shell shocked

[themickey]

Day traders, don't you get shell shocked with the constant barage of trades swinging up and down and the attention it requires to monitor the data?
Beats me how day traders can live under the constant decision making, changing of directions and tempo.
My head would begin reeling after a short while from the pace of a constant changing landscape coupled with the uncertainty.
I would imagine it to be quite stressful as time goes on with the never ending decision making which is required.
Does it leave you exhausted at times where you need to stop trading in order to give the brain a rest?

 

[Spectre2007]

Day traders, don't you get shell shocked with the constant barage of trades swinging up and down and the attention it requires to monitor the data?
Beats me how day traders can live under the constant decision making, changing of directions and tempo.
My head would begin reeling after a short while from the pace of a constant changing landscape coupled with the uncertainty.
I would imagine it to be quite stressful as time goes on with the never ending decision making which is required.
Does it leave you exhausted at times where you need to stop trading in order to give the brain a rest?

Lot of times it ain’t that bad, an important thing that helps is to look for a few minutes/hrs of consolidation on intraday tick charts. Than playing the breakout. So this consolidation period lets you rest while scanning other instruments for consolidation or breakout phases.

 

[Sprout]

Day traders, don't you get shell shocked with the constant barage of trades swinging up and down and the attention it requires to monitor the data?
Beats me how day traders can live under the constant decision making, changing of directions and tempo.
My head would begin reeling after a short while from the pace of a constant changing landscape coupled with the uncertainty.
I would imagine it to be quite stressful as time goes on with the never ending decision making which is required.
Does it leave you exhausted at times where you need to stop trading in order to give the brain a rest?

Annotations and logging help. For me after a trading session napping is a requirement.

It gets easier with repetition - both decision making and napping.

 

[Visaria]

If u day trade, you might want to just trade a couple of hours a day and also not every day. Or maybe reduce your trading frequency to one or two trades a day. Results might be a lot better.

 

[themickey]

I was thinking after posting, is there any other employment career in the world which requires such as much focused attention and the need to be able to change your mind so frequently.
It is beyond me, I highly doubt I could sustain such activity for long.

 

[Handle123]

I was never good at day trading, going to scalping was/is even more concentration required-first seven years was difficult but it is amazing what the brain gets use to doing and doing 90-300 trades a day, you just get use to everything, nothing goes by where you don't have the answer of what to do. And I always wished I had that experience in other parts of my life, but I did notice my patience level in life in general was getting low and decision level increased, so scalping did have an affect on many parts of life in general. LOL on few times of "fat finger" I would actually laugh almost insanely as even then I didn't think-just did like before thinking, all the systems I built back then were scalping, but 2010 changed what I had to do to keep living and knew I had to go to automation. Not until last year, after 39 years of trading I built a day trading system I can live and trades 23 hours a day and any market, but scalping has reduced greatly in length cause of lack of volume from all day to the best of first hour in Indexes, but when some systems in a hole, they allowed to continue till they try to get to even on the day. Although, if I had to do it again, lost a great deal of quality of life, should have stayed with long term stocks and commodities, but can't undo the past.

 

[themickey]

How about day to day living distractions?
Every distraction would become a liability.
Head spinning just thinking about it

 

[themickey]

I attempted to automate a day trading system on sierrachart and IB several years ago.
I can still recall my brain hurt from all the thinking.
When I finally tossed it in ( I think I spent about 2 years coding, backtesting and trading) it was a huge weight lifted.

 

[themickey]

Elite athlete's, that's what full on succesful day traders are.
Kudos.

 

[qxr1011]

Day traders, don't you get shell shocked with the constant barage of trades swinging up and down and the attention it requires to monitor the data?

No, no shell shocking .

The difference between the professional and amateur is that amateur thinking (what to do) the professional knows (what to do).

Therefore daytrader just calmly (and why not - nothing really to worry about) observes the market action through the prism of the method. While the amateur really does not know how to sort out whats happening without the working method , and concisely knowing that he does not have a clue of what going on starting to panic, and feel shell shocked

Beats me how day traders can live under the constant decision making, changing of directions and tempo.

its not constant

most of the time nothing of importance happening at all, one is like a hunter observing ducks on the filed waiting for them took off in the air, they do - he shots, then again

changing direction also not that hard

the tempo is most difficult because one eye always should be on the price movement, but its very rarely, at least recently, that there are exuberant, sudden swings

My head would begin reeling after a short while from the pace of a constant changing landscape coupled with the uncertainty.

anyone's would, it takes the method and the experience to get a hold on situation

I would imagine it to be quite stressful as time goes on with the never ending decision making which is required.

well, compare it to driving which is also constant decision making... one who does not know how to drive starts panicking soon: the wheel , the pedals, the people crossing the street, the cars, the signs, the lights...

but when one knows how he is calm, listening to radio, thinking about something and drives, subconsciencely observing what going on around him and making all necessary decisions

Does it leave you exhausted at times where you need to stop trading in order to give the brain a rest?

it does but not more than driving for 6-1/2 hours