Emotional AID

Trading Discussion
1

Hello guys. A little intro first. My fellow trader, you must by now developed a system by your own or copied another one that you knows that fits on your personality, it does not matter, i guarantee you that you have a good system. You might in some point had the aha! answer and improven your trading for six months in a row but just one bad month crippled you again and right now you might be wondering why? The question is the answer, you are insecure. You enjoyed months of success, you thought you were able ti manage emotions but ultimately you became overconfident without beeing aware off. You might be reading Trading in The Zone or something like that at the begining of your burst up in forex. The problem was you stoped reading psicologycall material and forgot what emitions management was.

A good technique is too ALWAYS seek for a emotional forex technique and read it even if it’s always the same. So i wanna dedicate this trade to all babypips followers who wants to have a continuosly uptade. So guys, bring up your material and post it.

I recomend you guy to watch Million Dollar Traders, it was a very iluminating thing after watching it, made me realize that emotional control was everything. Look what the three guys who finaly stayed at the end had in common, they were always calm even whe hell came trought just sudenly. Their trading ideas were so different from each other but their chilling out mojo made them professional traders. Don’t made the same mistake of Cleo, she became too emotional, she was crying all the time.

Regards.

2

One good techniqe i use is write down all my strategy rules in my psicho book where i write all my psichological mannagement and my action plans before, during and after a trade. One of my rules is to read all rules before opening MT4 and after closing it and icommited to myself not to open nor close MT4 if i don’t have my book on my hands. So i have a quote of loses, three in a row and i’m done for the rest of the week, yesterdeay i had two, today i will not trade, tomorrow there is not relevant report to me and hence i’ll save that one trade left for thursday, UK interest Rate Desition. So to avoid impulsive trades i will not open MT4 for today and tomarrow, easily said than done, it is very tempting to do so even just for take a peek. What i did to help myself not opening MT4? Left my book at home, belive me i don’t know why but it is easier that way, before i 've implemented that rule i was used to say “ok i will not trade today” but ended up catching trades and most of those must not be taken trades ended up activating SL and frustration was too dam big to bear.

Sorry guys but forex is about self control. Most succesful traders do crazy stuff like this.

Regards.

3

Hi Mr Gone,

Could you suggest any material in this topic please?

Best Regards

4

Search for “4-Minute Drill for Traders” in youtube. More material unfourtunately is not available, at least i did not fount it yet. A good material is Trading in the Zone by M. Douglas but it only talks about the BIG picture, your overall behavior. This nitty gritty techniqes i’ve discovered by my own or found it in youtube.

Another good material available in youtube is “Become a Disciplinated Trader” by Ari Kiev, just search for Ari Kiev. One techniqe suggested by Kiev is to have a chronometer or a chronnograph (cell phone chronometer works) and when you are having a emotional stake just push start and wait the emotion fades away, remember how long it lasted and next time you feel the same just push start again, this time you know this emotion will not last forever and when you see the deadline comes near to end you will start to feeling better. Everytime you push finish the time frame for that emotion will be smaller. The moment the time frames gets bigger it means you need to take a forex vacation, just one or two days away from MT4 will be fine.

Regards.

5

Thanks,appreciated

6

I’ve improven my emotional TF from 6 hours to 15 minutes. Yeah!!!

7

I wonder that too. It happens to all. The reason for that is quite subjective.

You must understand Forex is just a probability profession. You have your system and it does not work. Why? Well, this may cause a tremor and be ready it won’t be a nice answer; the reason for that is because none trading tool works. Yeah!!! Pro’s, just think about it, your sma’s crosses or bollinger based makes you profit but if you reconsider it is not the only thing you use.

Your pullingthetrigger strategy is just one tool to put the odds the closest as possible upon your favor. There are some who are fundamental, others technicals, others discretionals, others price action based or other ones just a twisted mix of all. The most used techniqes have sma’s croses. You can profit from it. Why i don’t used it? Because there is no fun on it. Think about it, if you have a loosing stake, you might lose motivation to stay ice cold. Me personaly combine fundamentals and price action, why? because i like to study, i like to read, analyse reports and watch the chart ti behave as i’ve said. Once i pull the trigger i just move on even if it is still open, it is open and there is nothing else i can do. I enjoy more studying the market, trading is just a “ok, this might be good” impulse. Maybe fundies are not for you but you must find a way to enjoy the market flow. Keep stuyind the market even if it’s turning against you. Most traders just lose focus when sl is about to activate. A better aproach is to accept it will activate and start studying why is turning in the opposite way. Just move on.

