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Trading Psychology

📖 STEP 3 to MASTER TRADING: WHAT’S YOUR TRADING EDGE? 📖The topic of trading edge in the market is highly underrated, in my opinion. That’s why today I propose to discuss it, and I hope it can help you to shift your perspective on this matter. So let’s think about this together. What parts does your trading edge consist of? 🟩 THE BIG FILTER For me, the first part of any trading edge is its filter. So your trading system tells you very clearly when you should NOT be in the market. It protects your capital - both $ capital and emotional capital - from poor market conditions, and low-quality and low-probability setups. And what it actually means when you execute your edge is that most of the time, you will stay out of the market. 🟩 YOU WILL “MISS” THE MOVES That’s really tough topic for many of us, me included because very often you’re looking to enter the zone, but the price can either turn right before tapping into it or tap and doesn’t give any confirmation for entry. And that could be very emotional. However, the fact is simple - such “missed” moves are also part of our edge. Why? Because if you tested one set up, one pattern, and you know it’s profitable the way it is, then you need to execute it the way it is. Keep in mind, when I say profitable, I don’t mean crazy profitable. Today, with access to prop firms, we need a very low % of profitability to earn for living. We can scale the $ amount relatively easily if we are profitable consistently. So again, we don’t need every move, and we don’t need the whole move. We just need some part of some moves - and a good edge will make consistent profits out of this. And only then, if you want, you can tweak, refine and step by step make your system even more profitable. 🟩 THE PATTERN This part is actually your entry pattern. Notice again, this is just a part of your system, not the whole system. If you really understand this, you’ll be much more relaxed in the market. This part should include a written checklist for your entry - just like a pilot has a checklist before his flight. A checklist, in its turn - is a part of your trading plan, it’s the essence of your trading plan. You will refer to it before every trade. 🟩 MANAGEMENT, LOSERS AND BREAKEVENS When you executed your edge in the market, now you need to manage the trade accordingly, based on your checklist. So take partials, accept breakevens and losers. If you entered into a high-quality setup, which turned into a BE or a loser - it’s the part of your system, and usually, it doesn’t make sense to overthink it and try to find flaws in your system. But that’s flexible, and of course, you can analyze what happened, and maybe even find something to tweak, but very often a loser is just a normal loser, and breakeven is just a normal breakeven. 📖To recap, any edge will include: 🔹“missed” trades 🔹trades, where price didn’t tap into your entry order just a bit 🔹trades where you were stopped out for several pips and price then went to profit (if it repeats constantly, maybe consider having a bigger stop loss) 🔹full TP 🔹partials 🔹losers 🔹breakevens 🎁If you’re still here, here’s a BONUS trading hack for you. Ask yourself and try to answer honestly this question: “During all the time I’m trading, what is the maximum amount of days in a row, when I followed my rules to the T, honestly?” You will be surprised, but the usual answer is 3-10 days. Yes, people can trade for 2-3 years, but never manage to follow their rules (whatever they have at the moment) for at least a month in a row. It all leads to catastrophe, of course. Thank you for your time! If you want to see more educational materials, please hit the BOOST button and leave your comments below. Dima
FOREXCOM:XAUUSDEducation
by Yelli_trades
7
STEP 2 to MASTER TRADING: what to do with the NEWS. NEWS BRING TERRIBLE TRADING CONDITIONS During release, spread is all over the place, in addition you can easily miss the fill. So actually worst time you can enter a position is on a release itself, hoping price will rise or fall. But usually, price will make massive moves up and down, liquidating hopeful "news traders" before going in either of direction. So next time when you will regret you were not involved in the news move, just remember that you would not have a good entry point anyway. PRICE CAN GAP BELOW YOUR STOPLOSS Another really important thing to keep in mind is that very often during red news, price can momentarily and significantly gap, and now instead of your breakeven or usual -1RR, you'll have -2 or -3RR, and what's worse - you'll have a big drawdown in your emotional capital. ILLUSION OF UNDERSTANDING Sometimes beginners, and even advanced traders, fall into this illusion. Someone reads 5 articles about a specific news type, and now begins to think they understand how the news will effect the market. In reality, each trading instrument is effected by hunderds of factors, and anyone who wants to understand them, should spend months, even years with that one instrument, learning literally everything about it and what effects it. Everything else is just gambling or being naive. EFFECT HAPPENS BEFORE THE RELEASE If you've being familiar with smart money or institutional trading, ideas of Wyckoff, you'll know that institutions position themselves long time before news release, during accumulations and distributions. Market structure gets established long before actual realease, and what news do are just producement of sporadic moves, grabs of liquidity and easy manipulations. But only 0.01% of news actually change pre-established structure and starts a new trend, big picture doesn't change because of news. What actually starts a move and a trend are accumulations and distributions, and news really can be a part of it, but only a small part. SO WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE NEWS? 1. Check red news releases during your day. Don't enter 15-30 min. before and after the news. 2. If you're already in a trade, and price came relatively close to your entry, it's better to close out the position now, because remember that price can gap below your stoploss. 3. If you're positioned in profit significantly away from the price, leave the position open. So to recap everything above, you need to trade YOUR SYSTEM, YOUR EDGE - for me it's structure, SnD and confirmations - but also we need to acknoledge the short term chaotic news effect, and use our knowledge to manage risk and that's all. Hope this post give you better understanding what should you do in order to become a successful trader. I will be grateful if you support this post by smashing the BOOST button and sharing it with other traders. Thank you! Dima
BINANCE:BNBUSDEducation
by Yelli_trades
1
How to control your trading mentality 🧠Mental training helps individuals to improve their performance by preparing their emotions and mind. Focus, confidence, and motivations are important factors of mental factors. According to a study done at Brown University, it may be possible to train your brain’s automatic emotional responses. It may improve your experience in trading. To be a mentally tough trader, one should tap into his emotional and mental resources that keep his mind in check at its peak as often and consistently as possible. One may make wrong decisions when he/she is unstable emotionally and mentally. Stop 🚫 It does not matter how you good or how experienced you are in trading. If you don't see the whole picture 100%, your trading experience would end unsuccessfully. What happens when you keep hitting that stop loss and losing money? Your body starts to release cortisol, the primary stress hormone, which increases blood sugar in the bloodstream. When cortisol level is more than normal, you will have high blood pressure, will become agitated, irritated and start to sweat. You have to STOP! You will only lose more if you continue to trade. Take a breath and take a step back. When you come back, you will have a better perspective and a better picture of how to trade. Accept ✅ Every trader has their own pace of learning and trading. Don't compare yourself to others. Your friend may have started earlier and made more than you. You just have to ACCEPT! Trading is not about competition. You cannot start trading with a competing mentality. Don’t take a higher risk than you can handle. If you have only $100, just accept that you have $100. 100 is a start of a bigger number. Don’t follow social media group who claims how much they made and how easy it is. Your brain may unconsciously make competitive decisions. Make a plan 📝 You have to make a plan. You may have made a plan and failed. Let me tell you what worked for me. Like many traders, I lost in the beginning. The more you lose money while trading, the more you focus on the money not on the trading. When you focus on money, you may try to find money by different ways; borrowing, stealing and some in easy ways. To make a plan to trading, you have to see the whole picture; the risk, the situation it is creating for you, your family and finance and your future. Summary It is important to stop when you are overwhelmed and take a step back. When come back you will see how much difference it makes when you are calm and in control of your emotions and mind. Accepting that you have your own pace of learning and trading is also crucial in trading. Last but not least, to make a plan consider the risk and the situation. Be prepared and be in control of your emotions. Now you know when to stop and accept. You are ready to start your trading journey. Don't put at risk what you already built. Take it slow at your own pace.
