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UGLY TRUTH..

It's every person for themselves in the end and the only reason a trade group ( i hate calling them prop firms) ISN'T against you is because you're supposed to be the money maker for them. but as stated dont F up the challenge and FTMO gives free trials.

As stated if a trader cant pass the free trial they let you have at FTMO, then don't bother giving them money to try and pass the challenge. plain and simple

I wish you guys would get it into your thick heads that it's NOT about strategy! It's about YOU

I've been trading long enough to know that the vast majority are probably not going to beat their emotions over the long term when they trade because that's the way we are. Humans have emotions - well most do anyway! You might be able to do it a few times but eventually you get caught out. That is why people are failing. It's the simple truth. It's incredibly difficult to conquer those negative emotions and some never do. So it's either automation/copy trading or go back to your day job.

True, Youtube is full of strategies that don't work. On the other hand, there are a lot of helpful videos on the MENTAL side which most people won't bother to watch and yet those are the ones they should be watching

That is why it is not a good idea to do Prop trading with Myforexfunds. Whenever you have a problem and need customer support from what I hear all the time you get dissatisfied very easily. And when you have got a big neck or lost your head (or any bigger negative emotion) you cannot trade anymore and need some breaks, because you do costly mistakes because of that otherwise. So it cost you some money anyway, for sure it will cost you some of the profits. That is why even consistent traders with MFF are so pissed off from the customer support that they do not reinvest any money in new challenges. If that does not ring your bells that you should not choose MFF I do not know. It is clear and loud not to join them. I think this must be said again. There are still to many MFF believers here. There are better options. You have to count all cost and the thing that you get problems with their support which cost you money, most dismiss this when evaluating among prop firms. I also think it is a kind of strategy of MFF to have a bad customer support so the really consistent profitable traders leave the table after some time and look elsewhere so they are not so forced to copy any trades. The majority that loose the challenges are not touched from any bad support of course, but that does not make it better, because anyone wants to pass and make some money when funded. Otherwise MFF take so much revenues from payouts it cannot be explained why they did not invest in some manpower here to have an outstnading customer support like FTMO, TFF or TFT e.g.. For me FTMO and TFF are good choices. I also think TFT as prop firm is any good.

100% agree. Trading is at least 80% psychological. Once you realize this, trading becomes so much easier.
I can probably lay out exactly how people are failing challenges, you get up to like 4-5% in the first two weeks, it's so close you can taste it, so you go larger than you should to ty to finish it off, you give back most of your 4-5%. Then the revenge trading gambler comes out, if I can just get back to where I was, I'll stop and trade small starting tomorrow.....boom you lose another 2-3%. Now you're on tilt and.......well, we all know how this story ends.......
Sound familiar to anyone?

YOU'VE GOT TO BE MECHANICAL IN YOUR APPROACH, ALL EMOTIONS MUST BE REMOVED!!!!!!!

Yes, it cannot be overrated. You need to define your strategy well and do most things in an objective manner to get it (fully) automated, so there is no room for discretionary aspects which can easily cause mistakes by human error. If you do not have an edge with your strategy you can have a perfect mental setup and be cool all the time but you will still loose as said earlier. The discretionary trader should ask himself what is his edge from his strategy, if one can describe it in clear words you can also code it and make it mechanical, then it gets less discretionary and less human errors can be made because there are less room for them. That does not make you perfect because you always need to ask what can be still improved. And that questions come when you watch the markets and your trades then you have some extra work to do to investigate answers to your questions. That is still better than being involved in your emotions all the time without any self awareness asking the why. For example martingale is not a good tactic because you never know when there is a much larger loss in one open trade which then is causing massive drawdown when you have opened several positions in the same direction and that can let you fail your challenge or loose your already funded account then easily. Sometimes the market do the very unexpected thing and then it is better to have only one position at a time for one market, that is my opinion and also what I have learned from my experiences.

An example for a very common human error is revenge trading. You cannot do that if you have well defined setups, because you can only make a trade when there is setup. So if you have it made objective or mechanical or automated then you cannot overtrade, because you always need to wait for the right setup. But of course all is easier said than done, sooner or later everyone is doing a mistake, so one needs to work on himself nevertheless. But you can minimze the room for any errors here.

Here is a list of cognitive bias as human errors which can be made (from various sources I found through a search).