Regards.

8

Hello Mr,

Could you please provide your emotional diary of one of your trades? I would love to see that.

Best Regards

9

Sure, tomorrow i will post it.

10

I could not load the puctures of the book, so i’ll type down the tansliteration of Reflection Moment if yesterday.

[I]I must admit it is not easy, emotions cannot be controled all the time, what gives me an advantage among the others is the fact i admit it and recognize it in the act and decide to do something about it.

I cannot control markets but i can choose to continue peeking or not. Once opened the trade there is nothing more i can do. The only thing i can do is keep studying the narket and see if the thing keeps on going or not.

I must continue analysing the market in a neutral point of view, although it is turning against my previous analysis. Analysis is just a tool that gives me a better chance, results are up to the market.

Knowledge of the marketis more important than every single trade taken individually.

There is not right or wrong, lose or gain, just what the market did or did not.[/I]

Well, that is part of it. My diary is much more complex than that. I put there my plan of the week, the adjustments during the week , the pulling the trigger updates and how i feel about it, how my still open trade is progressing and so on. The trade itself i register in my trading journal, wich is an excel sheet that includes the signal, charts, emotionals and so on. My Big Book or emotional diary is hand written. I use an elegant notebook and write with a fountain pen water based ink. The paper is thick and so it makes it easier to write. I make sure i do it with a nice writing.

Regards.

11

Cheers

I am going to make an emotional diary too before, during and after my trade. I will write it down on my thread. However, sometimes when I trade I feel I have to react quickly before I even write anything. That time I quiclky do my analysis in my head. I know that not a well planned thing,it is bad. But it happens. The truth is I always feel something what is like a intiutive thing or something from my inside that says “dont enter, SL will stop…” but my analysis in the same time show a very promising entry. What I will do is to grab this inside feeling and discover it is useful or not. I do not know it is an emotion or something else but it very often shows truth. It is very complicated to explain. I will document it and the results will say their words.

I am grateful you are contributing a thread about this. Lets give a hand to each other on this journey.

Best Regards

Pandras

12

Hi guys. It is me again.

Today i am going to talk about the respect your money deserves and you are not giving to it.

Well, we started in some woo hoo part of our lives thinking forex was an easy thing. Well it is easy, just right click and buy or sell. The problem is when that thing turns against us. Me personally i’ve lost 500 USD in just one single move. In my country that is a fortune. We all think that money is going to rain, “it’s raining cash haleluya…”. Just detour the subject for a moment, imagine that you received 10 000 usd just like that. Let’s say you wanna open a bussiness for youself but have no experience nor selling anything neither buying stuff to resell. So you do your research and you find out that licor and tobaco are the easiest thing to sell, belive they are. And just by acts of destiny you’ve found a place that is for rent and it is quite crowded. Yeah, it does have potential. You rent it and your licor provider starts to fill it and you just sit and wait. Maybe the first week does not happen anything, the second, well, somebody will need booze. Third week you start to get the feeling of what have i done, this was not a good idea. And then your firt customer cames in and buys a six pack. It’s something! You say. But next week nothing happens and your woo hoo moment becomes a whatthahell stake. So you decide to wait and next week your store is oversold, sudenly you had a lot of drunkies buying your alcohol and you have to call your provider or you will have nothing to sell. So your bussines is going up and you have learned that always there is a drunkie who wants your licor and there are some seasons when you will not sell anything.

Ok let’s re take the subject, if we had that mindset on the very begining we would be millionaires by now and babypips would not even exists, moderators erase this line if not appropriate. We all started thinking that our small deposit woult turned into gazilions in matter of days but we where not prepared for the moments when Chuck Norris was not smiling on us or worse, when delta force decided to turn our small deposit into none deposit.

If you are new into this crazy thing called forex, no matter if you start in demo, with 100 bucks or a million, take it as your bussines, you are the manager and the janitor, the one who sign paychecks and the one who clean toilets and that is what makes forex more difficult, you are judge and defendant at the same time. Why are you still in your actual job, because you are doing something right, why? because you have someone who might not be nice to you but tells you when you are wrong. So in forex you are your own boss and that is difficult, you will not tell to yourself, buddy start trading propperly or you are fired. Yeah, you have to, you have to be your own judge. It is impossible to do so, that is why a trading journal, emotional diary, trading system, book of rules and trading strategy are recomended. They are your boses, they are the judge and you are the humble janitor who learns from it. You have taken a loss, so what, is not the end of the world, as long you use sl and respect and commit with your risk management there will always a bottle of wine to sell, just wait to the next drunkie to buy it from you.

