I need guidance top stop emotions and greed

Hi there, my name’s George and i am 20 years old currently serving my country’s army (Cyprus) and i am finishing this year. By the way, i get out of the army 2 times a week, once of those is on the weekend. So i get to trade once a week and by the time i get home the EUR/USD pair quiets down so i loose my chance for practicing. And this “nervousness” makes me sometimes get in the wrong time and trade when i should’t and i find my self sometimes trying to push the S/L limits!
By the way when i control my self without having any feelings, i always seem to be making profits!
It seems as if my largest enemy for profits are my lousy (emotionally driven) decisions and not my knowledge or the markets!
For example today i managed to stay sharp and i just made 35 pips! Something tries to push me to keep on trading but i say no to that feeling because i know that it will take away all my work.

So how do you guys manage to stay sharp even when you make big losses or control your greed for more pips?

A lot of traders have the same problem, that’s part if the reason for the high failure rate in fx.
Just demo trade until you leave the army and can devote more time during trading hours

This is what I always advocate. In Forex Trading, it is never really all about profits, it is more about managing risk. That’s why most new trader go in, get excited after few successful trades, then driven by greed forget all about risk management, a key aspect of forex trading, and within a few months they blow up their trading account.

Therefore, it is good to remember that the market has no master and that you won’t be profitable everyday. It is all about making sure that your losses do not outweigh your profits, via an optimal R.R trade-off.

You need to learn more about risk management and work your trading plan on it. You fear because you’re afraid of loosing. You wanted more coz’ you’re still afraid of missing out that moment of opportunity, thus greed takes over.

Find out how much loss you can afford and how much is enough for you to take a profit on a certain trade, just in one trade of how much you’re willing to give in on a loss. Accept that loss and bear in mind you gonna loose a lot of that amount trying to get into one of those winning trade that will give you more than of what you’re loosing. It will take a numerous number of trading before one can really know for sure that their trading plan is profitable, that’s why Demo is advisable.

So the very question in the end is how much there is you can really accept and afford to loose in an attempt to get to those few winning trades that will give enough profit more than of what you’re loosing. Learn what risk management is all about and you’ll find a way to let go of those emotion out from your trading decision.

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I know how you feel, after trading for 2 years i lost 50% over a year and a half then got showed a new approach by a friend, mastered it in to weeks then went live and within 3 weeks i made 145% gain. So i recovered and made gain on all my losses. then got greedy ignored risk and walked away from that account 2 weeks later with 2.5%… needless to say i was hurt. but the silverlining was that it was my first live account that i walked away from a profit. Now after getting my head i started my new account with where i started and d1 small loss, d2 made 10% then lost 18% and now i was up today by 6% then lost 20%…

And this is my problem i work 7-6 and miss the london session so i try and catch trades on my mobile and never have time to calcutae risk properly. I’m an idiot as i’ve proven i can trade but its the emotional and greed that is stopping me. So i’m now treading water until i leave my job, im also serving my country. and may soon get out. so i need to master control now so that when i’m out i will get rich lol.

do the same just practice simming now until your 100% with your system then work the rest out when you have the time. even work on discipline, focus and control now in every form of your life.

all the best

darth

Guys thanks a lot about all your kind words! I suppose i just have to try to be a bit more cold blooded on those trades!

I sometimes had a problem of overtrading as well. I found on larger time frames my trades lasted long enough that I was always in the market with one trade or another. And there was no need to overtrade.

Overtrading plays in the hands of the broker/dealer. The more you trade the more commissions you pay. So I agree with you, limiting the number of trades is very important not unless you are a scalper (and a successful one).

Overtrading plays in the hands of the broker/dealer. The more you trade the more commissions you pay. So I agree with you, limiting the number of trades is very important not unless you are a scalper (and a successful one).

GChar,

You have gotten some good advice here, I just wanted to add my opinion on it. 1st of all, the best advice you have received thus far is to learn to manage your risk. You need to be 100% honest with yourself and ask yourself “how much can I afford to lose?” By “afford”, I mean, how much money if you lost it right now, would you not lose sleep over? You have to only use money that is ‘spending money’ (so in other words after all your bills are paid). You have to consider Forex in terms of it being a business which does have unavoidable “costs” from time to time (losses). If you aren’t honest with yourself about this true LIMIT and hold yourself to it, you will fail everytime.

So, let’s pretend (just for illustration purposes) that you make $600 per week, and after you have taken out all the money for paying your bills you have $150 of ‘extra’ money. Do you need some of that for ‘fun money’? Like a date, going out with friends, buying a new video game or whatever? Okay, let’s say that you don’t. Let’s pretend that this weekend you have no plans and you don’t need a new video game or whatever. So you have $150 to spend. BUT…would you lose sleep if you lost $150, would you have a little cry, or a little panic attack or whatever? The point I am driving at, is the money that you risk needs to be truly inconsequential to you - especially at first. This is if you are trading live obviously, which I am assuming that you are, but even if you aren’t - my advice is to treat your demo trading as realistically as possible. That way when you start your ‘live trading’ you are used to risking the realistic amounts of money that your live account is going to be risking. One of the most important aspects of being successful at Forex is learning to control yourself!

