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My thoughts are similar. The word, "compulsiveness" came to mind to describe my malady but "impulsive" seems to cover it pretty well. As much as I hate to admit it, "lack of discipline" is the main malady that I need to own and work on.
I have had days where I went past my draw-down limit and clawed my way back to profitability. On other days, in a similar situation, I have dug a deeper hole.
On the other hand, if I am up, my mind's eye sees that as a cushion to assume more risk and I end up giving it all back.
I have a plan but then I see something too good not to jump on and/or a new idea for an edge comes to mind and a current price move looks like a good time and place to vet it.
I have been trading futures for a year and a half and for most of that time my biggest weakness was related to all the false beliefs that I initially had about trading. As I straighten that mess out and increase my technical knowledge, let's just say I am becoming pretty aware of the psychological challenges associated with overconfidence, greed, fear, and frustration. . It's the next frontier of my journey. Although I am still on the lookout for false beliefs. .
Voted for "Holding my winners" as I tend to get out too early, often against plan.
Sometimes scratching a trade saves my butt, but that only builds bad habits... I've actually gone through and done the math against take profit price targets and can find entire groups of trades where a loss would have been a winner, winners would have been much greater, or losses would have been much less. Yet even knowing the math, mentally it's hard for me to stay in.
I voted for 'Losers get out of control', because especially in such a volatile market like NQ I tend to move my stops quite a bit more out of the way than I should...but I'm still working on it !
On the other hand, I mostly use fixed targets, and sometimes I leave money on the table...but this is only my 2nd weakness.
"If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much." - Jim Rohn
My speculation is that your "thoughts" are familiar to a lot of traders. The word, "compulsiveness" describes a personality characteristic that can be deemed as our nemesis as traders. "impulsive" actions can destroy a trader, as my own experience has shown, by blowing up accounts. The fact that you hate to admit it, "having a lack of discipline" but are expressing it, is where traders begin to adapt to change, but first you have to admit it..kudos on that.
I recently came to own my own "discipline" issue and have been trying to figure out my way of developing a strategy to combat it. I am not sure as a trader "compulsiveness" totally goes away. This could be one of the hardest issues I've come to face. I am starting to realize the Market is an ever-flowing stream of money, and it is just there like a river, and it generates an enormous amount of excitement, as a fisherman gets when he sits on top of a large school of fish, and thinks how quickly can I catch them, how many can I catch? even though he knows there will be other fishing days, at that moment all logic goes out the window. This triggers me the same, to feel like I can just keep making money. I have come to see the ever-flowing river of money as a trap. How do I engage it without allowing my compulsiveness to take over.? Million dollar question.
For the sake of this conversation, I will share my own impulsive behavior control theory, and if I could get some feedback from some of the more advanced traders, I would be grateful.
I've come to recognize for my self, that I have to have a very defined window to engage with the market (River) and that window of time can not be broken, as it also plays into the statistical edge. So I created a defined window of time, Tues, Wed, Thurs..only...8:30 am to 12 noon CST only. I can only take 7 trades a day (fishing limit) and I can only take 3 losers in a row. (loss limit) Now the way I manage that window of time and what I do and how I do it is driven by my trade plan, which requires another level of discipline and control.
Having discipline at very specific moments of time, for me, seems a better way to handle my impulsivity, long term. (Practice Practice)
I can maintain my control and focus during the window of time, it seems better suited than figuring out how to change my impulsiveness across 5 days and 24 hrs of potential trade opportunities, which is what drives the impulsiveness, knowing I can sit in front of my computer and engage the river of money.
My trade plan is pretty solid, what I've learned is if I reduce the amount of trading time down, it helps me to focus on taking trades inside my plan, stop looking at all the potential other trades the brain will create because it thinks it has an endless amount of time. No it does not anymore. It has 7 trades only and only 3 days.
I am using an ATM to engage the market, stops are set and targets are set, is it perfect, no, does it need to be perfect, no.....it needs to be consistent on a level that produces a profit. That consistency will show up much more clear (or not) if I control the window of time I engage the river of financial opportunity, which is so overwhelming at times.
The other issue I have had to address as a trader, is I think trading will give me freedom, but in reality, I do not take advantage of that because I will sit in front of the computer 8 hrs a day and then study into the wee hours of the night...In my mind this is detrimental.
The defined window of time to trade is needed or I will never leave the house, it becomes a trap.
I am throwing this out on the table for discussion, to ask for advice from those who are consistent on the profitable side, I can address being consistent on the losing side....so no comments needed there......but from the minds of profitable traders what else can I add?
Am I seeing this the right way? what else could make a shift in my mind's ability to control my impulsivity?
Remember that even the best trades only have about a 60% probability, because any more than that, there would be nobody to take the other side of the trade. Likely there is an institution on the other side, and what institution would take a 30% probability trade? Be skeptical of any trade which looks too good to pass on.
mine is insufficient trading capital but I am not sure if one can call it weakness, its rather a blocking factor. It's like game of poker, if you were holding a pair of JJ and the flop had Q or anything higher they would act as blocker and not let you raise in a community pot (by the way the general term blocker means something else in poker which I think is useless). Therefore I wish I had a weakness.
Mine is insufficient trading capital and others. To replace my current salary i would need 3 times more trading capital then i have today to be trading for a living. All thought i am not sure i would like to do that anyway since trading is a lonely business and going to a daily workplace, business trips, challenging engineering and meeting people everyday is really nice. So it will have to wait until i retire then i be trading full time in the mean time it is a great thing and even if i am averaging 50% per year on the funds i am trading i spend that and more on just trading buying servers, tools and on 3 rd party programming skills hunting for the holy automatic grail.. hehe