Few of the known but serious issues that I am facing in my day trading, and which needs immediate work..
1. Jumping down to LTF to over manage the trade - This is happening by the fear of missing out profit, fearing a sudden reversal or failed setup trade.
2. Loosing Focus and attention in sideways market - Sideways days are being boring and slow, not giving many trade setups. So in the process of waiting for the right setup, sometimes patience and focus is lost, resulting not being there when trade comes, or jumping early to a setup before it forms. So maintaining a trading mindset is the key here. From today onwards I will sit till 3:30, Till now by 2:45/3PM I was thinking like day is almost gonna over, so no point is sitting now, Need to change this attitude.
3. Over Trading - By jumping ahead of the setup sometimes are leading to overtrading. Another issue here is in sideways market since market moves slow, all 9/10 stocks, that I am tracking gives signal at some different point of time, thus I take all of them, resulting 8/9 trades. But in trend market when all of them move simultaneously, maximum 3/4 trades can be taken at the same time. So this is an issue where I am loosing more in sideways even if the loss are small. Need to work on this.
To maintain the evenness of mind and to trade consistently I need to make all the above issue sorted out soon.
Hi LW,
The problems faced by most traders will be the same as your problems 2&3, some time back i have copied two articles posted on our forum ...so i am reposting them for you...Hope it helps in your trading...:thumb:
Originally Posted by howardroark
It's been several months, my account isn't looking good. I have taken the time to make some self-assessment after trading. One of the behavior I have is an impulsive finger. Click, click, click... going against my trading plan, well not going against it but clicking the mouse way early before my entry signal.
There is a lack of focus. I have found that each time I entered early before my trade, I was feeling greedy. I felt that I can catch a big move, I felt excited and a rush. I also felt that I was missing out on a great opportunity to make some profits.
This is out of control, I need to control this urge. I need to stay composed and in control. I need to develop self control and patience.
DOES THIS SOUND REAL AND PERSONAL? I WAS THERE TOO ...
What to do and how to do?
Self control and patience are a prerequisite in trading. As with life (not just in trading), impulsive decisions, impulsive actions or impulsive behaviors usually lead to problems.
As much as you would like to tell yourself to be patient and be in control, it wouldn't help very much in changing the behavior. Mark Douglas (trading in the zone) suggests that you try to catch yourself during those moments when you lose control/being impatient and try to get some control at that moment. This is one way of changing the behavior, but it is not the efficient way. This is not getting to the root of the problem. Trying to get some control during those moments would be to late. Most often, the moment you realize that you f***ed up, everything has already been done.
You see, you have got to come to the battlefield prepared. If this happens, this is what you do... when that happens, then this is what you do next. You shouldn't go into battle, not knowing what to expect, then meet the circumstance and say, "What do I do now!?". You should be prepared and know what you are doing, way before you enter the battlefield.
Can you imagine a surgeon not prepared in the operating room (battlefield). He takes a scalpel, cuts the patient open and then says, "What do I do now!?" So why would you go into trading not prepared?
Training Exercise:
During my developing years, I set aside training days (not demo-ing days). To train myself in self control and patience, I set a trading day (Friday) as one of my training day. Not weekends, but during live trading hours.
Friday was a day of no trading. I would simply sit and watch the market moved for 6 hours. I watched the market moved up and down, made lovely breakouts, skyrocketed to new heights and plummeted to extreme lows. I watched myself as I went into an emotional roller-coaster ride; the greed, the rush, the disappointments, the confused and all the mixed emotions you can ever have in trading.
I did this for almost a year (every week), slowly seeing the results the effect it had on me. I still perform and continue this exercise once every month (last trading day of the month).
Valuable lesson:
You will develop self control and patience. It does this by molding your mind into a belief that everything is fine, that everything is OK, that everything is safe when you miss a trade/don't trade. It molds your mind into a stronger belief that opportunities are abundant. When you hold such perception (everything is safe, abundant opportunities), your behavior will act accordingly; self control and patience.
Training exercise: Whether you are a scalper, short, medium or long term trader, set a day of the week (during trading days) to watch the market intensely. No Trading during this training. The beauty of it is that you don't even have to take any notes (if you don't want to). You don't have to analyze the charts. Just sit there and watch it. Just be aware of the emotions and feelings that are running through you.
IMPORTANT: Even if you see the best setup occur, the biggest move happening... it is STRICTLY NO TRADING. Just sit and watch, nothing else.