Cognitive Biases
A list of the most relevant biases in behavioral economics
Biases
Action Bias - Why do we prefer doing something to doing nothing?
Affect Heuristic - Why do we rely on our current emotions when making quick decisions?
Ambiguity Effect - Why we prefer options that are known to us
Anchoring Bias - Why we tend to rely heavily upon the first piece of information we receive
Attentional Bias - Why do we focus more on some things than others?
Availability Heuristic - Why do we tend to think that things that happened recently are more likely to happen again?
Bandwagon Effect - Why do we support opinions as they become more popular?
Barnum Effect - Why do we believe our horoscopes?
Base Rate Fallacy - Why do we rely on specific information over statistics?
Bikeshedding - Why do we focus on trivial things?
Bottom-Dollar Effect - Why do we transfer negative emotions about being broke on items that we purchase?
Bounded Rationality - Why are we satisfied by "good enough"?
Bundling Bias - Why do we value items purchased in a bundle less than those purchased individually?
Bye-Now Effect - Why are we likely to spend more after reading the word “bye”?
Cashless Effect - Why does paying without physical cash increase the likelihood that we purchase something?
Category Size Bias - Why do we think we’re more likely to win at the big casino versus the small one?
Choice Overload - Why do we have a harder time choosing when we have more options?
Cognitive Dissonance - Why is it so hard to change someone's beliefs?
Commitment Bias - Why do people support their past ideas, even when presented with evidence that they're wrong?
Confirmation Bias - Why do we favor our existing beliefs?
Decision Fatigue - Why do we make worse decisions at the end of the day?
Declinism - Why we feel the past is better compared to what the future holds
Decoy Effect - Why do we feel more strongly about one option after a third one is added?
Disposition Effect - Why do we tend to hold on to losing investments?
Distinction Bias - Why we tend to view two options as more distinctive when evaluating them simultaneously than separately.
Dunning–Kruger Effect - Why can we not perceive our own abilities?
Empathy Gap - Why do we mispredict how much our emotions influence our behavior?
Endowment Effect - Why do we value items more if they belong to us?
Extrinsic Incentive Bias - Why do we think others are in it for the money, but we’re in it for the experience?
Framing Effect - Why do our decisions depend on how options are presented to us?
Functional Fixedness - Why do we have trouble thinking outside the box?
Fundamental Attribution Error - Why do we underestimate the influence of the situation on people’s behavior?
Gambler's Fallacy - Why do we think a random event is more or less likely to occur if it happened several times in the past?
Google Effect - Why do we forget information that we just looked up?
Halo Effect - Why do positive impressions produced in one area positively influence our opinions in another area?
Hard-easy effect - Why is our confidence disproportionate to the difficulty of a task?
Heuristics - Why do we take mental shortcuts?
Hindsight Bias - Why do we see unpredictable events as predictable after they occur?
Hot-hand Fallacy - Why do we expect previous successful performance to lead to future successful performance?
Hyperbolic Discounting - Why do we value immediate rewards more than long-term rewards?
IKEA Effect - Why do we place disproportionately high value on things we helped to create?
Identifiable Victim Effect - Why are we more likely to offer help to a specific individual than a vague group?
Illusion of Control - Why we believe we have more control over the world than we actually do
Illusion of Validity - Why are we overconfident in our predictions?
Illusory Correlation - Why do we think some things are related when they aren’t?
Illusory Truth Effect - Why do we believe misinformation more easily when it’s repeated many times?
In-group Bias - Why do we treat our in-group better than we do our out-group?
Incentivization - Why do we work harder when we are promised a reward?
Just-World Hypothesis - Why do we believe that we get what we deserve?
Lag Effect - Why does spacing out the repetition of information make one more likely to remember it?
Law of the Instrument - Why do we use the same skills everywhere?
Less-is-Better Effect - Why do our preferences change depending on whether we judge our options together or separately?
Leveling and Sharpening - Why do we exaggerate some details of a story, but minimize others?
Levels of Processing - Why do we remember information that we attach significance to better than information we repeat?
Look-elsewhere Effect - Why do scientists keep looking for a statistically significant result after failing to find one initially?
Loss Aversion - Why do we buy insurance?
Mental Accounting - Why do we think less about some purchases than others?
Mere Exposure Effect - Why do we prefer things that we are familiar with?
Motivating Uncertainty Effect - Why rewards of unknown sizes tend to motivate us more than known rewards
Naive Allocation - Why we tend to prefer spreading limited resources evenly across options.
Naive Realism - Why do we believe we have an objective understanding of the world?
Negativity Bias - Why is the news always so depressing?
Noble Edge Effect - Why do we tend to favor brands that show care for societal issues?
Nostalgia Effect - How do our sentimental feelings for the past influence our actions in the present?
Observer Expectancy Effect - Why do we change our behavior when we’re being watched?
Omission Bias - Why don’t we pull the trolley lever?
Optimism Bias - Why do we overestimate the probability of success?
Ostrich Effect - Why do we prefer to ignore negative information?
Overjustification Effect - Why do we lose interest in an activity after we are rewarded for it?
Peak-end Rule - How do our memories differ from our experiences?
Pessimism bias - Why do we think we’re destined to fail?
Planning Fallacy - Why do we underestimate how long it will take to complete a task?
Primacy Effect - Why do we only remember the first things on our grocery list?
Priming - Why do some ideas prompt other ideas later on without our conscious awareness?
Projection Bias - Why do we think our current preferences will remain the same in the future?
Reactive devaluation - Why is negotiation so difficult?
Regret Aversion - Why do we anticipate regret before we make a decision?
Representativeness Heuristic - Why do we use similarity to gauge statistical probability?
Response Bias - Why responses to a survey or experiment can be inaccurate due to the nature of the survey or experiment
Restraint Bias - Why do we overestimate our self-control?
Rosy Retrospection - Why do we think the good old days were so good?
Salience Bias - Why do we focus on items or information that are more prominent and ignore those that are not?
Self-serving Bias - Why do we blame external factors for our own mistakes?
Serial Position Effect - Why do we better remember items at the beginning or end of a list?
Sexual Overperception Bias - Why do men think that women are always flirting with them?
Social Norms - Why do we follow the behavior of others?
Source Confusion - Why we forget where our memories come from, and thereby lose our ability to distinguish the reality or likelihood of each memory.
Spacing Effect - Why do we retain information better when we learn it over a long time period?
Spotlight Effect - Why do we feel like we stand out more than we really do?
Status Quo Bias - Why do we tend to leave things as they are?
Suggestibility - Why is yawning contagious?
Survivorship Bias - Why do we misjudge groups by only looking at specific group members?
Take-the-best Heuristic - Why do we focus on one characteristic to compare when choosing between alternatives?
Telescoping Effect - Why do some things “seem like they just happened yesterday?”
The Illusion of Explanatory Depth - Why do we think we understand the world more than we actually do?
The Pygmalion effect - Why do we perform better when someone has high expectations of us?
The Sunk Cost Fallacy - Why are we likely to continue with an investment even if it would be rational to give it up?
Zero Risk Bias - Why do we seek certainty in risky situations?