CME:BTC1!Education
by YertuntsTrader
8
STEP 1 to MASTER TRADING: Hindsight trading. Train your eyes.A common mistake that traders make after learning any kind of trading setup is jumping into backtesting using a replay tool, or even live trading. However, if you think about it, trading is very much about pattern recognition. And when you force yourself into live trading without a proper understanding of what your patterns look like, most likely you’ll need much more time to succeed. A different approach and much more effective would be using hindsight, that’s when you see what actually happened. During this process, try to find at least 50 high-quality setups, that represent your trading system. So you actually see everything that happened and find situations, where your edge played out, document it in your journal. That’s great training for your eyes and brain. You don’t need to guess, you will not feel anything, because you already see what happened, you’ll notice that sometimes your edge, your system doesn’t give you entries and price goes without you, sometimes, you’ll see a loser or a breakeven after your entry, start to get used to this, as it’s all part of your system. After that, you'll have a much better understanding and vision for your setup - and that could be the time to try some backtesting and forwardtesting. I’ll talk more about a different kind of backtesting in future posts. Meanwhile, take care, send your questions, and comments, will be glad to chat with you. Dima
Education
by Yelli_trades
1
Trading Insights #3: Mastering Your Mind Debriefing In the opening two parts of our Trading Insights Series we evaluated the importance of probability and random distribution, and then covered some key misconceptions relating to technical analysis and price movement. We recommend you start at part one and work your way up, but this entry can stand alone. Intro Your mind is the most powerful piece of the puzzle when it comes to your trading success. Without developing the mentality of a pro trader, you will never achieve the results you desire. When it comes to mastering your mind, we can think of no one better to draw influence from than Buddha. In this entry to the series, we intend to turn back the clock to see if we can glean some valuable insight and apply it to our trading endeavors. Trading Pitfalls There are several pitfalls most aspiring traders fall prey to when operating in the market. In our analysis, there are two categories of trading errors. We define these as conceptual errors and execution errors. While it’s tempting to focus on execution errors, we’ve found that addressing conceptual errors simultaneously fixes execution errors. Conceptual errors stem from inappropriate ideas about trading. These errors are: 1. Not believing you need a defined strategy 2. Blaming the market for your failures rather than taking responsibility 3. Trying to get rich quick by trading in an aggressive and reckless fashion 4. Not viewing your trading exploits over a set of trades and over-emphasizing individual trades Not believing you need a defined strategy This is one of the most common and difficult to break trading habits. The market is a limitless environment where you can do whatever you want, whenever you want. Many traders enjoy this type of freedom and struggle to develop or follow trading rules. Some traders say they recognize the importance of a defined game plan, but when it comes down to it they don’t embody or act out a belief that rules are necessary. By not having a gameplan, or not following your game plan, you will never allow yourself to find out what methods work best for you. When you factor in random variables based on your momentary perception you prevent yourself from learning what variables give you a real edge on the market over a set of trades. Many traders develop a plan, but when the moment comes they fail to execute their plan. This cycle tends to repeat itself over and over. “An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.” —Buddha It’s time to embrace action, not ideas. Create a plan and follow it for 20 to 30 trades. If the results are not what you hoped for, come up with a new plan, and try again. When you find something that works, stick with it until it doesn’t. In this way, you will learn, with a degree of certainty, what method produces the desired results. Blaming the market for your failures rather than taking responsibility for your actions Many traders fall into the habit of believing the market is responsible for their success or failure. The market is a dynamic sequence of events that has no feelings or emotions. It goes up, and it goes down. The market does not exist to make you a winner, just as it does not exist to make you a loser. If you depend on the market to make you a winner, the market can take your success away. If you trade like a gambler and the market gives you a series of winning trades, the market will eventually take the money back. Once you realize it’s up to you to get what you want from the market you will embrace the appropriate amount of responsibility. “It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.” —Buddha When you take a huge loss, it’s not the market's fault — it’s yours. The contradictory component here is that if you find yourself in a huge winning trade it’s not necessarily because you’re a great trader. Anyone with any degree of skill can stumble into a big winning trade, even a complete amateur. Therefore, big losses beyond what you define as acceptable are your fault, but big winners beyond what you can imagine are not a product of your ability. Why? Because you could have prevented the loss by using a risk management plan, but for the winner, you just happened to enter at the right moment and there is no guarantee it will happen again. Professionals don’t allow themselves to believe they are responsible for big winners — they understand it was just an occurrence of the behavior pattern that gives them an edge on the market and the next trade could very well be a controlled loss. If you believe that a single huge winning trade is more important than a consistent mindset you are missing the big picture. When you master the appropriate mental techniques the market cannot take your success away. You will keep the gains you make and you’ll have the ability to keep winning in a consistent fashion. It’s time to take responsibility and conquer your mind. Trying to get rich quick by trading in an aggressive and reckless fashion Many people get into trading because it seems like the easiest way to make money. In addition, they think it’s their ticket to quick riches, almost like winning the lottery. Indeed, a select few individuals have been extremely lucky and have gotten rich on pure gambles in