Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
It's embarrassing to admit this and ask for help, but I'm not as strong enough psychologically as I would like to be.
I'm looking for a new book to read that addresses my biggest pitfalls in trading.
My biggest psychological issues are as follows:
FOMO - it's hard for me to not chase a trade when i feel comfortable with which way it's going. I want to be in every big move and even though the logical part of me knows that's completely unrealistic, the emotional part of me still tries to achieve it
Being so close to winning a trade- Ex, being a couple of ticks from being filled before big trend reversal or times where I just missed a 20pts+ trend because I didn't take that extra tick or 2 in risk and my stop was filled. I understand that the market doesn't care if you are 1% right or 99% right, if you are wrong you are wrong. But it's not right of me to be more mad when I am 99% right than when I am completely wrong
Having too high of expectations while trading
Not letting drawdowns affect you psychologically. When I'm trading well it's so easy for me to continue doing so, but when I'm in a long drawdown, I change into a different person who passes up good trades and forces bad trades. I can't leave my last trade behind and I want to be able to do it
Any books FIO would recommend to help with these issues?
Yesterday's excellence is today's standard and tomorrow's mediocrity
Hi I have found that aligning expectations with what is realistic and practical has helped certain psychological aspects. To trade kind of small, sticking to loss limits, have realistic expectations of what is achievable over a long period of time.
Accept the fact that multiple losing trades in a row could be a statistically insignificant losing streak and trade small enough and little enough that no losing streak can hurt your account or emotional capital.
After that I can say that Mark Douglas's books I found valuable as well as the courses by Richard Friesen and Dr Andrew Menaker.
FT71's latest three part webinar series also adresses some psychological / emotional aspects in a way that I found helpful.
Very few people come to this game with the perfect mindset. It takes years and years to develop.
Some of this stuff is hardwired into us, like chasing, FOMO, risk aversion, etc. Kahneman.
I journal these issues on a daily basis, and keeping the spotlight on them builds awareness and strength.
For the journal, I have a template that contains a number of questions that I ask myself. On some questions I have to give myself a rating for performance the past day. There are also affirmations and certain choice quotations included that I do over and over day after day, in an attempt to program myself.
"A single change in the habitual questions you ask yourself can and will profoundly change the quality of your life." Tony
Robbins
Most psychological books on trading offer a one-fits-all 101 set of rules and leave
everything else to the trader. It's like a DIY mega toolbox that makes you feel great
leaving your warehouse. At home, the results of these psychological 101s are just
like average DIY: often only a treatment of symptoms - no solid craft, not to mention
applied art.
From that perspective I found "The Mental Edge in Trading" by Larry Williams' son
Jason much sounder. It is based on a trader's personal inventory. And in contrast
to most other books, Williams never gives the (false) impression that trading fits
everybody only provided the right toolbox.
Even though this book is not directly trading related, I do believe that it is a good and applicable read to have a better understanding of your judgement and decision making process.
Thinking, Fast and Slow is a best-selling 2011 book by Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics winner Daniel Kahneman which summarizes research that he conducted over decades, often in collaboration with Amos Tversky. The book's central thesis is a dichotomy between two modes of thought: "System 1" is fast, instinctive and emotional; "System 2" is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The book delineates cognitive biases associated with each type of thinking, starting with Kahneman's own research on loss aversion. From framing choices to people's tendency to substitute an easy-to-answer question for one that is harder, the book highlights several decades of academic research to suggest that people place too much confidence in human judgement.