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another list here

Cognitive Biases can be divided into 4 parts:

1. Information: filtering information.
2. Meaning: connecting dots and filling in the gaps with what we think we know.
3. Speed: making decisions based on new information.
4. Memory: we can’t remember everything so we have to use it efficiently.

1. Information
Humans have to process an enormous amount of information every day, in the past people also had to do this. Now we have built-in tricks to filter information.
1.1 We notice things that are already imprinted in memory or that are repeated often
You are more likely to recognize things if you have experienced them recently. Consider:

1. Availability Heuristic: memories that happened recently outweigh memories with more impact from the past.
2. Attentional Bias: subconsciously we choose points where we pay attention to. A smoker is more likely to notice other people smoking.
3. Illusory Truth Effect: by repeatedly hearing false information we come to believe it is the truth.
4. Mere Exposure Effect: we give preference to things we have seen more often or are familiar with.
5. Context Effect: the context in which we see something affects how we look at something and what value we place on it.
6. Cue-Dependent Forgetting: remembering certain things by thinking of equivalent memories.
7. Frequency Ilussion / Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon: if you see something once and start paying attention to it, you will see it more often, if you buy a car you will see the same car more often.
8. Empathy Gap: we are bad at empathizing with others, but expect others to empathize with us.

1.2 Bizarre, funny or visually striking things grab our attention
We pay more attention to things that are striking, as a result we often skip over information that we label as normal or expected.

1. Bizarreness Effect: we remember bizarre things better than normal things.
2. Humor Effect: we remember things with humor better than without.
3. Von Restorff Effect: we remember one striking thing in a series of equivalent things better.
4. Picture Superiority Effect: we remember pictures better than text.
5. Self-Reference Effect: things we feel related to we remember better.
6. Negativity Bias: people are more likely to be attracted to negativity.

1.3 We notice when something has changed
The value we give to change lies in whether it has changed positively or negatively rather than presenting it as a change in itself.