So, now let’s pretend that you have answered me that out of your $150, you truly feel comfortable with ‘losing’ $50 of that. Then this is the amount that you should limit yourself to, for the entire week. You have to be strong. No one else can reign you in and make you control yourself. Because if you lose that $50, you might say to yourself, well, I still have $100 more, and I could win my $50 back - but if you said you were comfortable with losing only $50 - you must stick to that! Trust me, this is important. So, you need to calculate your risk for your trade(s), and there are risk calculators out there if you don’t know how to calculate lot sizes yourself. If you want to know more, just ask and I’ll recommend my personal favorite.

You mentioned the EURUSD pair, is this the only pair that you trade? If it [I]is[/I], then just remember that there is not always a good trade present and sometimes you will have to sit on the sidelines and do nothing (like when its in consolidation or violently swinging around…too much volatility, it’s its not headed in one direction or another - is not a good thing!) I think it is good practice to focus on one pair, especially when trying to learn and master price action, but it can be difficult for excited newbies to NOT make a trade. If I misinterpreted what you said (and you are not limiting yourself to EU), then if I were you, I would scour the charts and look for only the most solid-looking trade, and limit myself to one trade at a time right now. Why not find the ‘best trading opportunity’ and invest in that one risk rather than half-assing it and splitting your risk among several trades (over-trading = sloppy trading and usually over-trading = over-risking). You are right that you need to control your emotions and greed, and all of the above steps that I mentioned are crucial to doing that!

You mentioned missing London open when you trade, but I would recommend trading the daily time frame and checking in just after the NY close (using NY close candlestick charts). This is a good approach for people with limited time, or anyone who wants to actually make money :slight_smile: This works best if you trade price action, and I’m not sure what system you use. Well, I hope that you find some part of this rant helpful…good luck!

Lexy

Dear Lexy

First and Foremost i’d like to thank you for all your kind words and for all of your ideas.

I am using cTrader at the moment in FxPro. I decided to stick to the EUR/USD as my practice chart until i gain experience on all the fields of Technical analysis. After that i am going to dive in to the Fundamentals and then am going to practice on other Major pairs and also try some crosses.

Back to our conversation, during the last days i feel that i made good progress on controlling my feelings and on recognizing patterns and indicators more easily.Of course it’s only the start so there are moments i make mistakes and i loose control but less often.I also try to avoid too volatile times even though i admit i like playing around just for educational purposes.Moreover i realized that deciding to just look at the charts and not trade is a trading decision after all! And a good one.I also calculate the risk in every trade. I am practicing in standard Lots but all of this is my learning process. I wanna make mistakes and good ones so i can avoid them when i go live and i wanna make some good wins. If you see it positively after all as long as you do things logically, you gain experience either way!

After i rigorously train my self i will change my strategy and trade on Mini Lots and pretend that am live. And see how that turns out.

All in all this process might take at least 18 months of daily practice and study.

Oh i forgot to mention my Trading Journal. Every day after i finish trading i write down all my trades, a picture of different time frames that i traded showing Entry and Close deals and what happened right/wrong and what i’m going to do about it.

If you have any other ideas i’ll be more than happy to hear! :slight_smile:

George

Once you made your plan. (Entry, stop loss, take profit orders) turn your trading station off. Come back in a few hours or days. Note your emotions and continue.

does this trading journal assist you in your future trades? i mean will you look in your notes before opening a position ?

Trade base on plan will make stable mental and surely will impact the psychology being strong . if so the possibility of emotional trade surely will be reduced . its also have impact of greedy cause with stable mental the traders will have minds as realistic and clearly

There is no more effective way to control our emotion in trading except with preparing good trading plan and trade as the planning. It is easier to stick on the rule if traders are confident with the system because it is impossible to be discipline to follow the rule if traders didn’t sure with the system itself. Good system is not perfect system which gave no loss at all but good system will manage profit and loss so as overall, you won’t risk more than you could afford to take.

this book has helped me out considerably, completely changed the way i approach the market “the daily trading coach” i’ve posted the link to the free pdf.
Redirect Notice2009-a23.pdf&rct=j&frm=1&q=&esrc=s&sa=U&ei=GuAwVaGIMcvbaO3KgPgP&ved=0CBQQFjAA&usg=AFQjCNH7elX2DKTsk6xYXjy7tZ2B3UFhkw

'best

darth

i just try to develop an entry and exit plan BEFORE i trade, and just stick to it as best as i can. That keeps the emotions out for me.

You don’t need to worry if you know where you’re going.

That is such a throw away comment, like let it go. it hold’s no substance.

darth

I think you’re right. It will be good idea to make proper trading plan for entry and exit point before making decision to open or close position because it will be easier to control emotion if there is proper trading plan to follow in making decision. But you need to keep update your strategy and system regularly (about once in each 3-4 months) so it can be used for long-term trading.