described above, this will work to further increase your stress levels. Eventually, you will be tired, angry, frustrated, on the verge of tears and left with an empty trading account. By employing my set and forget trading approach , you can eliminate all this stress, worry and losing! Show me a set and forget trader and I will show you a stress-free trader who is on the path to trading success. There have been studies done on investors / traders and their trading performance in relation to their trading frequency, and they always show that less-involved traders do better over the long-run. Similarly, even though trading is a male-dominated arena, when women do step into it they tend to do much better on average than men. Why? Simple; they do not over-trade as much and they do not risk too much like many men do. The reason has to do with men having higher testosterone levels (a hormone that makes men take more risks and feel over-confident, things that can hurt you in trading). I have an article in which I discuss this female vs. male trading phenomena more in-depth, you can write to me to send you the article if you would like to get it: What is The Weakest Link in Your Trading? Suffice it to say, us men are not always right, and we can and should learn from women sometimes and trading seems to be one area where we can benefit from their seemingly innate ability to set and forget their trades. Help Cure Your Obsessive Chart-Watching Have you ever heard of positive reinforcement? It’s when you get a reward from doing the right thing, this will then reinforce whatever the ‘right thing’ was that you did so that hopefully you keep doing it. It works on kids and it can work on adults too, especially in trading. When you watch charts all the time, you are probably going to lose money, so the chart-watching is a negative behavior. The tricky part here is that the act of chart-watching can feel very good while you’re doing it (dopamine – the chemical in your brain that gives you the rush you get from the ‘hope’ of making money), so you are essentially getting a mental reward from committing a negative behavior and you are reinforcing a negative behavior by continuing to do this. Therefore, traders get stuck in an addictive cycle of watching charts, making the same mistakes over and over and losing money. But, YOU CAN STOP THIS and YOU CAN REVERSE IT! By utilizing set and forget trading you can literally begin to reinforce positive behavior rather than negative. This will work like a positive feedback loop in which the improved performance you see from behaving properly in the markets works to make you want to continue that positive behavior. It’s no different than someone who sticks to a regime of exercise over a period of months; soon enough the endorphins and improved strength and energy-levels begin to reinforce the behavior of working out consistently. Yes, in the beginning it may seem like a ‘boring’ chore you don’t want to do and it may even hurt a little, but rest assured, that pain is good for you. Setting and forgetting your trades is truly the key to eliminating almost every negative trading behavior that traders have. You need to implement this sooner than later. A man smarter than me once said; “Suffer the pain of discipline or suffer the pain of regret”. That means, pay your dues, be disciplined now and it will pay off later, or you can continue to act lazy and undisciplined and you will suffer the pain of regret later. Sleep at Night – Know What You Stand to Lose or Make Sleep is critical to all physical and mental process in the human body. There are thousands of studies on this. I can tell you for a 100% iron-clad fact that IF you are losing sleep from watching charts and worrying about losing too much or not winning enough, you are hurting your trading performance and you are starting down the road to reinforcing negative trading habits as we discussed in point 2. When you are using set and forget trading, your stop loss and profit targets are pre-defined, so you know what you stand to lose and what you stand to win on any given trade. I can tell you from experience, this makes it a lot easier to get and stay asleep at night so don’t under-estimate this benefit! This brings up another point: When you know what you stand to lose or win on a trade it goes a long way towards eliminating greedy behavior. Greed is a huge reason traders fail. It causes them to hold trades too long whether the trade is moving in their favor or against them. How many times have you been in a big winning trade and you didn’t take the profit because you had no profit target or because you moved your profit target from its initial setting? This is greed. Being greedy inevitably causes traders to end up with no money. Bulls make money, bears make money, Pigs? Pigs get slaughtered! That is one of the oldest Wall Street sayings and it rings louder than perhaps any other, still to this day. When you set a profit target and stick to it, you aren’t being greedy, so over-time you should end up making money. When you set a stop loss and stick to it, you can pre-define your risk to a dollar amount you’re mentally OK with (potentially) losing. When you adjust your risk properly and you know what you can lose, you should have no problem setting your trade and walking away. Disclaimer : There is never a 100% certain outcome for any trade and losses can sometimes exceed stop losses due to