Psychological BS?

[mogul]

Quote from hcour:


The Trading Plan should be a living, breathing, ever-evolving entity, until one is consistently building that equity curve. All adjustments are made between trades, not during. Again I ask, what's the problem w/that? If all the decisions have been made before the trade even takes place, where do emotion and psychology play any part during the trade? No place.

Ironically, it seems to me that the ultimate goal of "trading psychology" should be to completely remove psychology from the equation.

Harold

The problem with that is that if your trading plan is a 'living' thing you'll constantly make changes to it, and you will doubt it all the time. You'll start taking losses and revise your plan, only to take more losses while the original plan started pulling winners.

Try taking 15 losses in a row and tell me how you are feeling. If that isn't psychological I don't know what is. And yes, even the best trading strategies can have 15 losses in a row.

Try switching on a new trading system and immediately have the largest drawdown you have seen in your testing/research, and see how you feel.

Stopped out by a tick and then the market goes 10 points in your direction?

Ever traded pit contracts? Ever gotten filled at the worst price of the day?

Ever missed a trading signal because of other life obligations? Did the missed signal turn out to be a huge winner?

Ever had the computer/internet go down at the worst possible time?

If these things don't phase you, congratulations.

The trading strategy isn't the hard part, it's everything around it that works against you trying to follow it...somehow there's not a lot of favorable luck coming one's way in trading...

 

[amex2]

izzy--a truly focused guy--and yes, a 'character' by almost anyone's definition--but you need to be to have accomplished what he has.