Thanks to everyone who replied both in this thread and privately!
I took some time off to relax using the festive period as an excuse (I enjoy travelling) and took time to reflect on the advice offered.
Quote from indahook:
Time is the only cure. You will get sick of your poor decision making or you will blow out. Eventually one over powers the other.
I am working on improving my decision process. Thanks!
Quote from tomdavis:
What are you trading? How often are you trading? Specifics would be helpful.
The instrument is exchange rates, mainly vai currency futures. When I started the thread I was doing 2-5 trades on a typical day. I was concerned that occasionally I did up to 10 trades and these days were usually deep-down days. Further, I often utilised a narrow stop. So, I got stopped and re-entered the same trade at a worse level than the stop price.
Quote from tomdavis:
You need to make a decision about how much you should be trading based on your trading style and the characteristics of the market you're trading. You should have a clear picture of this before you make your first trade.
I am not sure I can have a picture of how many trading oppotunities a day may present. However, now I am attempting to create a picture of what levels at which I may want to enter and exit trades before the trading session starts. This plan helps look at the price action from a "larger" prospective and avoid trade entries based on fear of missing a fast price move.
Quote from Specterx:
The process of discretionary trading places great demands on your psyche: being in tune with the market, managing trades, all this requires energy and focus. For newer or beginning traders these are in very short supply, and it's VERY easy to push yourself too hard without even realizing it.
Say you've got a goal to lift 1000 pounds; you don't just walk in the gym and pile on the weight, you have to build up slowly (take only a few trades per day), and give yourself a lot of time to recover between sessions. It's the same with trading: initially one can only achieve the proper mental state for brief periods, and you need to take long breaks to keep yourself on an even keel.
This is one of the best pieces of advice I have ever received. My best day have been when I was rested and could keep positive attitude. My worst days have been when I was tired, distressed, in a rush, or felt pressed to produce fast profit.
Quote from Specterx:
If you take one trade for the day and it's a loser, shut down for the day and take the time to reflect. If you take one trade and it's a winner, shut down for the day to bank your profits, and focus on hitting those good trades day after day. In either case, you safeguard your emotional and mental stability. Take the rest of the day off, go to bed, let the subconscious feelings of fear and greed dissipate, and you'll be ready to trade fresh the next day.
I am not prepared to do just 1-2 trades per day as an absolute rule yet. However, in the last month (since I read this suggestion) I did more than 2 trades in a day just once and a typical day involved just one trade.
This means I could finish some trading sessions in just an hour or 2 and have lots of time to rest, reflect and research.
Quote from Specterx:
Regarding "big" trades: take the ES. 20 points per month, per contract is a reasonable goal (10% return on capital @ $10k/car), and this can be achieved with just three or four good intraday trades, making 4-7 points each. There is just no possible reason that anyone should have to take 100 trades a month (or even 30-40 a month) to get those three winners.
I am not prepared yet to aim 80 ticks in 3-4 trades. I understand bigger trades wil come with experience and patience. However, being able to moderate my expectations regarding gain on a single trade (along with aiming just 1-2 trades per day) has apparently improved my performance more than I could expect. Thanks!
Quote from lindq:
trades happen one at a time. Not statistically. So we're left with the issue of overcoming psychological obstacles while a single trade plays itself out.
The toughest bit here is to keep working on a particular trade without a concern regarding the performance of previous trades...
Quote from lescor:
If you were on the table receiving life-saving surgery you would not expect the doctor to be thinking of what he can buy with the money he's going to collect for the procedure would you? You would expect him to be reviewing the plan, coordinating the team and things like that.
... and at the same time keep capital preservation in check.
Quote from lindq:
Overcoming the minute-by-minute and hour-by-hour obstacles of boredom, fear and greed, is what is so tough in this game, even for experienced traders. But it is the only way to succeed
I'll keep working on a mental state that could make these non-issue.
Quote from craig:
This is a lack of Patience! Profitable trading IS boring trading
I see a number of threads on this forum regarding how to make trading less boring... by I appreciate trading becomes prfitable when most emotions are left behind and it feels like a trade rather than art.
Quote from craig:
If so why does the drawdown matter? Why does the losses matter? Accept it and move on. Losing IS a part of winning there is absolutely no way around this.
It's purely an emotional issue. When you are at the end of a month you may want to hit a certain target such as a round number. The same counts for the end of a week or a day. Further, if there is a sequence of loosing trades, not everyone is prepared to run it forever.
Quote from craig:
This is a lack of Discipline! Trade your Plan and nothing else. Your plan is proven, your emotions of fear and greed are proven to be very un-profitable.
This was exactly the question in the opening post. How to keep emotions in check so as to follow the plan?
Quote from BPtrader:
First of all, there is no such a thing called "overtrading," so you don't have a problem. If you don't have a problem, you don't need a solution.
Check Red_Ink's blotters and you will find "overtrading" will bring you big money. The guy before him called Millenium Man was doing "over-overtrading" and made even more money.
This makes sense. However, my original question was regarding doing trades I shouldn't have really done if I could keep emotions in check. I know frequent trading can be very successful but closing a trade and re-entering at worse a level isn't an example of where it works.
Quote from BPtrader:
ps: to advice givers, if a person has a cold but complains of a cancer, do you advise him to seek chemo-therapy?
In this thread the advise is mainly given against cold.
Quote from NihabaAshi:
Start a real-time online trade journal (e.g. a blog) and update it during and after each trade to see if your discipline level returns or that you've reduced the overtrading. More importantly, lable each trade with any of the problems you've described in the above quote.
This is a good one! I am currently running a journal with entry/exit pojnts and motivation for entry as well as whether the trade was stopped and other details. Marking each trade with potential psychological problems is a good idea.
Quote from lynx:
There are two things that worked for me when I realized that I needed to beat the same issue.
The first is that I started trading on a larger time frame and taking more risk per trade. That makes each trade more serious in my mind. In my case, it was a move from trying to catch 3 minute swings to trying to catch 15 minute swings.
By taking more risk per trade, I find that I am much more diligent about stalking the perfect entry point, so there is a lesser chance that I will have to grit my teeth through a painful adverse swing. Thus I get an immediate emotional reward thats NOT detrimental to my trading.
It fun to get "in the zone" and start grabbing small profits out of the mid-day noise (which was one of my problems), but in my case I could never do it well enough to make it worthwhile. So I stopped.
Similarly, some tme ago I discovered it was ridiculously easy to make a few ticks on a trade. The issue (besides being highly stressful) was that after doing five 2-tick trades I would loose 8-12 ticks in a single trade neagating the profit. I realised that by learning to hold position for longer a time I could get the same gain in fewer trades with less uncertainty. Traders that can anticipate laonger moves and keep a trade on for days or weeks must be massively profitable but I am not there yet.
Quote from lynx:
The second is that I started focusing on time of day setups, which automatically limit the number of trading opportunities per day.
This is an interesting point. I identified a few time periods when I seemed to consistently loose money but as my skills improved these time periods didn't seem to present as much of an issue.
Quote from lynx:
Hope this helps.
Thanks for sharing your experiences! They are a great material for thought!
Quote from croupier:
Give yourself time!
You see the problems in your trading, go on, and simply stay in game. With every trade your self confidence will improve!
Thanks! As long as the capital preservation prevails, I'll see another day.
