Emotional AID

Trading Discussion
184

Well, i’ve just walked away because i did not know how to explain but indeed, you must not fear loses. Loses are the most common thing in trading. So if you accept very long losing streakes and also accept that there is not a perfect strategy, you are one step ahead of the others.

Most traders rely on their analisys like it was the ultimate truth but ending up disapointed and changing the system. What if you accept it is not perfect and you decide to take loses friendly? Wouldn’t that be something? Just when you pull the trigger whe your system tells you, even if it is a high probability trade, you must accept it can turn arround. With that in mind you will be in better state among other traders. Remember it is you against the world, you cannot fight against the crowd at least if you don’t have krav maga or zambo training.

Analisys is a tool you must use in your favour like a bigger army, but remember, numbers (and in this case analisys) are not always a decisive factor. What is it good for having 1 million troops if they are poorly supplied and bad trained? If they were, they won’t be good at battlefield if you don’t know how to deploy them. Bomber and fighters are good and might help facing the enemy but they are useles with no fuel or just parked on the ground, just sitting ducks to the enemy.

Analisys is one tool but not the only, in my opinion is the point of failure for the newbie trader because we rely on the meerly analisys but we don’t think in ourselves. We must get trainig but we don’t, we must be patient but we aren’t, we must no take loses personaly but we do, an so on. Instead of searching the perfect analisys we should seek out for the best way to accept the system we already have.

That is the big secret you are looking for, just accept your system as anything but perfect, accept loses (learn to like loses) and accept that things might not go as expected, in other words be ready to lose, but lose responsably. I can tell you it is really disapointing to find out the waste of time we take to do it well.

Regards.

185

Thanks Mr. Gone for the words of wisdom… [B]Noted![/B] I really enjoyed reading your post, it was like I’m a student and you’re one of my mentor.

I will read a lot and apply what I learned. Thanks!

187

Well said.

188

Gosh dang after 5 years this is your first year of consistent profit wow…not to be snide but its a tragedy that it takes so long for some to finally learn the FOREX game.

After about 1 year fooling around with a good solid few months of grinding it out on the charts I only made a 15 percent profit last week which is nothing when there are guys tripling and quadrupling their initial capital daily so it differs for everyone and the amount of time they can invest in this.

As Mr.Gone says is it just a winning streak in a binary market of heads versus tails and there is no rationality to it or can you really have the odds in your favor.

I would agree with the latter but Mr Gone does make a good argument as many times the market is very irrational almost too crazy to ever get a profit worth considering ‘legitimate’ and not a bet. Needless to say when this happens it is very emotionally draining.

189

That is why i have i quote of maxumun loss, when market conditios are not prosper i stay out

190

We have a system because market is a chaotic scheme, we, with our strategy are seeking one single non chaotic move and we hope most traders follow our direction. I use to have a strategy similar to what i have now but it was technical only at 1hr chart, I’ve made woo hoo pips there but ultimately i’ve end up breakeven, the why? I cannot handle day trading and having a lot do during the day is hard to deal with several things to do and those days i had no written rules. Now i am testing a system based in almost the same tchnical criteria mixed with fundamentals and a much eleaborated system. So you must create a system that tells you whe to get in and when to get out also you must have a target wich is called take profit, if you don’t use TP you must have the discipline and confidence enough to follow long moves.

Your system must cover al angles or at least the best probabilities but remember you must like what you do, if you trade like a robot better find something else to do. In other word you have to be in tune with the market and learn from it. Analising the market must be your priority, trading second.

Regards.

192

This week was easter week and so market conditions on hollydays are kinda different and so my actual open trade as i’ve mentioned is acting weird. In a normal week i would take it easy but with nothing else to do boredom can play badly. And so i’ve decided to read more about forex, learn more but i’ve found out with some contradictions with i was reading leaving me with enthusiasm equals to -10.

So what i did, nothing, just wait, until finaly i could get over it, just that easy. You will experience situations like this all the time. SOmetimes the overload of information can leave confused, you must deal with contradictions all the time. You must deal with demoralzing situations all the time, this is why trading is not for everyone.

Other thing that worsened the situation was the fact i’ve forgot to journal my emotional diary, BIG mistake, when you write down whatever happens on your head you make yourself aware of yourself and will help you to control your emotions, two days of not journaling took its toll on me. Just wrote line a couple of lines and i am in fighting fit again.

Remeber you must motivate yourself because nobody else will do.

Regards.

193

Agreed the holiday week created severe harmful boredom, I spent so much valuable time last week earning 15 percent to my account and have lost it all today in one horrible trade that ruined all the work and time I invested in last week loss of sleep, energy, brain matter ALL FOR NOTHING.

