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I bought this book on my new Kindle, and I am really enjoying it. It's the first of Brett's books I've read, and I can assure you it will not be the last.
This book is all about psychology. And when it comes to trading, that is really key. Entries, exits, sure -- but following your rules, improving yourself, goal setting, etc, this is where the money is.
I don't need or want a book that talks about when to enter a position, what I wanted this book has delivered - how to fine tune the emotional side, the frustrations of not following my own rules, get some pointers and tips on how to set proper goals, etc. And it is all done in the context of trading, so it hits home. While a generic psychology book may prove useful too, having the author directly relate it to trading helps me interpret it.
How do you find the kindle for reading trading books? I have a sony reader and I find for books with lots of charts it doesn't work out that great because the chart ends up being too small to be legible on the screen and there are sometimes text wrapping issues.
Well I've only looked at a few charts, mainly because books with charts is not my immediate focus, but what few I have seen don't bother me. I have the regular Kindle 2, not the larger DX. About four books in my collection out of 20 or so say "Optimized for Larger Screen - Kindle DX", because they are very chart heavy.
But I found that zooming works fine, it auto rotates to best fit and seems quite legible, good enough resolution. But overall, this is clearly a disadvantage to an e-reader. Sometimes charts are one or two pages away from the paragraph describing them, so you have to flip back and forth if it really requires intense study.
Nonetheless, I've sold all my paperback/hardcover's and converted to e-books and am not looking back.
Been reading The Daily Trading Coach By Brett Steenbarger. This is my attempt to put into practice his Lessons.
The 1st section deals with change. You need to define specific changes and work on the one or two that will most impact your trading results. He states that it is not just enough to set goals you need a way to track them. So, one of my goals this week is to use limit orders rather than market orders, tried today, but didn't get filled right away. So, today didn't do too well with this. Tomorrow I will spend a little more time determining the best price I can reasonably expect and place an order based on that.
My next goal dove-tails with this; basing my stop loss orders on the chart, not a fixed number of pips. If I can accomplish these goals I will inherently take less absolute risk.
His next recomendation that I am acting on is keeping a Trading Journal. I actually keep 2. One is a running narrative of what I am seeing in the market, including psychological aspects. The next is what I post on this forum.
He suggests that a trader list your most important rules. This is a goal I will work on completing over a few weeks. Currently am a know it when I see it trader. That makes writing trading rules difficult. However if I believe that this looks like a rule as I think about it will write it in my trading narrative. Eventually, the rules will flesh themselves out and wil be added to the list. One of my most important rules is asking the question, Do I really have an edge before making this trade.
Getting into the Zone. To me this is the most important state a trader can be in. When it happens it is like I can feel the flow and my Traders Intuition kicks in. On a day like that there are constant AhHa moments. Some days I feel in it and days like today, I feel off- balance and out of synch with the price action. The difficulty today was that I had a bias, rather than accept what I was seeing. The ES was in a rising trading range, I had expected a move up to 1084, then a pull back, didn't happen. It took a while to recognize that bias was keeping me from acting on signals.
I plan on reading a few lessons each week and reviewing what I have learned. I hope others take Big Mike's invitation and engage in this introspective exercise so we can learn from each others experiences.
Z, I found that post really interesting and helpful and (selfishly) encourage you to keep going with sharing how you are working with things you are reading from Steenbarger.
Right now I am also working on getting into a clearer mindset about what rules are and are not in terms of what is helpful/unhelpful and what can be defined and changed versus what cannot. (Boy, that sounds complicated.)
Whilst the wind was howling outside and already -18 celsius without the windchill factor which gets it down below -40 celsius, and I was wrestling with a panel that had torn loose last night to protect plumbing infrastructure etc. etc. had the following begnning-level insight which came through chrystal clear for a change:
The main purpose of any rule is so that you can evaluate your performance. So yes, there are entry and exit rules based on your backtesting/knowledge etc. but the main reason for having a rule is that rules are there NOT to be broken. That way, if you break the rules you can evaluate yourself in terms of that. If consistently breaking one rule, have to find out why. Are you doing the right thing and the rule needs to be changed because it was a bad rule anyway? Or is the rule preventing you from doing something bad? Either way, the existence of the rule draws a line in the sand in terms of evaluating whether or not and how you do and don't follow it.
So the main point of the rules is to provide a marker for trading behavior which is why the best rules are those that you can work on and are not entry/exit rules that are dependent upon market behavior. I am still working on finding more rules like that.
One or two I came up with yesterday are:
Use LT chart before trading to mark key SR levels on trading chart.
Then only trade after watching the charts - and nothing else - for at least 15 minutes.
If still not 'in the zone' do something about it to get into it. First step is being aware of state of mind rather than just charging forward.
Along with this, try to gauge the degree to which have too much of a bias going into the campaign and if so, clear out.
If am seeing good reasons for going either long or short right now, market is not clear or I am not clear = same difference. So wait until a clear bias emerges and one not based on initial expectations from early study of LT chart etc. There is no hurry to catch initial move after unclear situation or state of mind.
Of old the skilled first made themselves invincible to await the enemy's vincibility.
Invincibility lies in oneself. Vincibility lies in the enemy.
Thus the skilled can make themselves invincible.
They cannot cause the enemy's vincibility.
Thus it is said: 'Victory can be known; it cannot be made.'