Am I my own worst enemy?

[southall]

Why do Casino owners take every trade (bet placed on the table)?
Because they have full confidence in their strategy. They know it's just a game of numbers and they have the edge whether they win or lose today or even this week/month.
Ever heard of seminars/books/blogs to help casino owners with the psychology? No.

This is silly, if you give me a roulette wheel and willing gamblers. I will not need seminars/books/blogs either. That thing is an ATM machine.
Like just having a slot machine on the premises. No seminars/books/blogs needed there either.
Just idiots to give you money is all that is required.

Trading is much harder as it involves uncertainty under varying market conditions.
There are lessers skilled traders who you can take money from but there are also lots of professionals who you will up against as well.

As well as the constant demand of bills to pay.
If a casino fails because it cant make enough to cover wages and rent. The employees will just find another other casino job.
But even a profitable trader will eventually go broke if he cant beat his own living expenses.

 

[Michael Akinyele]

disagree

the commonality is just luck of knowledge, as simple as that

Thank you for the reply to my post.
However, I believe that the role of a failing psychology is as equally important as a lack of knowledge, particularly the case with inexperienced traders. This is because even with a wealth of knowledge the potential for profits may never be realised due to fear preventing a trader from employing a solid system, or greed encouraging a trader to overuse previously profitable low-capacity strategies. In light of this, I disagree with prioritising a lack of knowledge over a psychological ineptitude, perhaps the latter is included in the former as a lack of knowledge about the trader themselves in addition to the market.

 

[AbbotAle]

The Casino analogy may seem silly but the concept is correct - if you do not have a deep seated trust in your method/strategy/edge then all the psychological help in the world will not do you too much good as deep down you know you're blagging. We can trick the mind a lot of the time but not when it comes to trading with real money on the line.

Conversely, if you have a deep seated trust in your method and skills you don't need any psychological help because you won't need it.

To work on your psychology you therefore need to work only on your method/strategy/edge. Do that and everything falls into place, don't do that and you'll probably end up reading a Mark Douglas book for the 7th time which will be as much use as the other 6 times.

 

[AbbotAle]

This is silly, if you give me a roulette wheel and willing gamblers. I will not need seminars/books/blogs either. That thing is an ATM machine.

That's my point. You don't need any psychological help because you have full trust in your method.

Work on finding a similar edge for the markets, obviously it can't be as precise, and you will again need no psychological help.

No trust in your method/strategy = you need help with psychology but sadly that won't help as you don't have a good method.

Full trust in your method/strategy = no psychological help needed.

One is a vicious cycle, the other - virtuous.

 

[AbbotAle]

This guy is running a trading psychology course sometime in August, cost $30.

He's written a few books and seems to be getting a pretty good name for himself. Some people might want to check it out -

http://tradingcomposure.com/

 

[qxr1011]

due to fear

fear of what?

fear of loosing?

with the "wealth of knowledge" (as you said it above) in any other filed of human enterprise there is no fear, why there is fear in trading or investing?

imho consciously or unconsciously most people who try trading believe - theirs "wealth of knowledge" is not enough... and they are right

those who trade without fear are not fearless or brave, they just believe that they have enough "wealth of knowledge"

actually the very beginners believe that theirs "wealth of knowledge" is enough... when market hit them hard couple of times , that beliefs evaporates and fear steps in

the very experienced traders also believe in their's "wealth of knowledge", they are still fearful, and cautious, but their believe in "wealth of knowledge" finally is overcoming the fear that they do not know enough

 

[Gary Lynn]

A Professional Trader ( test of time) has no emotion, he knows price levels and his market, he places tight pre-determined stops at every trade. If you have emotions step back and learn your market for a year or two until you are totally confident.
Emotions negates confidence.

http://screencast.com/t/xyzhdhPyuNoi