I am hoping liquidity picks up or else I may doomed from trading for a long time because if I lose this account I don’t have anymore money to put in and all my hopes and dreams will come tumbling down.

This trading environment is dangerous and it requires emotional stability, patience, discipline or I will lose my shirt again. I forgot my discipline and emotional control from last week in the span of a few minutes and it cost me all my profits from last week how painful is this loss

This is what threw me over the edge I entered full margin position many lots to sell and the broker put a buy order but I am not sure if I made a mistake or if the broker made a mistake and I doubled checked it before I put the position so this means next time I MUST TRIPLE CHECK IT because just opening the position made me lose FIVE PERCENT OF MY ACCOUNT AND NO NEED TO SAY HOW HORRIBLE THAT MADE ME FEEL LIKE BEING RAPED.

now im angry and hope i don’t get into trouble trading

194

Most people tend to look for an [B]always winning system[/B], well it does not exists. Some claims a 90% winning rate or more, it could be true but how, most of this guys risk 20% and expect to win only 5% when the recommended is risking 1% and expecting to win 3%. Well, with high risk and low gain expectancy sure you will have more winning trades, but one single loss requires a lot of wins to cover it and two loses in a row or worse just 5 and this guy is out. The argument is kinda valid it is easier for a trade to reach 5 pips than 100 pips, but there are sometimes it gets stucked in 4,9 pips and then pulls back. Some of this guys always say it is imposible or it never happened, well or they are liying or it did not happen yet. Never say never to the market, market is one scale down from God and one upt to Chuck Norris, remember, Titanic was unsinkable, not even God could sink it, maybe it was not God but sure human stupidity did.

This comes from the need of money and the need of being right, the worst combination ever. You must take your analisys as a statistic calculation, not as the market itself and so as it is statistic it can be used in certain conditions and it is not perfect as your kinds they aren’t the best but you don’t kick them away just like that. And hence it is based over something not all time perfect you must be preppared for the worse that is why we have to tell ourselves the basic rule of trading “Cut the loses Short, let profits run” in stock market is kinda weird to do so, in forex we have SL and TP orders with no fess.

And that is why it is recommended to keep things simple, KISS method (Keep It Stupidly Simple), i am not against of using indicators, reports, news, whatever, what i don’t recommend is the excesive use of it. Maybe two or three are more than enough. Let’s say you use support and resistance levels combined with economic calendar. Let’s say later on you add EMA or SMA, maybe both. So let’s say two of them shows you an opportunity but because not all light 'em up you just let it go, and happens again and again and you notice you have let go very good opportunities. So finally all of them show the same direction, you have a big smile and bang! you pulled the trigger. So what happens next, boom! you SL was activated. Why? You’ll never know, market did what it did because it is the market. And you are depressed. With just two indis was enough, you would have not the initial big smile and the loss would be less painful to take. But don’t blame the excess or lack of indicators, they are not to blame, the blame is you, you were so confident over indicators that you’ve forgot to watch the market itself. Indicators, support and resistance lines, news reports, charts; tose elements are just an abstraction of what market is and how traders might tink or might do all together, not even candlesticks represents market at all, just a summary of each session.

Let’s put this way, the majority of traders are like drivers who think they can drive guided only by street lights and street signals, they don’t watch the road and they don’t care about their cars, the street walkers or even themselves.

That is why I insist on having psicological preparation to take loses. Taking loses is the first thing we should learn, once done that we are half a way.

I recommend you to read this book “Trade your Way to Financial Freedom” from Van Tharp, eventhought it is for stock traders, some parts of this book applies to forex too. Warning: you must read it with open minded, it can be like reading a blasfemous version of the bible. If you have read “Trading in the Zone” and that one is quite shocking, is nothing compared with this one. It will shake your floor.

Regards.

195

Agree Mr Gone Today I have up to half a dozen indicators on my charts and I wait for all of them to say go before pulling the trigger and what has happened??? when two or even 1 of them say pull the trigger the price moves for it so if I keep it stupid simple like KISS method i would make money right now instead of being in a loss

Next time I will just wait for one indicator out of my 6 indicators to give me signal then pull trigger, My big problem is that I OVER LEVERAGE this is something i must conquer because even under KISS Method I will lose if my account is wiped out soon.

196

[B]Mr. Gone[/B] Can we have a look and glimpse of what systems and indicators are you using in entering or setting TP and SL? Sometimes I’m basing my entries just on a mere instinct.

197

I don’t use indicators, just price action with trend channels mixed with economic calendar.

198

So you trade manually without automation or any EA/s?.. Wow great!.. What chart are you using?.. M1,M15 and so on… Cause I’m still in a newbie and trial and error period so I’m still scalping… :slight_smile:

199

1 Day, if you wanna be a scalper you must start with bigger time frames, scalping is exhausting. I’ve tried today just for fun and i ended up exhausted, fell sleep over the laptop, not for me.