the market. Yet, if these people kept trading in the same reckless fashion they were not rich for long. There are many high-risk ways to trade the market and inexperienced people are drawn to these methods by the lure of some fast life-changing cash. “Patience is key. Remember: A jug fills drop by drop.” —Buddha There are 252 trading days in a year. If a day trader can consistently earn just 0.5% on their account per day, they can gain 125% in a year. Alternatively, if a swing trader can earn 1-2% per week, they can gain 50 to 100% on their capital in the same period. Any money manager would be ecstatic to produce such results. If you cannot consistently earn 0.5% per day or 2% per week, what makes you think you can earn 100% in a month, and keep it? If getting rich trading the market was easy every retail trader who attempts to trade would be rich. Not viewing your trading exploits over a set of trades and overemphasizing individual trades Nearly every trader has the tendency to view each trade in a vacuum. In other words, each trade either proves or disproves the trader’s methodology or ability, and determines their emotional state. Any trade that does not meet the trader’s expectations causes frustration and mental distress. The problem is, that no trading system tells you what will happen on any given trade. A trading strategy only gives you an approximation of what you can expect over many trades. There is no other way a strategy can work. You must view each trade as a part of a set — this is what it truly means to think in probabilities. “Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else.” —Buddha When you have a methodology that gives you a positive expectancy, you must learn that you will never know in advance which trade will work. Each trade has its own unique outcome but also exists as a part of many trades. When you have a system that tips the odds in your favor, you must view the big picture and not let losing trades affect your positive mindset.
NASDAQ:NFLXEducation
by Level8Trading
3
Trading Insights #1: Probability & Random DistributionDebriefing In this mini-series, we take a look at what it takes to become a successful trader. The Trading Insights series focuses on concepts rather than analysis and will attempt to get you on the proper path to your trading goals. We believe the ideas contained in this series are the proper base to help you become a professional trader. We define a professional trader as an individual who makes consistent profits month after month, only takes controlled losses, does not succumb to momentary emotions, and does not experience outsized account drawdowns. In the shown example, controlled risk and consistent profit management ensures success. Intro Probability combined with random distribution is an important and often overlooked concept when it comes to trading. Mark Douglas brought the idea of random distribution to many retail traders with his book “Trading In The Zone'', but he is certainly not the originator of a concept rooted in data science and statistics. Our goal is to compress and synthesize these ideas so you’ll have a good understanding after reading this post. Traders who say things such as, “you need to make a large number of trades to make money”, or “don’t let the losses deter you from making more trades”, are ungracefully or unknowingly referring to probability and random distribution. Probability To understand how random distribution relates to trading we must first cover some basics of probability. If we flip a fair coin there is always a 50% chance the coin lands on tails. Each time we flip a coin the likelihood of landing on tails is identical, despite the fact we could flip heads five times in a row. This means the possibility of heads or tails turning up is unrelated to the previous flip. The result of each flip is random relative to the last flip due to circumstances we cannot control, such as the pressure applied to the flip, the airflow in the room, the landing spot, and numerous other factors. Let’s now pretend we rig the coin and change the likelihood of flipping tails to 55%. The same rules govern our new rigged coin – the result of each flip is unrelated and random in relation to the last flip. By rigging the coin in favor of tails we have not changed this fact, but we have tilted the outcome in our favor over many flips. In other words, if the rigged coin is flipped enough times, we will get more tails than heads. The increased probability of flipping tails is reflected over many flips of the coin, not on each individual flip. Random Distribution Once we understand the basics of probability, random distribution is simple to comprehend. If the result of flipping a rigged coin is unrelated to the last flip then the flips that produce tails are randomly distributed throughout a set of flips. For example, a sequence of flips could go: H,H,T,H,T,T,T,H,T,T – there is no discernable pattern in relation to tails turning up. Over a set of flips, however, our rigged coin lands on tails more often than heads. The increased likelihood of the coin landing on tails is reflected over many flips, not on each flip. What does all of this mean in real terms? Individual random events have a consistent outcome over a set of events when the odds are tilted in one direction. Relating The Concepts To Trading 1. Over a series of events where many unknown forces influence each event, the outcome of each event is unrelated to the previous event. In trading, this means the outcome of each market pattern is not related to the last instance of that same pattern. If a pattern results in a winning trade it does not mean the next instance of the pattern will also produce a winner, or vice-versa. 2. Over a set of events, the events that produce a favorable outcome are randomly distributed throughout the set. In trading, this means any attempt to predict which instance of a pattern will produce a favorable outcome is a waste of time. When you attempt to predict which instance of a pattern will produce a winner, you are saying you know what will happen next, which begs the question, if you can’t read the minds of the people who have the financial ability to move prices, how exactly do you know? Hint: you can never know exactly, despite the fact you can guess correctly from time to time. 3. Over a set of events, tipping the odds in one direction means the increased likelihood of a certain outcome is only reflected over many instances of the event. In trading, this means you need a pattern or strategy that tips the odds in our favor, but you must view many instances of your pattern or strategy to see the desired results. In other words, you must not view your trading exploits from trade to trade, but rather, over a sequence of many trades.
