Facing Temptation

[The Oracle]

it is very easy to make money trading for all you need to do is buy and then sell when higher or sell and then buy when lower. it can not get much simpler than that. of course the important factor is time. when you introduce time the price can of course move against you so that you are now losing. how do you stop yourself losing. easy. just get out. but now you have to get back in to make money. so where do you get back in. hold on now. maybe the initial entry was not right and i should have not got in there. but how do i know that before hand.

so many so's.

you do not have to know what will happen next but you do need to know what you need to do next depending on what happens. once you do this it is then just a matter of time. so time is the important factor after all but not the way i thought it was.

 

[Palatine]

Quote from Joe Ross:

The more you look at how a trade is going, the more you think about it, and if your plan is to patiently wait for a week or longer, looking can only make you feel like you want to take action. It's necessary to remove temptation.

This part of your post appealed to me, really. I would like to contribute a tip that might help traders psychologically (especially those who trade trends):

Always expect the opposite of your plans to materialize, and plan accordingly. By doing so, you automatically minimize the risk and maximize the potential.

For example when you enter a trade, you obviously hope that it will be profitable. Do a mental switch. You have to fear that the market will go against you instead. This will make you respect risk and set a protective stop at all times.

On the other hand, when you are in a good trade and observe a pullback and consider to close it, you have to be greedy and hope for it to turn around. This will prevent unwanted emotions from taking over your investment decisions.