1. Anchoring: we hammer down on the first piece of information we receive, we interpret new information from the first piece of information.
2. Conservatism Bias: we do not sufficiently revise our opinion when we’re shown new evidence.
3. Contrast Effect: red dots on a white background appear black, but on a gray background they appear red.
4. Distinction Bias: we place more value on the difference between two options when comparing them than we would if we were evaluating them separately.
5. Framing Effect: people are influenced by the way information is presented, 20% fat or 80% fat free.

1.4 We are attracted to details that confirm our own beliefs
We are not always very open to feedback and refuse to believe certain things that go against our own beliefs.

1. Confirmation Bias / Continued Influence: we unconsciously focus on things that align with what we believe.
2. Post-Purchase Rationalization / Choice-Supportive Bias: after making a choice, we overvalue positive attributes of the choice and forget the negative attributes of the choice.
3. Selective Perception: we ignore certain things if they are not in line with what we believe.
4. Observer-Expectancy Effect: people behave differently when someone is watching them.
5. Experimenter’s Bias / Observer Effect: a researcher can, without realizing it, influence his participants to go in a certain direction.
6. Ostrich Effect: ignoring negative things like feedback or criticism, burying your head in the sand.
7. Semmelweis Reflex: rejecting new evidence because it doesn’t match current norms, beliefs and paradigms.

1.5 We notice faults in others more easily than in ourselves
Mistakes are not always in others, but also in ourselves. Unfortunately, we notice mistakes in others faster than in ourselves.

1. Naïve Cynicism: we think people are more selfish than they really are.
2. Naïve Realism / Bias Blind Spot: we think we see the world objectively and that others who don’t see it the same way are misinformed, irrational or biased.

2. Meaning
There is too much information to process, we take in as much information as we can and fill in the gaps in between with what we think we know.
2.1 We see patterns and stories, even when there is hardly any data
People look for patterns, we see patterns even when they’re not there.

1. Clustering Illusion: we think we see clusters when objects are placed randomly.
2. Insensitivity to Sample Size: looking at a statistic from a test without considering the test size. In fact, variation is greater in smaller test sizes.
3. Neglect of Probability: neglecting a relatively small chance that something will happen. Not wearing a seatbelt because there is a small chance of an accident happening.
4. Anecdotal Fallacy: evidence based entirely on personal experience without real evidence.
5. Illusion of Validity: we overestimate our ability to make decisions based on data.
6. Gambler’s Fallacy: thinking that something will not happen soon in the future if it has happened many times in the past.
7. Hot-Hand Fallacy: thinking that a person with success in the past is also going to have success in the future.
8. Illusory Correlation: seeing a correlation between two variables that are unrelated.
9. Pareidolia: seeing patterns or objects in something that are not there. For example, seeing shapes in the clouds.
10. Anthropomorphism: personifying an animal or object, for example, a sun with a face.

2.2 We supplement properties from stereotypes, generalities and past events
When we (think we) have information about something, we associate it with a certain thing or person. So we then supplement the unknown information with what we already know.

1. Group Attribution Error: thinking that the characteristics of one person reflect the characteristics of the whole group.
2. Stereotyping: a generalized belief about a certain category of people.
3. Essentialism: believing that an object must have certain properties for its identity.
4. Functional Fixedness: using an object only for the way it traditionally should be used.
5. Self-licensing: increased self-confidence makes an individual more likely to engage in undesirable behavior because they believe there are no consequences.
6. Just-World Hypothesis: thinking that the world is fair and that everyone gets what is coming to them. People who do good things will be rewarded and people who do bad things will be punished.
7. Authority Bias: we value the opinion of an authoritarian, people follow authorities rather quickly.
8. Automation Bias: preference of suggestions made by an automated system, even if a non-automated suggestion is better.
9. Bandwagon Effect:adopting a certain behavior, belief, style or attitude because others do it.
10. Placebo: believing something works is often enough to make a remedy work.

2.3 We judge people or things better if we are familiar with them
We prefer people or things we already know, we attach a certain value and quality to them.

1. Cross-Race Effect: we recognize faces of our own race better than faces of another race.
2. In-Group Favoritism: we prefer people in our own group rather than outside the group.
3. Halo Effect: people, companies, brands or products are judged by their past performance or personality, even if the current or future situation has nothing to do with it.
4. Cheerleader Effect: individual people are more attractive in a group.
5. Positivity Effect: we tend to bring positive news.
6. Not Invented Here: not buying or adopting ideas, products, research, standards or knowledge because they come from external sources.
7. Reactive Devaluation: undervaluing something coming from someone who stands for something different than you.
8. Well Traveled Road Effect: estimating route times differently because you are unfamiliar with the route. Routes traveled more often seem to take less time than new routes.