This is a very important exercise. This is the fastest way I know how to instill self control and patience.
I can hear most are whinging/sulking already. It is like a person who wants to become a doctor, but says he doesn't want to deal with piss, **** and vomit. If you don't want to deal with it, you are best to be in another Profession. These are the roads you must take to become a Professional trader. I have more than 10,000 hours of looking at live charts, and that's the difference between you and me. One drawback of medium-long term traders are that they don't get enough live screen time.
Mold the mind, don't mold the behavior. The way to mold the mind is to train it. Training, training, training, ... You must be prepared long before you enter the battlefield.
It is OK to miss a trade... But it is NOT OK to miss a trade because of laziness.
How Many Symbols to Trade at Once
By Austin Passamonte
One of the most common email questions I get inquires if our method of trading will / will not work with fill-in-blank symbol or market. There is only one possible answer to that and it would be yes...our price-action based trading approach works in any moving market.
Big picture: markets are markets. There is no difference between any of them when they are moving up, down or both. The same principles of price action and behavior apply to all. Only differences are open interest aka true “liquidity” available for consistent trades size. Some markets are simply far more liquid than others. But all markets adhere to the same universal laws of contractions and expansions alike.
More than One(ce)
Thru the bulk of my career in trading, I’ve been a proponent of working with multiple symbols at once. From options to forex to futures and around, I have most always tried to juggle two or more trading instruments at any given time. I think that seemed most logical, and also appealed to my own personal traits of attention deficit as well. But is it in fact true that trading multiple symbols and/or markets offers the greatest potential profit?
When I began trading a decade ago, it was with equity and index option contracts. I was not a designed day trader… seldom did I open and close a position intraday. I had no intention of turning trades quickly by design, although at times when extremely favorable price movement happened I was grateful to take advantage of that. For the most part my trading activity stretched across days if not weeks of actual hold times for trades.
As I transitioned to futures and forex markets next, my average hold times for trades lasted for several hours if not overnight into the next session or two. I was still in swing-trades mode, seeking +20 index points (not ticks, whole points) in the ES and/or +100 to 200+ pips in FX symbols… per contract. Back then, all markets had much greater average price ranges and smoother oscillations up & down thru the process.
Faster Pace
As time went on, all financial markets changed. The past era of big, deliberate price swings evolved into the present time of contracted markets, extended sideways volatility with brief spates of abrupt directional spikes and slams. Now it is rare to hold any short-term position for hours or days in duration. Sideways and counter-trend price moves are such that deliberate price swings from high to low or low to high points in the past are now extreme noise gyrations in between.
All financial markets are much thinner now than in times past when it comes to real, true liquidity. Volume and open interest across all markets used to be dispersed across a far greater number of participants before than are currently active today. So deliberate has been replaced with abrupt because of that evolution.
Personal Traits
“Know thyself” is as important a task in trading as any other individual performance pursuit. In my case, I have a rather short attention span unless the subject absolutely fascinates me. Which is why staring at modern-day ES futures chopping thru a six-point range for hours at a time is a form of mental torture for me. Many traders find that type of (in)action preferable. To each our own.
Slow, go-nowhere, chop and churn markets are not my cup of tea. I highly doubt they appeal to most individual traders, either. Volatility, price range and liquidity are the cornerstones of profit potential. The greater distances price will move = more favorable risk to reward ratios are.
Increased Attention
What I have found thru the years in myself and also with other traders is the natural trait to pay more attention towards choppy symbols and less attention to deliberate ones when working more than one market at a time. Basic human nature… we try to “fix” what is not working right and assume what is working well will do so on its own. So in other words, we tend to focus more on trying to make gains out of the worst performing symbols at any given time because that’s where the struggle to profit from or “win” is found.
You know what else I have found? Opting to focus on a single market or symbol makes me more efficient with that symbol overall. More importantly, it tends to make me more successful overall. No longer am I languishing and anguishing over whichever tape is acting poorly at the time. Now I am focused with laser sharpness on what is working well when price action there is working best.
I don’t know if it’s ideal for everyone else, but I’m pretty sure it is best for many others to pick one market/symbol and focus with precision on that. If you find yourself struggling to manage more than one symbol, stop trying to do so. If you catch yourself thinking / saying things like, “I missed that move here while distracted over there” then you just caught yourself missing out on easier money. Didn’t you?
There’s an old saying that predates anyone reading these words that goes, “If you chase two rabbits, you’ll catch neither.”
Best Regards