Regards.

13

Ok. Let’s continue. You might feel bad right now. Maybe you wanna quit. You do all what is supposed to do but nothing works. Well that is because you are emotionally crippled but you did not realize about that. That might because you had 20 in a row wins and became over confident. Or maybe you are on a really bad stage at your nontradinlife.

My personal experience: since i’ve got married i overused my credit card because of my wife, she got in too many expenses wich i received none benefits, for worse she became sick and her treatment is expensive. But Mrs. Gone always thought that money rains from the sky. Had a lot of debts were asking for more under the penalty of being insulted by her because many times i’ve realy went out of money and she was angry with me like it was my obligation to print cash. Anyway, i had to close my trading acc several times this year just to cover the credit card debt for Mrs. Gone asked me for more money. I finaly went angry and we had a fight wich i had to ultimately surrender because i could not convince this woman. So days later i asked for divorse, she didn’t expect that. So finaly she agreed to let me pay my debts and cut those useless expenses and we would concentrate into her treatment, i made her understand i can walk away but i choose not to, that i needed a break.

Ok. Problem solved but i still had the credit card and another debt bigger than the credit card but with less interests. Closing credit card wouldn’t be wise because it would kill my financial history and no other bank would granted me the plastic. Paying all the credit card debt would not be smart neither because i would end up with empty pockets and had to use the credit card again. So i’ve decided that keeping the cc and paying it little by little would be the best eventhought it could take long.

And so i did. Every month i deposited to cc balance at least twice the minimum of the card. Spared a little in two piggy accounts, spared a large amount for Mrs. Gone and she wanted for more i took it from one of my piggies. What was left of my salary i’ve put into my reopened fx acc. It was cool for a while but let’s face it, fx retail accounts are not something quite motivating. So i’ve decided to enhance my portfolio and i’ve invested in managed accounts too and other investments too. That made me more confident and gave me a purpose in life. Finally i’ve paid my cc and it felt like an exegesys, a never ending orgasm. I still have the other debt but it is almost zero interest and is debited directly from my paycheck. Now my wife is better, her treatment is not so expensive now and i have more invested. Feel like a professional now with a serious bussines to run.

So guys, what are your stories. Always remember: never surrender, retire to fight another day but never give up.

14

I approve of everything you said so far.

I took a job at a prop trading firm and I can tell you first hand and experience through this firm that emotions need to be in check. I have a guy who plays financials along with me (he sits next to me) and he always gets the loss limit hit even after getting decently positive Ive seen this guy wipe out his daily earnings in 2 trades or less.

I never really boast my wins or losses but he looks over and once he gets shut down he becomes a total debby downer and it affects my trading because it distracts me but it also annoys me because it breaks my concentration and I take the wrong trade entries.

So yes emotions are a powerful thing.

15

When i don’t want to listen to anyone at work i just put my earphones and push play to one IDoser theme.

Regards.

16

What does Microsoft, the extinguished Enron, Admiral, Berkshire and so on have in common? They have a name. Yes, eventhought Enron and Lehman Brothers are gone we can remember their names and the stories about it. And so with Apple, Microsoft or Coca Cola, their names were not known at the begining but now we take it for granted. So you’ve started a demo or with just 100 usd, so what, it is still your bussines, your company, your money, why don’t give a name to it too? It will help you take it more seriously.

Mine i’ve called Gone Fx, from Mr Gone, you got it? Might sound a little negative to you but it sounds cool for me.

Regards.

17

How is your business Mr?

18

Exellent in fact. Thanks for asking. But this week i did not take any trade, there was not much fundamental activity for the gbp besides a general strike in uk. The pair was resisting fundamental reports but technnical was too dam tempting, finally it ended up the opposite as fundamentals, it means i don’t trade when fundies and indis doesn’t match but it means also possible reversal in other words BIG pips. Patience is a small price we have to pay in exchange of tons of pips.

Regards.

19

I have learned that when the emotions are too much to handle, it is better to just dump those urge to put in trades into a demo account. This is especially important if there has been loosing streaks.

And sometimes if the urge is too great, just get yourself hooked on a computer game. For me, its Team Fortress 2 :stuck_out_tongue:

20

Never tought in that one. Thanks. What i think you are trying to say is when you feel the rush for more pips and just wanna scalp for example, do it in a demo and so your adrenaline heatting moment will be satisfied? Am I correct?

Regards.