Controlling mood swings (P&L induced)

F

futures_shark

I'm sure all traders are happier with profits than losses, but I belive my mood swings are excessive to the point of causing irrational decisions at times. I'm would like to remove emotions from the equation completely.

Anyone have any success with meds such as zoloft, paxil, etc? I was thinking of givng them a try for a month to see if my trading results improve.
 
Quote from qwiktrade:

perhaps taking the P&L column off the screen and refusing to look at it until the end of the day would help..

-qwik
More...

Thats what I do. I only look at my P/L after I'm done trading. It takes alot of the emotions out of the game for me.

You know if you are trading well or poor, you have to have the discipline to stop when you ar trading poorly based on how you feel you are trading not what your P/L says.
 
Quote from futures_shark:

I'm sure all traders are happier with profits than losses, but I belive my mood swings are excessive to the point of causing irrational decisions at times. I'm would like to remove emotions from the equation completely.

Anyone have any success with meds such as zoloft, paxil, etc? I was thinking of givng them a try for a month to see if my trading results improve.
More...

Have you tried any psychology books such as Trading in the Zone? They might be useful....
 
- perhaps taking the P&L column off the screen and refusing to look at it until the end of the day would help.. -

totally disagree ... on this

unless you have a stop in place that will take you out at a preset
level and then you look at your P+L figure

and decide if you want to trade again that day or week
 
I don't have the p&L on screen in real time but I have developed a bad habit of checking after every trade. This I can stop, and I will try that this week.

I have read "trading in the zone". I know WHAT I need to do and HOW I need to think but I am having trouble with the implementation.

I first started trading in '94 and I blew out in '97. I think this left a permanent scar on my psyche. I continued to study the market and even worked at the AMEX for 2 years. I just got back in the game last month. April started out good, within 10 days I was up $1k and I'm only trading with a small $5k test account. BUT the rest of the month I kept making mistakes that caused a slow bleed of capital until I ended up -$350 for the month.

I don;t relish the idea of taking ANY meds but I was thinking it might help me get started faster than working on the issues otherwise.
 
Quote from qwiktrade:

perhaps taking the P&L column off the screen and refusing to look at it until the end of the day would help..

-qwik
More...

I've been in a slump for several weeks now, and I have just recently decided to remove my open P/L column from my trading platform. I did so because I was noticing that I was making decisions based on the P/L, not based on what the charts and depth of market were telling me.

So far, it has been helping me. I'm the kind of trader who really hates to have a red day on the p&l. And as a result of this I have a tendency to want to force a semi-setup (i.e., an OK setup, but one which I'd normally pass on if I were green on the day).

I always have a stop in place so I know I'm not going to blow out by not having open P&L in front of me.
 
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