Education
by Level8Trading
2
1% risk per trade is too much, try this insteadHello traders, Remember when you just started trading, almost everywhere you could hear about the 1% per trade risk rule? While this is not too bad, I think in most cases 1% risk is too much. Here's why: 1. If you're trading a 100k prop firm account, 1% is $1000. Imagine you have a very usual losing streak of 3-4 trades. Now you've lost 3-4%, and $3-4k in dollar amount. If you're a day trader, it could happen in one day easily. Ask yourself honestly, how would you feel about it all and if you will be capable of executing your edge? 2. Most prop firms will have a 5-10% drawdown breach rule So again, a very usual losing streak will take you halfway to account termination. 3. 1% risk leaves almost no room for days where you executed poorly or traded emotionally. We are all humans and we make mistakes. Something goes wrong and you trade the setup you were not supposed to be trading. And instead of stopping after 3 losers, you continue to trade more. So what can we do about it? My suggestion is very simple: risk no more than 0.1-0.25% per trade. If your average winner is 3-7RR, then with a good account size a 1% winner is just huge and more than enough. And if you're going through the evaluation process, such a small risk will keep your equity curve in control and still will allow you to grow it to profit targets. Hope it helps!
Education
by Yelli_trades
Weekly Quote | 7 Rules of a Consistent WinnerHello trader, here's a quote from the great book "Trading in the Zone". Hope you'll find some inspiration or maybe even practical advice here. I'm a consistent winner because: 1. I objectively identify my edges. 2. I predefine the risk of every trade. 3. I completely accept risk ($ risk, risk of not being right, not being perfect, being wrong, losing money, missing out, and leaving money on the table). If not - I am willing to let go of the trade. 4. I act on my edges without reservation or hesitation. 5. I pay myself as the market makes money available to me (take partials). 6. I continually monitor my susceptibility for making errors (emotional pain or euphoria). 7. I understand the absolute necessity of these principles of consistent success and, therefore, I never violate them. Best Regards, Dima
OANDA:XAGUSDEducation
by Yelli_trades
2
Secret of trading mentality Hello traders 👋 Trading Mentality First of all, ask yourself this question. ❓ How did trading impact your life ❓ It is important to remember trading could help you reach financial freedom or could easily destroy your life. Everyone knows 90% of the time people lose their money while trading. But it doesn't stop them from trading. Once you start trading it's hard to give that up. Therefore, for anyone who is sure about starting their trading journey. Please pay attention to the following friendly advices. What to keep in mind when you trade ❓ Technical analysis and indicators are tool to help you do presumptions about trade, not a gaurantee that you will have successfull trades. For example, it is possible that you will have 9 out of 10 successfull trades and lose everything on the 10th trade. So what I'm trying to say is, instead of trying too hard to do presumptions. It is also important to prepare your trading mentality. What is trading mentality ❓ Anyone who trades studied more than enough about stop lose, risk management and technical analysis. Even though traders studied and uses all of the above, they still lose they money. Traders shouldn't be paying more than necessary attention to these. When traders start making profit, they start to release dopamine chemical in their brain. This chemical makes you feel good about your confidience, mentality and makes you forget about your fear of losing. For instance, when you fund your account with $500 and you want to make that incease to $10,000. You will start to think irrationally, make wrong decisions and lose. When you start losing, it negatively impact you financially. You can lose one month worth of salary clicking one button. More you lose more you become stressed and desperate to trade not to feel defeated. When start trading, your brian starts release dopamine again. You body feel more relaxed and feel less negative thoughts.You brain fill with happy thoughts. You will oversee your studies which you spent so much time on and lose money again. If it keeps go on, your life will go down rather than up. How to prepare for all this? Of course controlling your mentality. Next lesson will be on how to control your mentality. Trader, Doctor B.Yertunts
Education
by YertuntsTrader
2
Pairs You Trade? What Sessions Are Open When You Are Trading?What Pairs Should You Trade? What Sessions Are Trading When You Are Up? * Use Your Commonsense!!! The best forex pairs for you to trade will depend on many factors: What time of day you will trade Whether you are interested in making a long-term investment to achieve larger profits or are happy to scalp smaller profits many times each day Your knowledge of currency, the forex markets and global economies Should you trade (example) USD/JPY pair when Tokyo is in session? Yes, because half of the pair is in session and both volume and liquidity is moving markets during this time. AUD/USD pair when Tokyo and/or London sessions are open only? No, because Sydney session has closed and New York has not opened yet. EUR/JPY pair when London and/or New York Session are open only? Yes, for overlapping London/New York session, but no once London session closes. USD/CAD pair when Sydney, Tokyo or London is open only? No, because both sides of these pair are open during New York only- so trade only during NY. In my opinion and one of my rules is: at least half of the pair needs to have current session open and trading, if both parts of the pair are in session (say: Tokyo and London overlap (EUR/JPY pair) or London and New York overlap (EUR/USD)- that will give you the most volume and liquidity in these pairs, thus movement in the pairs is much easier. In Forex: Commonsense is a must, Patience is a must, Risk Management is a must and knowing what sessions are open and giving liquidity & volume is a must.
