Forget greed, focus on need

I usually post each week in the Community, from here in I’ll probably post in this section, as I’m not really a technical trader, I do use some basic technical indicators but more do with trends.
The one skill, that I believe you have to attain quickly is a mental attitude, firstly coming from a sales background the term is PMA, positive mental attitude.
Also having played a bit of online poker, and deemed myself pretty good at it, there are some crossovers to Forex trading.
Firstly PMA, one help here is a trading plan, develop one but stick to core rules, you will deviate I can promise you that, especially in your early trading days, you will beat yourself up when a trade or trades go against you, however the key here is to be able to back out, pause, analyse yourself and this is the hard bit, clear your mind, focus on the need and then visualise your success.
Sticking to using a percentage of your account and making sure your stake sizes reflect your risk, (This week I ignored my own rule on this it came back to bite me, I then got into first man blinks mode ( A trade on Copper went against me).
I should have closed it out earlier, in poker I would have folded once the cards didn’t start panning out for me, on the trade I kept in convinced the trade would turn it didn’t and stopped out.
I’m lucky I’ve been trading long enough for this trade not to affect me.
My week wasn’t great I broke even on the pip count.
Part of my problem I upped some of my stakes based on greed, trying to run rather than walk.
So become mentally strong, keep a good attitude, when it goes against you, stop, rewind, reset, move on.
And last but not least be able to go to bed after a days trading and get a good nights sleep, if you can’t then maybe trading isn’t for you.

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Can you elaborate on the title of your post? You mentioned forget greed, which I can understand. But what about focusing on the need part? Do you mean need for money? Need for skill? Need for what exactly? :open_mouth:

It’s a sales acronym, sell to the need, if you been taught the right way in sales (and the same technique is applied in sport) then you visualise the event, in sales before you enter the call you sit in the car and spend a few minutes going through the call in your mind, in sport golf, in rugby the kicker, where the ball is going to go or more to point where you would like it to go.
So the need is pulling the trigger, why, when, what, why did you pull the trigger, was the timing right, were the market conditions in your favour, what happens if the trade works against you, what happens if the trade goes in your favour.
I’m more into the psychology and mental awareness behind trades, and believe that what defeats most traders is not the losses but the not being able to handle the mental anguish that goes with the losses, by adopting a positive attitude and visualising your trade, trading day then when the market goes against you, you bounce back ready for the next trade or day.

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Aha! I just know ABC :laughing:

Thanks for breaking it down. Definitely takes away my ignorance!

My favourite 3 letters of the alphabet - and for a reason. Some years ago a colleague when talking about some future scenario would precede his comment with ‘knowing my luck’. He was speaking negatively and guess what would happen - yep, it would go wrong.

PMA in the market, coupled with some knowledge is how to forget fear and greed, that some knowledge - as Mark Douglas called trading in the zone - is understanding the market print of fear and greed - or as more often used nowadays - risk on/off.

Just taking the example of copper - DR Copper in market speak - it’s an economy demand based commodity - the greater economic activity then the greater demand for copper (long story but good for learner guys to read).

Anyways, long story short, Wednesday past copper hr1 trend was up and no reason to suggest Thur and Fri more of the same.

But yet Dr Copper fell those 2 days - the S&P and the Nasdaq had been climbing, wall st kind of neutral - so no signs of fear - keep buying the good doctor.

But there were 2 indicators of fear hiding in the background.

Biggest one is the US2000 - signs of selling and you only buy small caps when fear is dead.

And then the US10yr - you only buy when fear is alive - how safer can you get.

That’s the zone.

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This is a common mistake that almost all the rookies make. Guess it’s a part of learning.