Psychology, are you sure?
- Thread starter Alexis
- Start date
Once a trader know all there is to know about trading, then the only thing that is keeping him from dedicate his time and money into it is psychological.
To all preachers on psychology, stop telling me how I should control myself, have self-discipline and so on, and start telling me what exactly works, what method is profitable. Everyone is spending hours explaining on videos and forums how you should have self-discipline, but very few people are telling you what works, which solves many more problems than a healthy psychology. Once more, I believe OP Alexis was right.
It's all interesting and in good faith, like this video:
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/videos/day-trading-6/day-traders-journal-12.html
But if you really want to help me (and can), you should tell me exactly what method is profitable. Once I will know, like Alexis says, there'll be no problems with psychology. But maybe everyone is teaching about psychology because everyone knows about psychology, whereas fewer people know what is profitable, and even fewer are willing to share it.
This guy for example does a little bit of what I am asking for:
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/videos/first-steps-24/10-golden-trading-rules-18.html
It's all interesting and in good faith, like this video:
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/videos/day-trading-6/day-traders-journal-12.html
But if you really want to help me (and can), you should tell me exactly what method is profitable. Once I will know, like Alexis says, there'll be no problems with psychology. But maybe everyone is teaching about psychology because everyone knows about psychology, whereas fewer people know what is profitable, and even fewer are willing to share it.
This guy for example does a little bit of what I am asking for:
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/videos/first-steps-24/10-golden-trading-rules-18.html
Are we talking intra-day here?
Most will not be able to tell you, since they do not have sufficiently profitable intra-day methods. (And just because somebody posts a video of themselves in-front of 6 monitors does not by a long shot mean that they can either). In fact, it could be a signal that they are exactly the ones who can't.
With that said, I do not rely on intra-day / back-tested edges, since I know that they have a short, life-span.
A good thread to check out is neke's. He is actually doing quite well with his discretionary intra-day trades... if only he would take less risk!
Yes, I think I found it (I took a look, but it's a bit too much reading right now):
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=150396
Other than this, you understood me correctly about everything (that I was talking about intraday and all), and I drew your same conclusion more or less, and took it even further.
Many people are giving psychology advice because they're just telling themselves out loud what they should do, to make it clearer to themselves. I am not saying they are in bad faith. I used to do it as well. But it would be much quicker - if they wanted to help a trader - to tell them how to trade. What indicators and so on. What time zones. What time frame. What signals. But they are not doing it. Why? No profit? Not a reasonable explanation. If they seem to be so willing to help, they're not looking for profit. My best guess is that they don't know either or that they consider it a secret.
Personally, after losing money for over 10 years, I finally have developed some automated systems that work, and that is why I don't go around teaching the importance psychology - instead I keep on telling everyone that automated trading is the way to go. In fact, I got on this thread because I agreed with OP, Alexis, and what I've been saying is this - do automated trading and screw psychology. It's the easiest way to make money. It's up to you then to find out what works, via back-testing and forward-testing. I am not going to email you my systems. But certainly no psychology was good enough to make me profitable with (intraday) discretionary trading. What made me profitable (via automated trading) was to finally find out what worked. Now, I am still totally unprofitable as a discretionary trader, and I certainly would like to find out WHAT method works, but please don't tell me that I am going to find out what works in the markets by looking inside myself. Rather tell me as many technical details as you can about your own profitable method. The reason I got a feeling that many psychology fans may not have a profitable method is that I was a big fan myself about the importance of psychology and I thought that, if I could control myself better, I would make money. Sometimes I made some good trades and I came on the forum and said "now it's all clear..." (so I guess that's what many others do), but then the next day it didn't work out, so it wasn't clear at all (wrong method, wrong psychology, or wrong market, or all three). After all these years, I don't think psychology matters (not more than in all other activities of life). All you need is to find a profitable method, and then no psychological problem in the world will stop you from using that method and making money. And, once again, I think it's easier with automated trading, but I still would like to learn an intraday discretionary method to make money. Maybe we could say that my psychological makeup does not help me find that method. That we could say. But if someone shows me what works, I will do it, despite my mental instability. So, in summary, don't tell me how to fix my mind - just give me a profitable method and I will use it. For example, a first step, even if I can't help any further, would be to advise a discretionary trader to only paper trade until he's sure to have a consistently profitable method. I couldn't tell them more, but that's what I'm doing right now.
