The Invisible Hand That Limits Your Trading

Quote from Rande Howell:

"FWIW ...to me, positive and negative are just inner judgments that I can well do without.
All I want to be is neutral ...everywhere and nowhere is how the Zens explain it.

This is the state where your preparation and training kick in .... some people refer to it as being "in the zone""
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Recently a trader explained to me what it was like for him to make a particular trade. He said that as he evaluated the set up and found that it met the conditions of his methodology, he remained in a detached, impartial, calm state of mind that stayed in discipline. No emergence of self doubt or hesitation. As he looked at the set up, he said that a voice within him said, "You have the edge in probability, let's see what happens...". And he pulled the trigger, still breathing his bellows breathing and maintaining discipline. He reported to me that when he entered the trade there was no judgement about winning or losing.



Trading became relaxed and there was no drama. How 'bout you?

Rande Howell
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"Detached" ... excellent choice of word.

Things pretty much happen as you describe them, the difference being I celebrate for all sorts of reasons but never for a good day trading.
It strikes me as counter productive to the expectation I have created for myself, but that is just me.

I might add that what people describe as a "mental edge" is a prerequisite to me.
In other words I think people are wasting their time in this game unless they are prepared to change, ...which means they must first understand the need to change, ...which means they must understand that they must meet the price on the price's terms not theirs, ...which means they must understand what I have just written.

How many people are prepared to do this.
Mostly, from what I have read here, people write rhetoric, and as has been accurately pointed out "as you think, then so you do"

Price will not absorb rhetoric, it accepts only Buyers and Sellers ... so what chance do most people here have in making money from trading.
 
Quote from Rande Howell:

Recently a trader explained to me what it was like for him to make a particular trade. He said that as he evaluated the set up and found that it met the conditions of his methodology, he remained in a detached, impartial, calm state of mind that stayed in discipline. No emergence of self doubt or hesitation. As he looked at the set up, he said that a voice within him said, "You have the edge in probability, let's see what happens...". And he pulled the trigger, still breathing his bellows breathing and maintaining discipline. He reported to me that when he entered the trade there was no judgement about winning or losing.

There was only a curiosity to see what happened and to be in the present moment. But in the trading room only this calm, disciplined, impartial, patient, and couragous state of mind was allowed. This was done by learning how to think out of the box of his prior way of perceiving trades.

He had BUILT this state of mind as part of his psychological plan for trading.

Understand, this guy knew how to trade. He has used Drummond Geometry as his methodology for 10 years and he finally BUILT a personal psychology that could use his tool effectively. He hit the zone by developing his mind for peak performance.

Trading became relaxed and there was no drama. How 'bout you?

Rande Howell
More...

What contributed most to me attaining my goal of trading in the zone was a long period of intense manual backtesting of my edge. The invisible hand that was limiting my trading touched me day after day, causing me to over think my setups and pick and choose from among them. Every day I'd find excuses not to trade certain setups despite the fact that a valid setup is a valid setup. I'd frequently miss many excellent trades this way. I'd also move my stops too quickly on trades and get stopped out b/e a lot when if I'd just left things alone, my target would've eventually been attained.

I would do a daily post-market analysis of all valid setups, stops, targets and results. Over the months, this daily analysis demonstrated to me how powerful my edge was, and helped me develop rules for placing protective stops, choosing profit targets, and getting more than target in certain instances.

Now I have more losing trades, but significantly more profit. That may sound irrational. However, by trading all my setups, I know that statistically I'll have more losing trades than I did when I tried to second guess setups and nervously micromanaged my trades, but now I'm nearly always positioned for the big moves.

I posted an example of my daily analysis on another thread a while back, and will post it here as well. If you do analysis like this for several months and keep getting net profitable results, you will come to trust your plan and feel comfortable trading every setup that presents itself.

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Why? It take experience not to tinker...☺

ES


Quote from Roark:

Then Art Deco is incorrect in his assertion that the only thing necessary for success is a profitable system.
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