Getting over the fear of placing trades and FOLLOWING THROUGH

Quote from scorcher8196:

Hey

Does anyone have advice on how to get over the fear of simply placing a trade?


Thanks
More...
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Yes trade smaller;
+ look @ huge amounts of data/years, decades.....

.Question scor8;;
you dont really fear buying groceries or gasoline do you??See what I am saying??I usually [but not always]scale in,, even in buying gas[cash discount/retail gasoline]:D
 
Quote from scorcher8196:

Hey

Does anyone have advice on how to get over the fear of simply placing a trade?

When a trade opportunity comes up and all my criteria are met, for some reason I'm not pulling the trigger. Under my system, after buying I'd place stops to keep the possible losses limited and known, however this is just another small hump that I have to get over.

I've thought of using buy stop limit orders and constantly re-adjust them to the desired level I prefer so that when it's time to buy - it happens automatically and remains out of my control. I'm unable to use automated trading software with my broker to get over this problem.

Thanks
More...

ask a neighbor if you can borrow their little girl.

Print five charts.

Get a rule and a crayola (not white)

Have her sit at a play table with one chart.

Tell her to put the rule up and down on the right side of the chart.

Let her slide the chart to the left.

When part of the ruke hits some bars. Say "stop".

tell her to leave that end of the rule on the place touching the bar.

tell her to move the other end so it touches a bar.

Tell her to draw the line along the right side of the bars.

Show her how to make the letters L and S.

She is to do four more charts the same way.

Now let her place a letter on each chart.

If the first place she stopped is at the top right side of the sheet put the S in the middle of the open space on the right side of the sheet.

If the first place she stopped is at the lower right of the sheet
put the L in the middle of the open space on the right side of the sheet.

Have her come to your trading room.

You put the line on your chart and she tells you the letter to put in the blank space.

If the bars cross the line in the future you enter a trade that starts with the letter she decided. Later you draw another line as you make money. she places the other letter to the right of the line using the mouse and the keyboard.

when the bars cross the line you reverse to the trade that has the letter she told you to put on the screen.

Pay her 90% of your profits.

She will never tire of this game. Soon she will have you scalping.

This is the real story of how HFT was invented on a five second chart. the little girl was named Missy Scholes and she lived next door to Mr. Black. They all lived in Murry Hill, NJ Missy drew charts in ckalk on the BTL parking lot for her boy friend. Derman had binocculars and watched out of his office window.
 
I went through that for years doing discretionary trading, and I knew it was for the lack of confidence in my trading plan (my subconscious mind was so right :).

I started to backtest systematically my trading ideas, soon using automation because frankly, manually backtesting is not practical beyond the first 100 trades.

I discovered that I had no edge. It took me about 3 years to get to my first intraday system with a (small) positive expectancy. It took me another year to learn to trust it (trusting your system when it is at a all-time P&L peak is quite easy, but no so much in a drawdown).

As it's been already stated many time in this thread & others, the outcome of the current trade has no impact on your system's long-term performance. Losing trades are part of trading, and so are drawdowns. You must know what your system stop is (ie., the max drawdown you are willing to go through before pulling the plug), and monitor your current drawdown vs that system stop. Do it on the backtest results, too - that will give you a good idea of what to expect in the future.

In the end, my fear of taking trades (on my systems) is gone ... not because of working on the psychological side of things, rather thanks to of all the work in finding & refining tangible edges.
 
Quote from scorcher8196:

Hey

Does anyone have advice on how to get over the fear of simply placing a trade?

When a trade opportunity comes up and all my criteria are met, for some reason I'm not pulling the trigger. Under my system, after buying I'd place stops to keep the possible losses limited and known, however this is just another small hump that I have to get over.

I've thought of using buy stop limit orders and constantly re-adjust them to the desired level I prefer so that when it's time to buy - it happens automatically and remains out of my control. I'm unable to use automated trading software with my broker to get over this problem.

Thanks
More...

You seem confident that when you place the trade you will lose money. So go into the trade seeing how much money you can lose. That way you will surely pull the the trigger and enter the trade.
 
One can get over the fear only if they have confidence in the trades which they take up which comes when the trader has knowledge regarding the forex market.
 
Thanks for your suggestions, I've been putting some serious thought into this over the past week and am slowly piecing this together. Thankfully trade opportunities come up fairly frequently so I think I'll be able to have another go at it next week [swing trader]

My edge/system is solid, just from thinking about it here are some of my own thoughts:
The worst that can happen is taking a managed loss - which is a cost of doing business.

Have no expectations or expect to take a loss. The truth is either way you'll potentially take a loss.
If you don't take a position on a trade that ends up being a winner - then you have less money than you're "supposed" to have - which is an opportunity cost. But if I do take an actual loss from a position - again its a business cost and it seems like I can make it back.

@Ksthomsen
I took those points to heart, I think you need to rehearse your system by analyzing past rallies and developing an understanding/belief that I'm on the cusp of something great. I like your third point as well, I think I'll have to say to myself "Damn it, I have to do it, we'll see what happens"

@bau Thanks, I've added it to my amazon wish list. I'm currently reading 'Trading in the Zone' again..
 
I tried to enter this week however I was stopped out. I took a relatively minor loss and it could have been considerably worse had I not acted. This feels like a build up - at first I felt the pain of seeing my strategy work repeatedly but fail to take action; now after taking a trade and taking a very small loss, I actually feel a little bit of content in that I stuck to my plans and managed the position from turning into a disaster. Sooner or later I'll feel great from the success comes from creating a system that works, executing with no hesitation, and managing the position.

On the other hand I got caught up with that one trade and failed to take on two more trades - one would have been a small loss from the early Thursday morning small rally, but the second would have been another entry late Thursday afternoon - which would have more than made up for two stop-outs, and I'd be planning a vacation right now.

After reading the chapter from "Trading in the Zone" about taking responsibility, what hit home was that I wasn't taking the trades because I didn't want to be proven wrong, but that I had to be accountable to my strategy and take on the trade.

There were actually two entry opportunities this week - the other was on Monday - could have made enough to buy a new car. That's what keeps me going on this journey.
 
It is super easy to misjudge how effective your approach is using hindsight, particularly if you are not taking signals with money that objectively keeps score. Not that you are doing this, but it is something to watch out for.
 
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