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=150396
Other than this, you understood me correctly about everything (that I was talking about intraday and all), and I drew your same conclusion more or less, and took it even further.
Many people are giving psychology advice because they're just telling themselves out loud what they should do, to make it clearer to themselves. I am not saying they are in bad faith. I used to do it as well. But it would be much quicker - if they wanted to help a trader - to tell them how to trade. What indicators and so on. What time zones. What time frame. What signals. But they are not doing it. Why? No profit? Not a reasonable explanation. If they seem to be so willing to help, they're not looking for profit. My best guess is that they don't know either or that they consider it a secret.
Personally, after losing money for over 10 years, I finally have developed some automated systems that work, and that is why I don't go around teaching the importance psychology - instead I keep on telling everyone that automated trading is the way to go. In fact, I got on this thread because I agreed with OP, Alexis, and what I've been saying is this - do automated trading and screw psychology. It's the easiest way to make money. It's up to you then to find out what works, via back-testing and forward-testing. I am not going to email you my systems. But certainly no psychology was good enough to make me profitable with (intraday) discretionary trading. What made me profitable (via automated trading) was to finally find out what worked. Now, I am still totally unprofitable as a discretionary trader, and I certainly would like to find out WHAT method works, but please don't tell me that I am going to find out what works in the markets by looking inside myself. Rather tell me as many technical details as you can about your own profitable method. The reason I got a feeling that many psychology fans may not have a profitable method is that I was a big fan myself about the importance of psychology and I thought that, if I could control myself better, I would make money. Sometimes I made some good trades and I came on the forum and said "now it's all clear..." (so I guess that's what many others do), but then the next day it didn't work out, so it wasn't clear at all (wrong method, wrong psychology, or wrong market, or all three). After all these years, I don't think psychology matters (not more than in all other activities of life). All you need is to find a profitable method, and then no psychological problem in the world will stop you from using that method and making money. And, once again, I think it's easier with automated trading, but I still would like to learn an intraday discretionary method to make money. Maybe we could say that my psychological makeup does not help me find that method. That we could say. But if someone shows me what works, I will do it, despite my mental instability. So, in summary, don't tell me how to fix my mind - just give me a profitable method and I will use it. For example, a first step, even if I can't help any further, would be to advise a discretionary trader to only paper trade until he's sure to have a consistently profitable method. I couldn't tell them more, but that's what I'm doing right now.
When someone is telling you that if you get the trading technique correct the psychology takes care of itself, then that is saving you a lot of wasted effort if you accept that advice. Be grateful.
This is something a non-trading or poor trading psychologist can never comprehend, that in most cases they are only needed to prop up poor trading.
Try asking a top diamond cutter to show you how to do it just because you want to know and see what happens. It's no different in trading.
You are on a path that solves the problem your way - pursue it.
Yeah, of course, I agree with everything you said, even though this...
"When someone is telling you that if you get the trading technique correct the psychology takes care of itself, then that is saving you a lot of wasted effort if you accept that advice. Be grateful."
...is something I've been writing repeatedly, so of course I agree with it and I am grateful to myself for saying it. Other than that, I agree with you.
"When someone is telling you that if you get the trading technique correct the psychology takes care of itself, then that is saving you a lot of wasted effort if you accept that advice. Be grateful."
...is something I've been writing repeatedly, so of course I agree with it and I am grateful to myself for saying it. Other than that, I agree with you.