Psych or "Psyched"

W

WaveStrider

I am a bit confused on the "Trading Psychology" schtick....

I've seen tons of articles about not trading against yourself, or not being your own worst enemy, or trusting the trader inside you, blah, blah, blah....

But isn't that arse-backwards?

Shouldn't those authors be showing you a method you can trust in FIRST?

What good is all the psycho-babble if you don't have a statistically sound approach?? If you have negative expectancies, that fear you have isn't bad - it's trying to save you some money!

I think those types of articles are doing a disservice without first asking - do you have a valid method? Then maybe you aren't exploiting it fully.

But I've seen too much stuff that implies it's all about your right-brain, when your left-brain is what should be used first.
 
Only those things / people you trust can betray you.

You first have to determine the relationship between “statistically sound “ and “trust”. On one hand you have an objectively derived set of data, and then you're trying to legitimize it with a subjective qualifier.

No matter how statistically sound your historical data is, by using a subjective qualifier such as trust or confidence, you are in constant danger of self destruction.
 
How do you feel about your mother??...............For what it's worth, limiting losses is much more important than your method/system. If you trade speculatively for a long enough period of time, you'll eventually get yourself into situations that can bankrupt you; i.e. remaining short GOOG from $100 or being long & wrong natural gas from "15". If more traders focused on being consistently profitable instead of being perfectly profitable, we would have perpetual bliss.
 
"For what it's worth, limiting losses is much more important than your method/system"

I would believe that the method you use to limit your losses is actually PART of your system.

I know that studies have been done where a coin-toss can be used as an entry system that returns a profit as long as the exit method is proper. Of course, probably no one has the desire to use that as an entry method....

My gripe is more with the "half-truth" or sin of omission in articles on trading psychology that leave out that you should have a statistically valid approach FIRST before you deal with any head-wiring that may be holding you back.

If you don't have that, then that head-wiring is that little voice inside that is trying to keep you from imploding your account, which is not a bad thing and you shouldn't be trying to "fix" yourself!

For me, these yabberings that do not first have the qualifier stating the need for a valid system seem to be no more than deliberate misdirections and the authors should be suspect...
 
Quote from WaveStrider:

I am a bit confused on the "Trading Psychology" schtick....

I've seen tons of articles about not trading against yourself, or not being your own worst enemy, or trusting the trader inside you, blah, blah, blah....

But isn't that arse-backwards?

Shouldn't those authors be showing you a method you can trust in FIRST?

What good is all the psycho-babble if you don't have a statistically sound approach?? If you have negative expectancies, that fear you have isn't bad - it's trying to save you some money!

I think those types of articles are doing a disservice without first asking - do you have a valid method? Then maybe you aren't exploiting it fully.

But I've seen too much stuff that implies it's all about your right-brain, when your left-brain is what should be used first.
More...


They are assuming you have a successful method/system already.

Psychology wont help newbies much when they are flush and foolish.

Trading psychologists/coaches are primarily focused on making the few successful traders/speculators more successful.
 
"Trading psychologists/coaches are primarily focused on making the few successful traders/speculators more successful"

Perhaps - but "focused on" and "marketing to" are two different things.

Frankly, how many of those type of fliers/articles/web sites are prefaced with the caveat "newbies need not read further"....?

If they don't announce that stipulation up-front, how is a newbie to know....?

If the market is going to take that newbie money away, there also seem to be no end to the schucksters lining up to fleece them for their share too (or accidentally/deliberately help). The "psychology" moniker may add a faux sense of legitimacy, but the snake-oil salesmen often pass themselves off as doctors anyway which IMO makes it an even worse offense.
 
As a person you might be a completely weak nervous f**k. Getting all of that sorted out, if ever, will not turn you into a successful trader.

Thats the bottom line.
:)
 
"As a person you might be a completely weak nervous f**k. Getting all of that sorted out, if ever, will not turn you into a successful trader. "


AGREED!!

Also, being a bold, confident trader with a sh!tty method won't help either.

That is probably better Psych commentary than 95% of the stuff out there....
 
Quote from Cheese:

As a person you might be a completely weak nervous f**k. Getting all of that sorted out, if ever, will not turn you into a successful trader.

Thats the bottom line.
:)
More...

I disagree. The rest of the problem is simple stupid.
Technically speaking trading is for retards.

I do not know whose quote it is, but it sums up beautifully what I mean:

Not much education is required to prepare to trade; this is mostly because there are no complicated machinations required to make a lot of money. Since you are just considering it, you have a great advantage over most who have spent a lot of time dealing with the many myths of the markets. It turns out to be a very straightforward reasoning process and you have unlimited opportunities until you wreck your brain by unneccessarily screwing up (See some of the disasters that are occurring in the psychology threads).
 
Wavestrider,

You might care to share with us the answer to a couple of questions:
- how long have you been trading?
- what do you trade and on what timeframes?
- are you very happy with your results?

I am struggling to understand the strength of your objection to trading psychologists. I am also surprised that you think that they don't endorse the need for a valid method as well -- certainly tharp, togla-etc, roosevelt and douglas all see that as a prerequisite for success. So does steenbarger. Where's the problem here? Why the loud noise?
 
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