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Reality Check.........

  • Post #1
  • Quote
  • First Post: Nov 1, 2005 6:01am Nov 1, 2005 6:01am
Did you know that without courage, consistency and discipline all you learn from this forum, any other, any book, course or “guru” cannot be properly applied? All your hopes, dreams and aspirations will amount to nothing unless you can acquire these “unteachable” character traits.

Trading is an extremely difficult way to make a living simply because these attributes have to be implemented time and time again and as a result, your urge to act contrary to them has to be conquered daily. You will get better with practice but beware; pride goeth before a fall.

Start small and build up.

Steve
I was here, here I was. Was I here? Yes I was!
Quoting SterlingTDR
Did you know that without courage, consistency and discipline all you learn from this forum, any other, any book, course or “guru” cannot be properly applied? All your hopes, dreams and aspirations will amount to nothing unless you can acquire these “unteachable” character traits.

Trading is an extremely difficult way to make a living simply because these attributes have to be implemented time and time again and as a result, your urge to act contrary to them has to be conquered daily. You will get better with practice but beware; pride goeth before a fall.

Start small and build up.

Steve
How very, very true. I have found the acquisition of knowledge to be the easy part. The daily fighting of my natural impulses has by far been the most difficult part. But with each day that passes, it becomes easier. I believe that our natural makeup and the way our brains are wired, though optimal for normal living, are exactly backwards for trading. Discipline is following your rules because you know that listening to what your heart and head are screaming at you will only make you a 90%er.

Your rules MUST override your natural inclinations.

Dial
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Quoting diallist
The daily fighting of my natural impulses has by far been the most difficult part.
why is it with trading that the thing that "feels right" is always wrong, and what is natural needs to be suppressed? i think thats what makes trading such a hard profession.

i think it was william eckhardt who said that trading is like being at war with yourself. i love this job
Relax and be happy.
i don't know if i'd agree with that. i think that you have to study each market you trade, figure out its character and then go with its flow. trying to impose your own feelings and opinion will quickly burn your account.

i'm not sure if it is really being at war with yourself, more like being in tune with what the market is saying and behaving. tune yourself into its wavelength and then decide what to do...

having said that merlin is a pro and i'm not so what do i know!?

Quoting merlin
why is it with trading that the thing that "feels right" is always wrong, and what is natural needs to be suppressed? i think thats what makes trading such a hard profession.

i think it was william eckhardt who said that trading is like being at war with yourself. i love this job
Quoting Isotonic
i don't know if i'd agree with that. i think that you have to study each market you trade, figure out its character and then go with its flow. trying to impose your own feelings and opinion will quickly burn your account.

i'm not sure if it is really being at war with yourself, more like being in tune with what the market is saying and behaving. tune yourself into its wavelength and then decide what to do...

having said that merlin is a pro and i'm not so what do i know!?
I think you and Merlin are talking about two different aspects of trading.
Seems to me you are talking about your intuitive response to what the market is doing (an analysis of sorts) and Merlin is talking about dealing with overtrading, greed, fear etc.
I was here, here I was. Was I here? Yes I was!
The toughest thing about courage, consistency and discipline is that it has to be implemented flawlessly. I’ll tell you what has helped me tremendously.



I impose a structure upon myself, which includes a schedule, worksheets and routines.

When I get to work in the morning the first thing I do is read the previous days journal entry and then perform my analysis. To help me with that I use a very simple but effective worksheet which does two things:

1) It forces me to focus on the market and my analysis.

2) It forces me to think in a systematic way.

When I finish I know exactly what has gone on since end of play yesterday and what is going on currently.



When its time to a trade I use a checklist to make sure the trade meets my criteria.

You might be thinking that when a trading opportunity arises you don’t have time for a checklist. Consider this; If your having trouble in this area, then you should not be trading in such a short time frame anyway and if you don’t have enough time to plan your trades, you need to rethink your strategy.



Anyhow. once I’ve placed the trade I pull out my trading worksheet and fill in the details, thus far about the trade. Throughout the trade one is bombarded by oneself with temptations to do the “wrong thing”. I have a list of temptations, which I have compiled, based on my experience and therefore it addresses my specific weaknesses. For each item on that list I have a “truth”. A “truth” is a saying I use to counter the temptation.

As an example;

Before the trade I might have an opinion based on the news or some other source as to what the market will do. However, based on my rules, the criterion has been met, the trade is considered good and it should go ahead. Its then I hear that little voice saying “But blah blah blah……….”

I respond with my “truth” saying for that particular situation.

“Trade what you see, not what you think!!!’ (I got that from Joe Ross BTW)

I’ll yell it if I have too, but the point is it counters the fear with confidence.

When the trade is over I fill in the remainder of the details and any thoughts about the trade I jot down on the worksheet.



At the end of the day I print a copy of the chart, mark off my trades, staple all my worksheets together and file them. If there is anything significant about the day or the market that I need to remember, I enter them in a journal to be read in the morning.



The key to all this is that this systematic approach, over time, becomes ingrained. I train my mind to think in a predetermined way for any given situation, which frees me from a lot of the emotional turmoil’s. It may sound like a “killjoy” but it works.

Hope really hope this may be of use to some of you.



Steve
I was here, here I was. Was I here? Yes I was!
  • Post #7
  • Quote
  • Last Post: Nov 2, 2005 9:41am Nov 2, 2005 9:41am
Quoting ElectricSavant
For me.... I have discovered that, it is what "I feel", that is shaped by repetition and practice that I have learned to let guide me. But before practice and repetition I "felt" differently than I do now.

The disconnect from feelings and finding how you want to trade would seem to contradict one another. It is to retrain your brain to recognize patterns, thus you can "feel" good. Sometimes you must recognize the sort of session it is, to find the patterns.

I do not trade discretionarily anymore, but the key is to get in synch with the market and train your brain to recognize patterns. The managment of "feelings" and getting into the "flow" would be important for discretioary traders. When I tried my hand at discretionary trading, the times that I was the most successful, was on those "good" days when I could "find" the market.

You should not trade real money until you have practiced, then switch from the simulator to live. In a session there are several opportunities to trade discretionarily. You don't "have to trade either".

I know professional's that start their session on the simulator and when they get "warmed up" and they get in synch and discover what kind of trading session they are in....they switch to live. This is the beauty of the Oanda Simulator...it never expires and its server is the same as live quotes.

Michael B.
Thats interesting because, for me, those very "feelings" lead me into impulse trading, skipping trades, not getting out when my stop is hit, adding to a losing position and a whole host of other mistakes, some of which are deadly.

Intuitive perceptions about a given markets' behavoir has an important place in any traders repertoire. But in the heat of the moment when you're in a trade that's not going well,your emotions will start screaming at you and the last thing on earth you should do is listen to your feelings.

I couldn't agree more with the following quote by Merlin
"why is it with trading that the thing that "feels right" is always wrong, and what is natural needs to be suppressed?"
I was here, here I was. Was I here? Yes I was!
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