Psychological and emotional triggers in chart patterns

A tip of the hat to Robert Morse for his post from which this was lifted,

'What is your process?
What triggers a buy or a sell to open?
What triggers an exit?
How do you size your trades?
When you made money, why would you say that worked when you did the same thing on another trade and it failed?'

With no rules, how are you to exercise discipline?

What would You say belongs in a solid trading plan?
https://www.elitetrader.com/et/thre...solid-trading-plan.340340/page-4#post-5031706
 
mute9003 said:
i ride the losing trade all the way down and almost always manage to sell right before reversal.
More...

I found what helped me was to stop reading the market as a trader trying to make money and started reading the signals from an investors point of view.

So, I pretend that my trades will move the market for example if I buy at size at this particular point the market is going to move significantly up by 10 or 20 points. I wouldn't want that so where would I buy that won't give me away? I will wait for price to move down to a point where my buying is hidden within the noise of prior price action. That way I get the most liquidity because that's where traders are most confused and making erratic decisions.

Make your decision on how you are going to translate price action. Don't elevate price action to a position of superiority where you give it authority to dictate your decision making.

That process helped me.
 
mute9003 said:
I dont mean responce

What im looking for are triggers that are in the chart that trigger new traders to act certain way
That ptos learned to skip over

Like for me personally i always end up buying on that small retracement up and then ride it on the way down because i cant tell a difference between actual trend reversal and a small bullish retracement .
And then just like the book said i ride the losing trade all the way down and almost always manage to sell right before reversal.
Why i sell? Because im exhausted from watching it go down every day. And im guessing all the other noobs as well
But the fact that alot of us sell at the same time shows that there is a trigger that makes us all act at the same time
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The word is not "triggers" and that may be why you're not getting the answers to what is causing you to make trade decisions that are incorrect. Then again, you've come to that conclusion only after seeing your trade result...hindsight analysis as if you don't know one particular key aspect about your trade strategy...
  • Have you backtested your trade strategy and/or trading plan ??? If you don't answer that simple question...it would then imply you're trading without knowing if your trade system is profitable or not profitable and that would be the beginning of your psychological / emotional problems while trading.
Regardless, as a repeat, most institutional trading firms (the pro traders) have in-house psycho-therapists to help their traders be mentally in the game to trade even if there's crap occurring in their personal lives that would derail (sabotage) most retail traders that had the same.

Someone looking for "psychological triggers" needs to be using a psycho-therapist (trader psychiatrist) to help them understand / manage those cognitive decision-making processes in their head while they're trading.

There's even a TV show with a key character as a psycho-therapist (Maggie Rhoades)...



Simply, you're already at a disadvantage considering your continuing comparison to professional traders or even highly successful retail traders because they most likely are the ones getting help to help them deal with what you phrase as "psychological triggers".

By the way, there used to be one sponsoring the Psychology section here of the forum. You may want to contact Baron (forum owner) for her contact info if she's no longer a sponsor here at ET.

Regardless, if you're truly serious interested in learning about your cognitive decision-making process (you coined it as Psychological Triggers)...I highly recommend you learn more about Behavioral Finance.
 
mute9003 said:
so im here asking what are some common triggers in the chart patterns that make noobs buy
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Here's a few...

- buying at the top of a trading range as price attempts to break out of the top before waiting for follow-through (same for selling at the bottom) because you don't want to miss the move

- trading countertrend in a strong grinding trend that constantly looks like it's about to reverse. The countertrend signals typically look better than the with-trend signal.

- trading countertrend at the first break of a trend line
 
mute9003 said:
We already know the triggers that make pros buy at the right time its horse beaten over and over
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The reason you are making noob mistakes is because you don't know the triggers of the pros. If you did know them you would be entering and exiting at market turns. Concern yourself with learning the pros's triggers and forget about noob mistakes. They will go away once you know what you are doing.
 
Emotions like greed may trigger while studying charts. And the best way of controlling greed is that one should also consider risks involved and make decisions accordingly. Keep both risks and profits in consideration.
 
mute9003 said:
I dont mean responce

What im looking for are triggers that are in the chart that trigger new traders to act certain way
More...

You realize your asking about a topic that has rarely/if ever been discussed before. If you google "chart triggers" nothing relevant even comes up!

It's like starting a discussion about an unknown disease then asking others to name the symptoms for you.
 
Last edited:
I know.
Well maybe i start something here
Any psychologists maybe can pitch in

Im not college educated paychologist. Its my hobby andni know more about it than an average person thats why i notice it but im definitely not on a level of institutional psychologists.
I belive understanding this will be a massive advantage for average traders. Because as we all know there are very smart people with degrees analyzing trader's behavior and using it to our disadvantage.
Its time we even out the scales lol !!!
Join me in my revolutiin
 
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