Education
by Anbat
6
Finding your optimal performance 🏃‍♂️Most traders spend a good bit of time looking at charts. Well here is a chart we traders should all take a look at. The chart shown is the Yerkes-Dodson Law. The Yerkes-Dodson law is a proposition that people perform best at intermediate levels of arousal, and that performance is lower at high or low levels of arousal. The theory behind this is visually represented by the graphic in this idea. No arousal levels or a bored/laidback approach to life will mean no stress but no real performance in what you are trying to achieve or do. However when arousal and stress gets too high by pushing to hard, performance starts to decrease. It's about finding the right balance to achieve an optimal performance. A certain level of stress about what you are trying to achieve motivates you to study, learn or train in order to do your best. A sportsperson has to get bumped up before an event as well as train hard, But getting to worked up and training to hard could cause a decrease in performance when it comes to the event. Pushing not hard enough to pass an exam will lead to a fail as you haven't studied or don't care, But also pushing to hard could lead to a fail as you've let stress and anxiety take over forgetting everything you studied. Moderate levels of arousal is best for overall performance. This theory can be applied to your trading. Take a non interested approach or bored approach and you performance in this area will be affected. Less potential profits etc. Get to focused on your trading or trade to hard could lead to poor performance along with a load of stress in your life. You as an individual will have to self reflect and determine where you fit on the curve in the idea graphic. If you fell more success, achievement and happiness can be had, by all means crack on and go for it! However, if you are getting to a point where you feel you might have reached your limit, it could well be time to dial it back a bit. Don’t push to hard for it that you go down the opposite side of the curve. This theory can be applied to every aspect in your life by using it to balance all aspects of your life will also help your trading as well as work, relationships and everything else we all go through day to day. Thanks for taking time to read this. Darren 🙌
Education
by pow_removetheguesswork
'Trading Psychology: 'The 3 Levels of your Game'Hello Traders, As we know trading is one of the most challenging professions in the world and not only do you have to do your research and own due diligence on a technical aspect, you must ensure your mind/emotions are on point as it is the most common reason traders lose money in this industry. I wanted to share a bit of information from a mental and emotional standpoint about breaking down the 3 levels of your Psychology Game. . No matter how skilled one trader is, everyone has an area that could improve and everyone will make mistakes. The 3 main mistakes we as traders make are: To summarize this chart, the differences between 'B' and 'C' game is that in the 'B' game you have the impulse or thought to make a 'C' game mistake, like closing a trade too early or forcing a trade. Instead you retain the presence of mind and emotional control to avoid it. In your 'C' Game, your emotions are too strong and you cannot stop yourself from forcing trades or cutting profits short. While in the 'A' game, the impulse or thought doesn't happen, or its too small you barely notice. Your goal to as a trader is to eliminate and correct your performance errors that cause your 'C' game. You cannot by escape how much of the gravitational force 'C' game has by focusing on improving just your trading skills and knowledge. You will continue to make the same errors (possibly different ones, but errors are errors) which will create a level of excess negative emotion in your mind. Creating and plan of emotions to examine & review on a daily basis will help you correct your failures and fill you with a different type of emotions, happy ones. By writing down your thoughts of what is going on before, after and during, you start breaking down the backend of your trading and your decision-making becomes much easier and more confident. Creating a plan of your emotions could come with a variety of things, some of the most common ones to watch out for are: -Trigger (eg. Swing trading forex) -Thoughts (eg. I can't believe I got stopped out, it has to go up!) -Emotions (eg. I want revenge on any trade that I lost which I know I should have won!) -Behaviors (eg. Overly focused on one position) -Actions (eg. Constantly looking at P/L) -Changes to your decision-making (eg. I need to get my money back, I need to trade more) -Changes to your perception of the market opportunities or running positions (eg. Your going off prediction rather then reaction) -Trading Mistakes (eg. I'm taking the same trade over and over, until its clear I'm getting no where) Journaling down these emotions and also reviewing them on a day to day, trade to trade, basis, will help your trading game improve and make you become much more successful. I hope this has given a brief insight on how trading psychology plays a huge role in our careers, please leave a comment and share what level of game you are! If you felt this has shared some good information, please hit the like button and follow me for more of these! Thanks Trade Safe!
COINBASE:BTCUSDEducation
by ktlfx
1
5 classics ways to open a trade 1. By anticipation: You guess the imminent start of a trend and you decide to enter a position without waiting for a confirmation signal. For your portfolio, this is a highly profitable approach when it works but ultra destructive if it fails. It goes without saying that you will need nerves of steel because before you are right, the time may seem long, very long. And be careful not to panic in the middle of the process, it would be a pity to have paid spread and commissions for peanuts at the end. 2. On signal: Something you were expecting confirms your initial analysis. A breakout for example. You enter the position as soon as it happens. From an operational point of view, the approach is relatively clean, but false signals are legion in the market. Still, with a stop and good money management things could go well. After all, this is probably the most common way for a trader to enter a position. 3. Waiting for a pull back: While not a panacea, this method will probably increase your chances of success. This is the double-checking strategy of the most cautious traders. The biggest risk here is to see the trend go without you towards the target, because after all, pullbacks are not mandatory. However, this is still relatively rare and is one of the safest ways to enter a position. 4. In several times: Another good way to reduce your risk would be to decide to enter the position in several times. In 2 or 3 times for example. This way you never put all your eggs in one basket. You trigger your first trade and then wait to open the next one only when it has been secured with a zero stop. And so on... This is one of the best entry options. Its main disadvantage is that because of its model, overall you will slightly underperform your average winning trade. This technique is great for trend following, much less so if you are scalping. 5. Late: You identify the opportunity long after the trend has started. But everything seems ok, the risk seems almost zero. You know that you can still open a trade. Perfect, the only downside is that you are far from the high point. The risk here is the drawdown. Obviously, with a very low risk/reward ratio, even negative, a mistake could cost you a lot. Make sure the risk is worth it. And if it is, never enter any way. Despite your delay, always optimize your entry position... Especially your stop.