Regards.

200

LOL… Yeah… I’m just familiarizing myself with live trading.

Regards and more success!..

201

It is exhausting, but for me i like the 1 min and 1 hour charts. I have a system that works well on both but as my demo account says “needs more practice”

Great advice guys!!

Also does anyone go by the logic of having everything in their house tidy so the fewer jobs you have to do the fewet distractions you can have while trading?

This easter weekend i have been doibg all my little jobs so i can concentrate more on trading with less worry about everythibg else!!

Ilearnt on friday dont trade over easter, good thing it was a deno account i used, just not enough movement for my strategy!

202

Oh No!, Don’t even think about quiting your job, i wanna quite mine but i don’t have another source of income, i am doing well in FX but it cannot pay either my lunch. The need of cash is certain a pressure you don’t wanna have.

One other thing, whatever trades you did this weekend in the big picture they are useless, trust me, you have to test a system at least for one year, market conditions changes all over the time. Whatever plans you’ve made, say goodbye, forget about the car you wanna buy, i’ve been trought it, we all did. Don’t get surprissed if your account is wipe out i a month or two. If this were easy everybody would be a trader. And if you are constantly called by a broker representant, send 'em to hell, don’t worry they are used to, brokers are seeking for newbies to take their money away, BROKERS ARE NOT YOUR FRIENDS no matter how they look or how they talk to you they are scavengers.

Sorry but this is not for innocents nor weakly minded, i was innocent once and i was convinced by a broker executive, opened a real acc with almost no preparation and the result was the entire loss of my funds in less than a month. Oh pain, painful pain.

Regards.

203

Alpha state is an altered state of mind when body is relaxed and more perceptive and brain works much faster with less effort. It could be described as a state of being somehow stoned but without the toxic effects of drugs and the subsecuent addiction, by the way, NEVER USE DRUGS, specially when trading. To analise the market in alpha state brings us a better and more unbiased perspective, it is easier to see what it is rather than what we wanna see.

The problem begins when the body gets tired and we are not aware of it, breathing gets faster, heart beats are faster, muscles get tense and so on and we are not in alpha anymore but our brain still believes it is and it works faster but its quality of thinking gets dimminished. So the whole body is consuming more energy than allowed. Remember in alpha state the body slows down so the brain can consume all energy need with no obstacles, only brain is allowed todo that. The problem is we don’t are aware of it. How do you know whe you are not in alpha anymore? Well, that part is easy, wait for the next loss an see how you react. If you cannot take a single ans isolated loss knowing you must like losses like thinking it is the end of the world, well you know is an overreacted feeling but it still hurts, that is when you are not in alpha anymore. There is not another way to know it, you like loses or not, period. Forget the “oh i am a good trader now”, it is an everyday fight, some trades are good and some are not, just make sure the good ones are much bigger than the bad ones.

It happens to you all all the time outside forex. You think it doesn’t? Well try to remember. You get a new job, get a new car, you feel like you deserve the world, you get the hottest girl as a girlfriend and life seems perfect. But suddenly after a time of dating she starts to treat you not so well and finally she abandons you and you beg Why if i gave you everything and did everything for you? And she answers: well why in hell are you still with me? SOunds familiar? Maybe during the period you were so intoxicated of joy that you forget to look around and ignored things were deteriorating and now your new car might be causing you troubles. And you should not endulged your lady in excess or you didn’t do it at all. Start looking things as they are or move to a country where is completely legal to subdue a lady. Also don’t let emotions take control i am not intimidated by my wife anymore and i am not afraid of loses anymore, well the second one doe not always happens.

All is connected, you cannot use your job or trading as an scape from home, most people look at their jobs as an Indian Territory where the Federal Army cannot get in, like their safe place, well that is because at the outside world life sucks.

Regards.

204

Heya Mr Gone, i think you misunderstood, when i meant little jobs i meant things around the home, like cleaning up, re-organisaing things etc.

I have no plans to quit my job lol, im no where near that ready ! plus the only thing i plan to buy myself i i can be sucessful is a 50 pence chocolate bar as the occasional reward.

I know i am no where near ready, but i do get to watch charts during the day sometimes and lunch and im going to start demo trading before and after work to give me more hands on experience.

I am a long way off quitting my job lol, i would love to, but i know im not prepared :slight_smile:

205

Agree trading is no escape from the turmoils of home it is affected by it greatly the only way to be good at trading is to fix the home not fix the trading this must be learned.

the alpha state is elusive until then no way around it, a profitable trader has little personal problems and strong mind