2.4 We simplify probabilities and numbers to make them easier
Humans are bad at math so we often make mistakes in calculating the probability of whether something will happen.

1. Mental Accounting: we put a value on something we have earned that is based on how we earned it, for example, did we have to work hard for it?
2. Appeal to Probability Fallacy / Murphy’s Law: we assume that if there is a chance of something happening that it will actually happen.
3. Normalcy Bias: we underestimate things that might come, sometimes we don’t even believe they are going to come. For example, think of a car accident or a natural disaster.
4. Zero Sum Bias: thinking that if one thing goes up that another will go down.
5. Survivorship Bias: looking only at the successful subset in a larger group in which many have failed.
6. Subadditivity Effect: judging the probability of a whole as less than the probability of separate parts.
7. Denomination Effect: we are less likely to spend money if it is large bill money, we are more likely to spend lots of change of the same value.

2.5 We think we know what others are thinking
Sometimes we think others know the same as we do and sometimes we think we know what others think.

1. Illusion of Transparency: we assume that others know how we feel.
2. Curse of Knowledge: while communicating with others we think they know the same as us.
3. Spotlight Effect: people feel watched, much more than they are actually watched.
4. Extrinsic Incentives Bias: thinking that others are more motivated to do something if they receive an extrinsic reward (such as money) than for an intrinsic reward (such as learning a new skill).
5. Illusion of External Agency: thinking that good and positive things happen because of outside influences.
6. Illusion of Assymetric Insight: we think we know others better than others know themselves.

2.6 We look to the past and future with our current thinking
We are bad at estimating how quickly or slowly certain things will happen.

1. Rosy Retrospection: people judge the past as more positive than the present.
2. Hindsight Bias: we think past events were more predictable than they actually were.
3. Outcome Bias: evaluating a decision when the outcome is already known.
4. Impact Bias / Affective Forecasting: we find it difficult to estimate how much emotional impact certain actions or events will have on us.
5. Optimism Bias: thinking that a negative event is less likely to occur to ourselves.
6. Planning Fallacy: we underestimate the time a task will actually take from us, outsiders overestimate the time others need for a task.
7. Pro-innovation Bias: not seeing the limitations and weaknesses of a particular innovation, only wanting to implement the innovation.
8. Restraint Bias: we overestimate our ability to control impulsive behavior, we don’t think we’ll get addicted on something.

3. Speed
We are limited by time and information, but we can’t let that stop us from taking action. With each new piece of information, we start looking for applications.
3.1 To make an impact we need to be confident and feel that what we are doing is important
Often we have too much self-confidence, but without self-confidence we would not take action.

1. Overconfidence Effect: we think we make better decisions than we actually do, especially if our self-confidence is high.
2. Social Desirability Bias: in conversation with others, we answer questions in a way we think will make the other person happy, personally and professionally.
3. Third-person Effect: we overestimate the effect that mass communication has on others, but underestimate the same effect on ourselves.
4. False Consensus Effect: we think our own behavior and the choices we make are normal, especially given the circumstances in which they occur.
5. Hard-Easy Effect: we think that a difficult task will be a success faster than an easy task.
6. Dunning-Kruger Effect: people without skills overestimate their own ability, people with lots of skills underestimate their own ability.
7. Egocentric Bias: we place too much value on our own perspective and opinion.
8. Optimism Bias: thinking that a negative event is less likely to occur to ourselves.
9. Barnum Effect / Forer Effect: thinking a text is about you when the text usage is so vague and general that it applies to a large group of people, this is often used in horoscopes.
10. Self-serving Bias: we want to keep our self-esteem high, therefore we think that success comes from our own ability and we write off mistakes to external factors.
11. Illusion of Control: we overestimate our ability to influence certain events.
12. Illusory Superiority: we overestimate our own ability and our own qualities over those of others.
13. Trait Ascription Bias: we consider ourselves unpredictable in terms of personality, behavior and mood while we consider others predictable.
14. Effort Justification: the value we place on an outcome is determined by the energy we had to put into it.
15. Risk Compensation: we become more cautious when risk is high and become less cautious when we feel confident and secure.

3.2 To stay focused, we prefer known things that we can do immediately
We value things in the present more than in the future.

1. Hyperbolic Discounting / Instant Gratification: we prefer a reward if we get it sooner, we unconsciously attach a discount to a reward that is further away.
2. Appeal to Novelty: underestimate the status quo and think that new is always better.
3. Identifiable Victim Effect: we are more willing to help if we see one victim than if a large group needs the same help.

