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Rules are helpful when they represent a guideline and if you're not careful they can lock you out of opportunities to enrich yourself . Removing emotions from your trading regime is impossible as it would be for any job cuz your passion should drive you to succeed and make objective decisions . Emotional reactions and chasing your tail around isnt the same as being driven to succeed .
My experience has taught me the same thing Mike and now I can have my own personal rules customized for me and by me that would hardly work for someone else . I understand my weakness' and strengths and my rules for trading exploit that knowledge .
i think some people have a nack for trading and some have to work harder to get it,i know a few dr's one had time to do pre med and party and one just made it out with his degree,they both are good dr's now,as for rules i see some people tie their hands with rules and i see others all over the place in their trading as they have no rules,i use to be one of those. what has helped me take most of the emotion out of my trading was 2 things,fist i got comfortable with the market i traded,and then i have a rule for every 20 thousand i make i put ten of it aside just in case,this leaves me with an oh well if i blow my account i can replenish it feeling. even though i dont feel i will have to as i try to only have loseing trades not loseing days...sharky
Show me one profitable trader who hasn't blown an account or was bankrupt in his life. There are almost none to find.
Forget comparing trading with running a business, sports, flying, golf or whatever. It's not. It's way harder.
We've all read the books, know for a fact that we will fail if we don't follow the system. Sim trade for 10 years and then go life, you WILL make those mistakes which you thought you would never would do. You need to work against the human nature, and that's only possible with P A I N !!
What I'm saying is a practical advice. Shut off the computer, if you're losing, just turn it off.
It's not you, it's the conditions. Wait for your conditions. The right amount of volatility, the right set up, the right indicators showing trend not just touching trend then reverting to chop...
Isn't that it in a nut shell though, we're either scalping to 7-10 ticks or looking for the breakout. So my advice is don't blow up your account, turn off your computer and wait until tomorrow.
and a side note to all of you european/asian traders... leave some oil moves on the table for the US session! Thanks!
I am starting to think rules are not really rules. They are fairly rigid guidelines. Rules must not be broken but trading does seem to leave room for feel. And feel cannot be bound up in rules. The rules should be boundaries, places beyond we should not go. But traders intuition can often give you a real sense of when to trade even when the "rules" say no and when not to even though the rule says ok. That being said, I don't think the traders intuition really comes into play until you have around 5000 hours in it watching the same instrument and the same set ups. Its where experience meets opportunity.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, Leonardo da Vinci
Most people chose unhappiness over uncertainty, Tim Ferris
I sim traded my strategy ( successfully suprise suprise) for 12 months before going live. I read everything I could find on the psycholgy behind trading etc etc for over a year prior to that. I developed, what i thought was a good methodology. I studied and studied hard. I started trading live a week ago and almost blew up my account entirely within a week! I trade ( lol, can't really call what i did trading!) the ES future contract by the way.
I found that when trading live, a whole different set of emotions come into play when trading with your own money. I thought i had studied well and was prepared for this! Wrong! In my first week i think i made every mistake known to man/woman/trader. Did i have money management strategies in place? Yes, did i move my stops, yes. Did i enter too early and exit too late, yes. Did i let winners turn into losers! Yes. Everything i thought i had learned on the sim went to pot for some reason.
I went back over my charts and studied what i had done wrong. Simple answer was that it was not my strategy or methodology that was wrong, it was me. I was too cocksure, over confident at first, then fearful, then greedy trying to recoup, problems and issues are with me and i now realise that before i can even contemplate any degree of success i must learn to control my ego and my emotions otherwise i can never succeed at trading.
I have since gone back to simply watching my charts without trading ( not even on the sim) and will continue to do this until i can develop a patience in my head that will allow me not to trade emotionally.
Trading in itself i don't find difficult. Following my system and rules i find a nightmare!
Fingers crossed that when i do resume trading I trade small and develop a consistent mentality, wether my trades workout or not. I know better than to move stops for God's sake but it didn't help me when i traded live! Now i have lost some money, not all, I will not make the same mistake(s) twice.....he says!
No i will not, even if it means not taking a trade until i see a high probablity setup ( whereas before i thought i was seeing a set up every other bar)
At my expense, the market has taught me very important lessons one of which is this is not gambling, this is trading and their are rules, ignore them at your peril.
I am still in the game, next time i post i hope I will have more positive news with a few points under my belt as well as a few controlled losses.
As much as it might hurt better to learn the lesson sooner than later, at least you had to face reality right away, if you start winning since the beginning and get over confidence you might blow your bank account several times.
FEAR...the answer is fear. What you put your focus on you'll get more of. And learning to control your emotions will not get you anywhere either. Why? Because you'll be getting in a "don't think of a pink elephant with black spots" mode.
So don't struggle to control your emotions/fear. Learn how to accept your emotions. Become friends with your emotions, let them flow and listen to what they have to tell you!
And work on your perceptions. Our reality is created by our perceptions, hence there lies the answer to where you are and where you want to get!
We all struggle to make tomorrow look like yesterday!
Get rid of your past and let the future unfold from the now. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
/George