Education
by ForexGoldenBoy
5 BIG MISTAKES TRADERS MAKE!Hey traders, I've had the privilege to have been involved in trading, both retail trading and working within a prop firm for many years. The biggest benefit I get, is to work with so many different traders with so many different strategies, personalities, timeframes, assets, you name it. I've probably worked with a trader that trades it. Now, there's a few things that are extremely common in all traders, regardless of what or how they are trading. It's the same mistakes that keep making traders fail. So today, I'm going to explain what five of these mistakes are and how to avoid them. I will also discuss how to incorporate them to ensure that you don't get hit by the stone wall that many traders do. If you have any extra information to add, please do so in the comments. I look forward to hearing from you all. TRADING WITHOUT A PLAN This right here is the biggest one and this is usually for the early beginners or even strategy jumpers. You must have a plan. That is non negotiable if you ever want to see some kind of consistency in training. I can tell you from experience, both personally and with working with traders from firms, that the more in depth that plan is, the better chance of success. The same way you create a business plan before launching a new endeavor. The same way you create a game plan for your team before you go out and verse the opponent. The same way politicians plan out their PR campaigns before running for office. You must have a thorough trading plan. A plan can consist of a multitude of different things, from understanding what you're willing to lose, understanding overall position size, understanding your trading strategy, minimizing drawdowns, maximizing profits, the assets you are trading, the times you're going to be trading, how much time you actually going to be allocating to trading and setting up goals. A trading plan must be thorough, so you can not only track your progress, but when you start getting unmotivated or confused, you have something to look back on to realign you with where you are and where you want to be. My final advice with your trading plan is stick to it. You will have bad trading days. You will have bad trading weeks. You will have bad trading months. Stick to your plan. OVERTRADING We've all been there. It's the start of a trading session. We've opened two positions. They've both gone on to be fantastic winners. You're unstoppable. Nothing can possibly go wrong from this point. You have mastered the markets. You are the best trader the world has ever seen. So what do you do? You open another seven positions because it's just free money on the table. And what happens? All seven of those positions lose, wiping off your original profit and some. This is so common in beginner traders. It's that aspect of unpredictability that they forget about in the markets. Trading too much too soon is a serious issue and it needs to be worked on as soon as possible. I understand the excitement of being live in the markets, the excitement of the profits you could earn day today, but the reality of the situation is if your brand new. Trading too much is going to be a serious issue. What sitting back watching and not trading does is not only increases your patience, but also allows you to analyze the markets in a clearer state of mind, making your future decisions a whole level ahead. Add that into the plan, give yourself a maximum number of positions per day if you are new. Trust me, it's going to help you progress. FAILING TO CUT LOSSES I've spoken about this a lot, especially in one of my recent webinars. A lot of traders are taught the whole set an forget method, and I'm not a big fan of it, but in some circumstances I won't lie. Yes, it does work. But a lot of the time, these trade ideas that they're in there actually give massive warning signals prior to hitting the stop loss that they are going to do that. The trader could have cut those losses a lot shorter. Now don't even get me started on traders that don't use a stop loss. What I wanted to do really in this segment is dive into the emotional side of failing to cut a loss. It's true. I remember experiencing it early on my trading career, that feeling of when a trades going against you, but you did all the analysis, so it shouldn't be going against you. So what do you do? You hold on with hope and temptation that it will turn for the better. The reality of the situation is in very, very rarely does. It's a horrible feeling because some traders are prone to even giving those trades more room, adding to the position, moving there stop loss, removing their stop loss altogether. Everything you shouldn't be doing in the time that your analysis is going against you, most traders lean towards because they done all the research they needed to do and they cannot comprehend bring wrong. The best way to battle this feeling, if you've ever felt it or still to this day feel that urge, is going back to number one. Trading with a plan. Have a plan. Risk management plans are the greatest things ever. We can plan for the absolute worst so when it does come in and everyone's going manic everywhere, we know exactly what to do, where to be and how to position ourselves. This will help you learn to cut those losses. NOT UNDERSTANDING LEVERAGE The world changed times are changing. You can access any type of information or access pretty much any type of market you want at the click of a button by the glorious internet. Same goes with trading is probably how most of you have gotten here, or even just into trading as a whole. The thing is, we reach out to these brokers and we open accounts with small amounts of money and they offer us great deals like 300 hundred or even 500 to 1 leverage. That means with $1000 account, you can open $500,000 of currency. Now, the reality of the situation is most traders will never use all of that leverage. But as a result is that most trade is also wouldn't have experienced a no money call when opening a position, or perhaps a margin call, or a true understanding of when they put in 0.5 lots of EURUSD, what they are actually doing. Leverage is a great tool. Fantastic tool. When used correctly. Working at the firm, had so many traders reach out. They keep getting an error code. They say, "I can't open this position!? WHY!?!" and it's all because they don't have the margin requirements to actually open that position and it is alarming to see how many traders don't fully understand what leverages and margin is considering they have used it for years. When you open a position of 0.5 lots on a U.S. dollar currency pair, for example, UUSDJPY. You are opening a position size of $50,000. You have just entered a $50,000 position. That means you are actively managing $50,000 while you are in that position. Let that sink in. Now that's just a position of 0.5 lots. There is traders pit there trading 10-100 lots and it is just baffling to understand the amount of risk there actually taking in accordance to their account size. Do your research. Understand your position size and when you're doing your trading journal. Instead of doing lot sizes in your trading journal, I recommend you do actual position size, value. That will give you a much better understanding on the risk you undertake when you take positions and also if you can, lower your leverage. You don't need 500:1. BEING ABLE TO ACCEPT LOSSES Now this is a fun one and this is what I really wanted to chat about. Being able to accept losses can be one of the most damaging things a beginner trader can ever have, because what happens is they lose the value and respect that the market can take their money. Every market "guru" and every trading course out there tells you to remove emotion from the equation, accept that losses are gonna be a thing, and trade knowing that. Now most people go, "OK, let's do that." and surprisingly, they actually managed to pull it off. Which actually creates a bigger problem. They become reckless. They no longer care if there's a little bit of parameters different from their trading plan. They no longer care if there's key indicators that the trade idea is wrong because, "we're going to have losses. So what? This one might as well be one. If you're not in the market, you're not going to make money." they become reckless. Do not remove emotion from your trading. Incorporate emotion into your trading and once again this results back to the first tip. Trade. With. A. Plan. Traders, that is all for me today. These are five things that I've noticed in struggling traders which seemed to be a common recurrence. Thank you for your time. I hope you enjoy the read. As always, have a fantastic trading week. -Jordon Mellor