3.3 We are more likely to complete things if we have already invested time and energy in them
Something that moves will keep moving, that was Newton’s first law of motion. We want to finish things we have already started, even if we have found plenty of reasons to stop.

1. Zeigarnik Effect: we remember unfinished tasks better than completed tasks.
2. Sunk Cost Fallacy: something paid for that cannot be reversed. Past costs incurred are no longer relevant to future decisions.
3. Irrational Escalation: continuing what you were doing despite having negative outcomes because it is in line with past decisions and actions.
4. Generation Effect: we remember things better when we have thought of them ourselves rather than having read them somewhere.
5. Loss Aversion / Disposition Effect: we are more afraid of losing something than we are motivated to win something.
6. IKEA Effect: we place more value on products that we have helped create.
7. Zero-Risk Bias: we prefer to reduce risk on subcomponents than remove a greater amount of risk over the whole.
8. Processing Difficulty Effect: we remember information better when we have to put in work to understand it.
9. Endowment Effect: we are more likely to keep something we already have than we would be to get the same thing if we didn’t already have it.
10. Backfire Effect: if we reject evidence that goes against what we believe then we will believe even more strongly in what we already believe.

3.4 To avoid mistakes and maintain status in a group we avoid irreversible decisions
We like choices without risk or that confirm the status quo.

1. Reverse Psychology / Reactance: promote a belief or behavior that is opposite to the desired behavior, the person is then more inclined to start doing the opposite (the desired).
2. Decoy Effect: people tend to make a certain choice between two options if given a third, not interesting, option.
3. Social Comparison Effect: we tend to dislike people if they are physically or mentally better than us.

3.5 We prefer simple choices with lots of information than the other way around
We prefer to do something that is quick and simple rather than something that is difficult because we think we can spend our time better with the quick and easy tasks.

1. Less-is-better Effect: we perceive a €50 scarf as more value when scarves are between €5 and €50 than a €55 coat when coats are between €50 and €500.
2. Conjunction Fallacy: we think something is more likely to happen if it contains a specific condition (loses the first set, but wins the match) than if it is presented as a general event (wins the match).
3. Law of Triviality: focusing on non-important details (whether or not to put ‘,’ in a certain spot) when there are much more important things (campaign budget) to discuss.
4. Rhyme-as-reason Effect: we are more likely to believe things if they are rhymed.
5. Belief Bias: we find arguments stronger if they support what we already believe.
6. Information Bias: more information is not always better; we think we make better choices when we have more information, but that is often not the case.
7. Ambiguity Bias: we prefer options that have a higher probability of success than options whose probability of success is unknown.

4. Remembering
There is so much information, we only remember what will help us in the future.
4.1 We modify memories
Memories can get stronger, we can mix up details and sometimes we add things ourselves.

1. Misattribution of Memory: we sometimes do not remember things as they happened.
   1. Source Confusion: remembering things differently after hearing other people talk about the same event.
   1. Cryptomnesia: we see something somewhere and later remember it as something we did or made ourselves.
   1. False Memory: remembering things we think we made, but which in fact never happened.

   
   

2. Suggestibility: we are willing to accept suggestions from others and build on them for actions, if someone says something often enough we start to believe in it.
3. Spacing Effect: by putting more time between studies we remember things better because it gets into our long term memory.

4.2 We avoid specific things to add generality
Out of necessity, we avoid specific things to add generality, but there can be consequences in doing so.

1. Fading Affect Bias: memories with negative associations are forgotten faster than positive memories.
2. Negativity Bias: we are much more attracted to negativity.
3. Prejudice / Stereotypical Bias: we prejudge people based on the group we put them in, for example their political affiliation, gender, age, religion or perhaps race.

4.3 We reduce events and lists to their most important elements
Lists and events are not easy to generalize, so we extract only the most interesting parts.

1. Serial-position Effect: we remember the first and last items in a list the best, middle items the worst.
   1. Recency Effect: we best remember things that happened most recently.
   2. Primacy Effect: we best remember information presented first.

   
   

2. Memory Inhibition: we don’t remember much of irrelevant information.
3. Modality Effect: the way knowledge is presented contributes to how well the knowledge is remembered. In general, knowledge is better transferred using a visual presentation.
4. Duration Neglect: how painful or unpleasant an experience is remembered will not be determined by the duration of this painful- or unpleasantness.
5. Serial Recall Effect: our ability to recall items or events in order.
6. Misinformation Effect: our ability to adjust memories of events after hearing information after the event has occurred.
7. Peak-end Rule: the value we place on a memory is not determined by the average of that event, but is determined by its peak and end.