slippage. Exercise the Mental Muscles of Routine & Discipline When you make the commitment to start set and forget trading, you are kicking off a process that is self-reinforcing and will continue to strengthen the longer you use it. The power of routine and discipline, of repeating an effective system or process and staying accountable to THAT, will help you accelerate your development of the proper trading habits . Once you have the proper trading habits in place you will see improved trading performance which gives rise to a huge surge of trading confidence in both yourself and what you’re doing. This reinforces the routine you started with and it all stems from committing to the set and forget trading approach. Here is what this looks like in the diagram below. Notice that set and forget is in the center, because it really all starts with that idea – once you commit you will quickly figure out the proper trading routine from the help of my articles and trading courses , then it really starts to almost ‘take care of itself’ as long as you stay disciplined and stick to the set and forget plan. The set and forget ‘wheel’ of trading success: Confidence Through Achieving Better Trading Results Confidence in business, trading or even in your personal life is something that truly is so important that it has no dollar value; it is invaluable. Confidence breeds more confidence and it works to reinforce those positive trading habits we discussed earlier. By trading properly not only are you reinforcing positive trading habits but you’re breeding confidence in yourself and your ability to stick to a plan, this confidence helps you stick to what was working. It’s all a positive feedback loop as I said before. Confidence is spawned by the momentum of winning trades or at the very least, having better trading experiences and having more control over the capital in your account; the strategic planning that set and forget allows, that results in improved results. It’s not going to happen all at once, but over time, when you master this style of trading , you will start to feel more in control because you’re controlling the things you can and not trying to control the things you can’t (the market’s movement is uncontrollable). Being more confident will spawn more motivation to continue mastering the act of finding the trade and placing the trade. It’s just like the earlier example I gave of exercise; when you get over the initial ‘pain’ of it or the initial ‘I don’t want to do this feeling’ and you start seeing positive results, it’s going to inject you with a whole boat-load of motivation and confidence that will work to fuel your on-going progress and quest for being the best. This will give you the willpower and discipline you need to make it as a trader. Conclusion I focus on the set and forget approach and 95% of the time I will resign to the fact I’m about to lose XYZ or make XYZ on a trade; this works to eliminate the potential of making emotional mistakes. The expectancy of my trading method combined with the set and forget money management approach has helped me, as well as many of my students improve their trading. It’s not an exact science, and of course there will be times trades are adjusted and there are times that no amount of mechanical money management can override the natural human emotion of trading, but we are not after perfection, we are after training and exercising the mind to be able to let go of the need to control the outcomes and control the market, after all the market is going to do what it’s going to do with or without us watching it or trading it. All we can do is control ourselves and our own behaviors in the market and that is what set and forget trading is all about. Happy trading, CryptoKings! Do well to follow for more lessons and trading analysis....
Education
by Skuchies_CryptoKing
6
Gbp/Aud POTENTIAL Long Term Buy Set Up!My chart features a setup for a potential Gbp/Aud Buy. The top chart shows key support and resistance zones on a daily level. On the bottom chart, I zoomed out to show that price may be at support level for the ride back to the upside. My RSI isn't shown on here but if you're interested you can see there is a hidden divergence. With all of the news this week, I'm hoping to get another touch around my lower entry levels for a 800 pip potential trade. This is a 3.2/1 Ratio trade that I am willing to test my patience level and ride out for the long term, if things go according to plan. The Risk/Ratio goes lower for a higher reward if price happens to break below 1.79 and finds support down there. If price reaches 1.76, I may update for a selling opportunity. In all honesty, I am hoping for another run back to the 2.0 price, so this is a pair I will be buying on dips and monitoring very closely!
Long
by SlattYSL
2
Swing Trade Opportunity in USD/CHFBy the rule of Supply and Demand, Down trend was strongly started in Daily TImeFrame. Monthly Piercing Pattern at the Supply area and break of the trendline last month indicates that the price will fall all the way to Monthly Demand area of 0.91-0.94. # Weekly feshly formed CP supply took out the previous weekly demand Level # Daily original and fresh newly formed Supply Level Took out the daily demand (0.98-0.99).This validate sthe sell limit order at 0.99800. #profit Target: Close to the monthly demand area 0.95500 a sprice always drives from Supply level to the roigin of demand level.