Education
by the5erstrading
14
8 mental instillations for priming to trade.These are 8 things I start my trading session with. They help me greatly, and hopefully some of them can be beneficial to you. Once again, trading is mostly understanding yourself and what works for me and makes me tick may not transfer to you exactly the same way. But there are definitely some general ideas that can be gathered from different sources. Mine were gathered from many different areas: 1. "Good. It can always get worse." - This mental priming ensures that I am grateful for whatever situation I am in at this moment in time. Losses the day before? Good. It can always get worse. Profits the day before? Good. It can always get worse. This mental model completely removes dwelling, and substitutes it with practical gratitude. Very helpful. 2. "I don't know what today will bring. But I do know what mind I bring to the moment of performance." - We cannot possibly control the market. Thus, we do not know what today's trading session. We absolutely cannot know that. Therefore trying to know puts us completely out of sync with the market. Instead, we do know what mind we bring to the moment of trading performance. Do we bring calm and poised mind? Or do we bring chaotic and anxious one? 3. "My goal is to trade well. To do that I must make good decisions. To make good decisions I must operate out of mindstate similar to that of a hunter." 4. "Mindstate of a hunter - state of being that is sharp and deliberate, calm but alert, ready to pounce yet patient, aware of risk on one hand and reward on the other. Hunter - is present, as the moment of performance requires to be in the Now. To be in Present - means to accept it for what it truly is, and not what is desired to be. The Pull from The Present is by definition The Pull from the Hunter mindstate. 5. "There are absolutely no limits to the performance. It can get as great as it can be. Everything solely depends on the decisions you bring to the moment of performance. If they get better, so does the performance. As there are no limits, the decisions in the Present must be made without the imposed limits or other benchmarks in Mind." 6. "Easy is Right. This process should not be hard. It should be easy. And light. This is Light Work. Life should be easy. Money and profits should come easy. When you know when there is a trade or there is no trade - trading becomes easy. You ride the wave, you ride the wave. Relationships should be easy. Easy is good. Easy is Right." - If it feels difficult then we are doing something wrong. Of course in the beginning when learning it can be difficult, but overall when trading well it should be easy. Almost effortless. 7. "There is an abundance of resources and opportunities. There is always a whale to hunt. We live in the Kingdom of Plenty." - This puts me into abundance state of mind and helps to see abundance in opportunities. 8. "The process of 'The Hunt' must be - once a Market Structure Point of Interest is broken - we are on waiting for that prey." - Similar to some predators who wait in bushes until their prey get into the most optimal state to get hunted, in that same fashion we are waiting for setups to brew properly. Effectively we are hunting other market participants. It's up to us to decide whether we are hunters or prey. ___ After getting primed with these I feel much better to operate in the uncertainty of the markets. Meditate on these points, some of them will definitely be helpful. Cheers. Lightwork_
Education
by Lightwork_
2
W.D. Gann’s 28 Trading Rules - Part 2When you decide to make a trade be sure that you are not violating any of these 28 rules which are vital and important to your success. When you close a trade with a loss, go over these rules and see which rule you have violated; then do not make the same mistake the second time. Experience and investigation will convince you of the value of these rules, and observation and study will lead you to a correct and practical theory for successful Trading. Like and follow for more!
Education
by UnknownUnicorn33550147
3
OXY, A TRUE example of FALSE break out !Regardless of what legendary investors (Like Warren Buffett ) or famous traders do, we always should trade our own strategy. OXY was fighting with a strong static resistance and finally lost the battle. We have 9 hits to this static line which shows how powerful it is. False break outs are among the most common traps in trading . Although the concept is very simple , many traders fall simply into the trap just because of lack of patience or weak risk management strategy. Please keep this words in mind and I promise you will be the winner in long term : " Be sure about a break out before jumping into a trade " . True break outs have three conditions: 1. Break out should be done by a strong high volume bullish candle and at least 50 % of body of such candle should be placed above the valid resistance. 2. A pull back to broken resistance and rotation is necessary to be sure about true break out. Please note sometime we may not see a complete pull back ( if there is a support before broken resistance) but who can accept the risk of false break out? 3. Continuation of movement in direction of break out. Occidental Petroleum fulfilled first condition in it's last attempt ( if we close our eyes to volume) with a gap up bullish candle above the resistance. It made also a pull back but no rotation and continuation of the upside movement came after that. It means we had a false break out. I investigated false break outs of a dynamic resistance in my previous publication on BTC and here I showed an example of false break out of static resistance. Regardless of type of resistance (dynamic or static) , concept is the same. True break out setup has been shown on the chart. As you see the concept is very simple. Please keep this concept in mind and believe me you won't regret. Wish you huge profits and good luck.
NYSE:OXYEducation
by SaeedSajedi
5
What are True and False Break Outs ?False Break outs impose considerable loss to traders. How to recognize a false break out? To recognize a false break out we should first learn what is a true break out? In fact,simply, Every break out which is not a true one is a false break out. BTC in it's recent movements shows two beautiful example of false break outs. As shown on the chart, we have a dynamic resistance line with three clear rejections and two false break outs. It means before 1st break out which was 4th rejection BTC had a chance to break out the resistance but it never succeeded. Why? A true break out has three important conditions : 1. first of all, Break out should be done by a strong high volume bullish candle and at least 50 % of body of such candle should be placed above the valid resistance. 2. A pull back to broken resistance and rotation is necessary to be sure about true break out. Please note sometime we may not see a complete pull back ( if there is a support before broken resistance) but who can accept the risk of false break out? 3. Continuation of movement in direction of break out. As we can see, BTC in it's 4th and 5th attempts to break the line was unsuccessful even to fulfill the first condition. Also shown on the chart is what could have been a true break out. Although simple in concept, false break outs are headaches for some traders. What makes traders to fall in the trap of false break outs is not because of complexity of the concept ( As it is very simple ). It is about controlling emotions and psychology. Good luck everybody.
COINBASE:BTCUSDEducation
by SaeedSajedi
6
W.D. Gann’s 28 Trading Rules - Part 1When you decide to make a trade be sure that you are not violating any of these 28 rules which are vital and important to your success. When you close a trade with a loss, go over these rules and see which rule you have violated; then do not make the same mistake the second time. Experience and investigation will convince you of the value of these rules, and observation and study will lead you to a correct and practical theory for successful Trading. Like and follow for more!