4.4 Based on how we experience events we store memories
The value of information has little to do with how we store memories, it is more down to factors such as what is happening around us, how the information is presented, how easily we can retrieve the information, etc.

1. Levels-of-Processing Effect: the better we analyze something and the more energy we put into the information the better we remember it.
2. Absent-mindedness: people have three reasons for not paying attention or forgetting things:
   1. Lack of attention
   1. Tunnel vision on one item and forgetting the rest
   1. Distraction by external factors

   
   

3. Testing Effect: things are sent to our long-term memory faster if we have to recall/remember certain things more often.
4. Next-in-Line Effect: things we hear/see/experience just before we need to perform we remember worse than things further in advance or after.
5. Google Effect: we forget information that we can easily look up.
6. Tip of the Tongue Phenomenon: not being able to bring up a particular word or phrase.

What can I do with all these Cognitive Biases?
How do you bring Cognitive Biases to practice?

1. Be aware of all 151 biases Start by reading through this article completely.
2. Choose 3 Cognitive Biases Over the next month you will work on your 3 chosen Cognitive Biases, make a plan of how you will put them into practice.
3. Choose the next 3 Cognitive Biases The next week or month you will work with the 3 new Cognitive Biases, again make a plan of action and again put this plan of action into practice.

What is a Cognitive Bias?
A Cognitive Bias is an error programmed into our brain, it is basically an irrational decision we make and judgments we make based on the information we process.
What is an example of a Cognitive Bias?
The Confirmation Bias is a well-known Cognitive Bias, we are looking for information that validates what we believe.
What are the most important Cognitive Biases?
The main Cognitive Biases are about filtering information, assigning meaning to certain things, the speed at which we make decisions and how we remember things.
What types of Cognitive Biases are there?
There are 4 types of Cognitive Biases, these are about filtering information, assigning meaning to certain things, the speed at which we do things and how we remember things.

I do not believe in automation. Even the best strategy has exceptions. There are simply times when market sentiment, economic factors, fundamental events over rule a system. You need your eyes on it. I would never leave my trading to automation. When I'm in the market, I am at my desk. Of course, I will leave smaller positions on and step away, with targets and stops in place.

I find that using any automated system it always has to be the situation where the human supervises the machine (Expert Advisor).

Look at the HFT firms they have a team of maths and science professionals supervising operations.

Masterrmind ..........

How can you prevent building up negative emotions when trading ?

You need to take care of the Loss Aversion Bias. That is why it is important not to underestimate the psychology of any bias. One needs to be aware of them.
The noble prize winners Kahnemann and Tversky have shown that a loss of $100 equals a gain of $240, so the ratio is ca. 2.4. This is because any human is (usually) risk averse in his nature. That means if you translate this further, one needs to have 2.5 in RRR on a 50% win rate to be stable emotionally OR on 1:1 RRR where the average win trade equals the average loss trade one needs to have a ca. 70% win rate to be stable. If you do not respect those numbers, then you are hurting yourself with building negative emotions which can cause human errors when trading. One needs to take care of the fact that losses count more than gains for anyone.

If you have no edge, everything else is irrelevant. Everything.

You need all that pyschology stuff to find an edge - not to trade. That is a point nearly everyone fails to grasp and ultimately fails at trading.

So, simply put, you are only trading if you have that edge. You are not trading if you don't have it, you are only transacting in delusion.

having a plan that s backed up by forward testing ur strategy for a reasonable amount (trades), gives u confidence to stick to said plan even if the world is colapsing (ie. war in Ukraine, acts of God and so on..). and in that plan should be included not only money management but trade management. it s very true imho that it s mostly a batle with urself on an emotional lvl, but u can only overcome that by getting confidence in ur setup(s). market goes through differnt phases, it s doing that since it s inception, nothing new under the sun when it comes to trading, even tho some are trying to coin things that are there for hundred of years. trade, take notes of ur mistakes, of what ur doing right, what ur doing wrong, and keep going till ur confident that in 100 trades etc u ll come out on top.also stick to a risk (preferably in %) that ur comfortable with. that way if ur doing good, risk increases per trade while ur risking same %.
u can make money with only the standard MACD on ur chart, but not many can take the pressure that comes with x nr of losses in a row for such a strategy till u win, cos ussually the win rate is low. anyways, not a casino by any means, moreover u have the oportunity to be the house that wins in the long term like a casino, huge difference! anyways, this is only my view, i guess based on own experiences in regardes to trading, people will have different views. cheers and good trading