Short
by Magnate7
4
Price High In Supply and FED's Dovish ToneIn Monthly Chart, Price has already printed the Strong Bearish Engulfing Candle on Jan 2019 after reacting to the 2017 May's Supply.Feds Dovish Tone and Impulsive move of Gold and Price of USD?CAD reacting to the Origin of supply just don't seem to be the co incidence. As you can see ,Price in Daily , weekly and monthly timeframe ,are perfectly reacting to their respective Fresh untested Supply Zone which hints the strong conviction for bear Run.
Short
by Magnate7
3
Bitcoin High on Weekly Supply Curveeventually ,Price has taken out the strong daily and weekly supply area (8100-8499) by the daily Continuation demand pattern (CP) 7882- 7436 which u can spot on my chart.as this level took out the Daily strong supply level,Supply and Demand Rules allows to put buy trade from this CP demand area. most importantly price has certainly consolidated as it neared the weekly Supply area which will put a strong resistance and allows to counter trade. In this context its is way risky to buy at all. how ever i am gonna add the small lot as the rules permits. However if the price breaks below the Daily Cp demand Level, theres a strong Cp pattern on weekly chart (5515- 4815) which gives the strong conviction to put buy limit order as our strategy.
BITFINEX:BTCUSD
by Magnate7
4
Location and Momentum Bull SetupPrice in Monthly Chart had tested the Monthly Demand area printing the long-tailed Hammer which aligns with the trendline from 2016 and 2018 Demand zone. This alone give the strong conviction for Bull run Like wise , Weekly chart perfectly re-aligns being tested the Demand zones which printed the Doji Last week.I expect the weekly112-114 area to be easily absorbed by the bull movement and target the 116 weekly untested fresh Supply area. As Daily Price has already Took out The Daily Supply CP and formed the Daily demand 110-109 area printing the CP where i will place the buy limit order .THis
Long
by Magnate7
Imbalances of Supply and DemandPrice has finally tested the strong untested Weekly and Daily Supply Zone. Percfect setup for counter trade with very small lot.Engulfing bearish candle at the Daily Supply zone indicates the significant imbalance. however, theres still a trendline holding the price supported by the Daily CP demand but it failed to take out the Supply zones .Hence it is more likely to be taken out by bearish pric emovement. if the price breach the Trendline and takes out this Daily Cp Demand, S?D rules states the downtrend is tarted, leading the price all the way to the origin of the bull move in Daily Chart.Thus all the way to Daily Demand. where i will Buy again
BITFINEX:BTCUSD
by Magnate7
Supply and Demand Imbalances of BItCoinPrice has finally tested the strong untested Weekly and Daily Supply Zone. Percfect setup for counter trade with very small lot.Engulfing bearish candle at the Daily Supply zone indicates the significant imbalance. however, theres still a trendline holding the price supported by the Daily CP demand but it failed to take out the Supply zones .Hence it is more likely to be taken out by bearish pric emovement. if the price breach the Trendline and takes out this Daily Cp Demand, S?D rules states the downtrend is tarted, leading the price all the way to the origin of the bull move in Daily Chart.Thus all the way to Daily Demand. where i will Buy again
BITFINEX:BTCUSD
by Magnate7
1
XAUUSD Short Trade Idea Intraday SELL LIMITClassic Sell for Gold Now what we see here is COMPRESSION INTO DEMAND. So we see buyers keep buying until price reaches too high for buyers to buy and sellers come into the market. On the 28th of Feb, we saw Gold begin its decline and that is where price is heading to now before it meets its demise and fall once again. Risk to Reward ~6 In my humble opinion, put a sell limit in that zone and forget about it. The SetAndForget Life. Lol. And you can place stoploss at the top of the zone. Apply proper risk manangement if you are taking this trade. This will turn out to be a long term trade eventually but for intraday traders, this trade should suit you well. Just be patient and you will be rewarded. Til we meet again
FOREXCOM:XAUUSDShort
by ricky1270