Education
by UnknownUnicorn33550147
Stand Up Strong, Do It Again - The Power of Not Giving UpMost of us, we all go through periods of vulnerability, periods where we are filled with negativity and pressure. If none of your surroundings comprehend you, I am here rooting for you. The path to a better self is never going to be an easy route, we go through failure, periods of low energy, periods of depression. But... so what? Life still goes on. No one will be there patting on your shoulder carrying you up. You got to stand up strong alone, and continue paddling. Fail once, do it again. Fail twice, do it again. Fail thrice, do it again. UNTIL you succeed. The toughest and strongest human being are those who refuse to give up, who truly the process of getting beaten up again and again. The same goes into trading; "90% of Trader blow up 90% of their capital within 90 days" So how do you become a winner in such a competitive place? Is to simply survive. Survive long enough so you get to build a stream of trading lessons from your mistakes. You then constantly review your mistakes and fix them like a specialist. The longer you stay in the market, the higher the chance you are going to become the top 10%.
KRAKEN:BTCUSDEducation
by TraderNeoh
3
Interesting way to Self-Review (and add fixes to your routine)Hey everyone, my last educational post unexpectedly blew up . I have way more things that I'd like to share related to trading, but to keep this endeavor relatable I will try to only do so when I personally (at a moment in time) will utilize one (or more) things from the post. In this manner the post about taking breaks was relevant because I had just come back home after a holiday. Today happens to be one of those days. I like to think of trading as not merely an activity, but as a perfect blend of sport, science, and art. In this material we will be discussing the science of it. In its core science is objective observation, data collection, analysis, and further conclusions. Sometimes more data is needed, sometimes a completely different from expected outcome emerges, and so forth. The science of data collection in trading comes with our journal - the more relevant data we collect when we log our trades the more conclusions we ideally can make in order to test a new hypothesis, or make a strong decision to stop doing something. One of those things happened to me when I started logging in time of open and time of close of each trade. Over series of 100+ trades I noticed that my profitability drops dramatically after 4-5PM, and in the period between 6-9PM I was getting 85% chance of loss of any trade taken. This led me to cut my trading time at 4PM. My results obviously improved. However, trading is not a done deal as we are humans - our routines may change, various other life circumstances may pop up, and what worked last month may still work this month, but this month you are a slightly different person. This last bit is actually heavily affected by personality trait Orderliness, the more orderly a person is the more they are inclined to not switch things up, and vice versa. Nevertheless, apart from time, pips, profit, strategies, instruments, and so forth, we can also log our feelings. Before trade, during the day, upon entering a trade, after closing it, and so forth. Then, once we have enough data we can correlate results with feelings that we experienced at a time. This bit is more difficult than others because it's subjective, and thus requires a greater deal of awareness and interoception. But upon practicing it - it becomes much easier to pick up on. This week after coming back from holiday I started trading as usual. However, for some reason it was difficult for me to wake up at 5:40am to get ready to start trading at 6am. I would oversleep till around 6.30am these past 4 days. Upon waking on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I'd notice that no moves happened during that time, which led to sense of relief. But there was also a tingling sense of guilt as from experience I knew that profitable trades often happen in the period between 6-7am for me. So by chance of luck none were missed during these days, but the act itself wasn't top-performance as it was only a matter of time before experiencing a missing trade. That is exactly what happens yesterday. The oversleeping ultimately caused a miss of +1.5 of profit, which would still give me a losing day, but much less than what happened yesterday. The feeling of guilt building up during first three days of the week culminated in that, which made it even worse. The rest of other trades were taken well with discipline, and managed well too, but the point is the quite heavy toll that was experienced by me for no apparent reason. Now, getting all of that data, I am immediately implementing a fix by moving (temporarily) my trading time 1 hour. So, instead of feeling guilty or inadequate for missing a good trade, I will now simply get enough sleep in without sacrificing emotional integrity. Trades outside my purple box do not exist as they all fall outside of my trading times. Yes, I will be missing these 6-7am moves. But I won't be holding unnecessary baggage instead, which would help me to capitalize much better on other trades. And maybe there will be other trades happening at 4-5pm instead. (As losing trades mostly occurred after 6pm for me, and who knows whether it was due to decision fatigue or lack of edge during that time? For that I'd need more testing). The key is removing all the baggage that we bring to the market, and that is precisely what light work is. Lightwork_
Education
by Lightwork_
1
Is mindset holding you back 🤔Trading can be a rollercoaster of emotions. Many traders are unaware of when their state of mind leads to underperforming trades and why it happens. We are all different and unique when it comes to trading, and understanding the type of trader you are is essential to your success. Traders can spend a lot of time studying technical indicators and strategies, but understanding the psychology driving your trading decisions is just as important. The first starting point of getting on the right path in regards to trading psychology and emotions is by having the right one of two mindset choices. There's two mindsets which will effect your trading results and progress massively. They are 'Growth mindset' and 'Fixed mindset' Of those two mindsets there is only a place for one when it comes to trading and that is 'GROWTH MINDSET' The graphic on chart shows the difference between the two mindsets. If you can't ditch the 'Fixed mindset ' you will never be able to progress in trading. No matter how great of a trader you think you are, or how well you think you handle your emotions. It's impossible to remove them from the equation completely when trading. When emotions are combined with a 'Fixed mindset' mentality however you are going to feel emotional pain and loss of money when it comes to your trading. Once you have learned to recognise your mindset, you can then begin the next important step of switching to the ' Growth mindset ' People with a ' Fixed mindset ' believe they are born with a certain amount of intelligence and that it is fixed for the rest of their lives. People with a 'Growth mindset ' however know that intelligence is not fixed and that you can in effect grow your brain. They see their traits as just a starting point and know that these can be developed by hard work, effort, dedication and challenge. Having a growth mindset can improve your progress and attainment and this is crucial in being successful as a trader. The brain can be developed like a muscle, changing and growing stronger the more it is used. Your abilities are also very much like muscles they need training in order to perform at their peak. You can learn how to do anything you want to do and you can get better at whatever that is with time and consistent practice. Even if you have what you perceive to be a talent or ability for something, if you never practice that talent or ability you simply will never improve. Applying this theory to your trading game will help you grow not just your accounts but as a person also. Get that 'Growth mindset' and start believing in your ability to change. Thanks for looking. Darren 🙌
Education
by pow_removetheguesswork
3