Of course, having an edge with your strategy is the most important. But when you have an edge and it is not fully automated your emotions also come into play which you need to take care of, otherwise if your stats are not that good you can easily build up negative emotions when trading, especially on doing tough Phase1 challenges.
Less automation means being more involved as human into the decisions. So when your stats of your edge/strategy are not in line with the loss aversion bias then you have to deal with your negative emotions. This is even more important when you are watching the markets and your trades and to the degree of automation and having obejctive well defined trading setups with no room for personal interpretation when it comes to trading. Of course you can still be profitable anyway too, but when you respect the psychology of that bias, it is mentally easier to follow your own strategy. That is an important aspect one needs to take care of e.g. when designing strategy.

I do struggle to pass challenges because I have to trade in a way that I have trained myself not to, because I have to, only to pass.
I wouldn't want to automate because where's the fun in that? Also I've never heard of a strat that is automated and works longer than 60 days unless it is some kind of cheat software chasing latency etc which is way out of the realms of forex factory anyway... you would still be obessing about it and also have to code.

Most folks that i've run into who automate seem to be coders rather than traders. Not dissing them as some of the software for copy trading is awesome, but the ugly truth is they don't know how to trade so hide behind hours of backtesting, when maybe they should be spending more time with the wife and kids, that was me some years ago.

Just waiting for that friendly prop firm to pop up with 1Million and the only challenge is if you can last longer than 3 months with a +1R and max DD of 12%....

The fun is you are in a way calculating you get rich by following certain rules. Also you would like to know if you do something in systematic manner does it really work? Also doing manual backtesting without coding is cumbersome and takes a lot of time. Spending time with coding, backtesting and automation gains you some time back thereafter because less involvement is then requirement when going live and it comes to trading. So in the end you get more time when you spent some time on coding.

For myself I can confirm that for strategies over Sharpe 5, which needs to be reoptimized every 60 days. But I know there are famous hedge funds out there who achieved for decades Sharpe Ratios over 4 with solid, stable and consistent results with which you could easily pass any challenges every month for sure.

I am a trader, but I learnt to code to express my thoughts in an objective manner. I have not learnt coding on a university or something like that. It is all self taught and I also use very easy high-level programming language to make it much easier when it comes to coding. So I am not a real professional coder at all, but I see it is neccessary to do some coding. I also would say the main thing is your view and your thoughts and understanding about the markets and not math or coding itself.

Me too, of course that would be an improvement for the trader.

Hello guys, I"m just going through FTMO 50k challenge.
First stage and only waiting for the days to pass to proceed to 2nd stage.
I was thinking to open an account with another prop firm to diversify.

Could you suggest someone that is reliable and offers futures?

I must say that MFF trailing DD and shity customer care along with stalled payouts I read about does not encourage me to go with them.

I was looking into Fidelcrest but I'm not sure how creible they are. Is there someone who actually does get paid? Their T&C is basically copy pasta from FTMO along with the statement that even after passing both stages they don't have to give you anything, only recommend you to 3rd company that provides the account

Top step 50k has only 1k daily DD which seems absurd to me when traiding 5 contracts, but I guess I'll try the free trial

I'll look through the Capablanca reviews, thx for posting them!

I probably should have added that I am/was a coder too... !

Never mind. You are welcome. For me the best example is that I spend less than 1 day in coding and three months of testing a new daytrading strategy which has actually a Sharpe Ratio of 7. That translated it means it shows an average RRR of 10:1 per month. I hope I can get the half of it when going forward and trading it live. So far so good I passed a challenge and I am doing some profits on my funded account too. But I spent years on my understanding of the markets to come to that idea. So it is not the time with coding or testing that is relevant I have shown myself. You only need to watch markets and make your own thoughts which is not published as a ready strategy or trading system anywhere on the whole internet. And I spent lot of time reading and researching new ideas and concepts and listen to other traders.

It is very important to have an EDGE that is rules based so that you doe not become subjective when you trade - it forces you to stay objective.
With prop firm challenges, in in general in fact, I force myself to take 4 trades per day maximum. If your first trade of the day was profitable, close down shop for the day. If not, take a second trade and if profitable close shop for the day. Then, if you want to trade in the afternoon NY session, take a trade and if it is profitable, close up shop. If necessary take a fourth trade for the day but this should only be in exceptional circumstances.