Most of the trading I do is not for profit. It is for psychological highs. I have read that the highs associated with making money can be as strong and addictive as, say, drugs, or sex. I know personally that I often make trades simply to "get high". I experience the thrill, the rush, the excitement, and all of the corollary feelings that a compulsive gambler experiences in that entranced moment of anticipating a big score.
I know I have an addictive personality, to say the least, and to overcome this addiction alone is overwhelmingly difficult. I have seen glimpses of what the results look like when I don't overtrade. It is usually good money on very few shares traded. The opposite of addictive trading, to me, is practicing patience. Patience is all it really takes.
At Gamblers' Anonymous, they teach each other to avoid all situations in which they might be lured into gambling. Never enter a casino, don't play any card games, don't go near a racetrack or OTB; stay away at all costs! This avoidance of trigger situations means that they are less likely to relapse if they are nowhere near a machine that promises large payoffs for very little work. There is no temptation when you are absent from this environment.
To the daytrader, of course, this strategy only works when the market is dead, which is most of the day. The rest of the time, the trader has to make himself available to opportunities that come and go in a matter of seconds.
To the trader who is really an addict, then, he must practice patience, over, and over, and over. Just as many traders "slip" and lose discipline, someone at risk of overtrading may slip, or more appropriately, "relapse", and lose patience, and trade for psychological reasons -- to gamble for a living. This is very dangerous territory, and to anyone who feels the need to trade compulsively, an extraordinary level of practice withholding and resisting these impulses is required, if he is ever to have just the slightest chance of making a career.
I know I have an addictive personality, to say the least, and to overcome this addiction alone is overwhelmingly difficult. I have seen glimpses of what the results look like when I don't overtrade. It is usually good money on very few shares traded. The opposite of addictive trading, to me, is practicing patience. Patience is all it really takes.
At Gamblers' Anonymous, they teach each other to avoid all situations in which they might be lured into gambling. Never enter a casino, don't play any card games, don't go near a racetrack or OTB; stay away at all costs! This avoidance of trigger situations means that they are less likely to relapse if they are nowhere near a machine that promises large payoffs for very little work. There is no temptation when you are absent from this environment.
To the daytrader, of course, this strategy only works when the market is dead, which is most of the day. The rest of the time, the trader has to make himself available to opportunities that come and go in a matter of seconds.
To the trader who is really an addict, then, he must practice patience, over, and over, and over. Just as many traders "slip" and lose discipline, someone at risk of overtrading may slip, or more appropriately, "relapse", and lose patience, and trade for psychological reasons -- to gamble for a living. This is very dangerous territory, and to anyone who feels the need to trade compulsively, an extraordinary level of practice withholding and resisting these impulses is required, if he is ever to have just the slightest chance of making a career.
