This is what it takes to be successful at trading (mindset)

[wrbtrader]

You're reading skills are lacking today.

I did mention such in my most recent message post in this thread that occurred before your reply along with the fact I'm talking about it in this thread in the psychology section.

Regardless, as stated to you in another thread many weeks ago...if the psych stuff and risk management stuff, proper trading environment, proper trading instrument isn't setup PRIOR to the first trade...

You're at a great disadvantage and its your responsibility to fix that prior to taking another trade. Things I mentioned to you before that you did not reply to involving what should be in place in your trading plan prior to any type of trading (I think I listed about 8 things or so)...same stuff I repeat with others here at ET after they ask questions that gives me hints that they should not be trading right now.

Mr. Brooks is not a psychologist. I think he has a medical degree in something else. Yet, if he pretended to be one or sold a book about psychology...best to avoid him. Simply, he shouldn't be saying anything about such because he has no professional background in such unless he's freely sharing information about psychology just like anyone else is doing here in this thread. Yet, he should at least be able to say "psychology is important" and then its your responsibility to do your own research about such after someone tells you its very important.

If you believe a trader needs to have 100k to trade Emini ES futures with minimum psychological stress...for yourself...that's what you should have.

Yet, if someone else believes they need 75k to do the same...that's their opinion too. Just the same, if someone else believes they need 30k...neither one of you can argue against the other about how much capital is needed because its then obvious a personal choice considering everyone is different when it comes to their psychological characteristics. Simply, we all have different stress levels when in comparison to each other.

By the way, the last time someone else said what you said...the dollar amount they stated was 750k with minimum psychological stress for trading the Emini ES futures. How do you guys determine these dollar amounts ? I'm very curious and nobody has yet been able to give me an answer beyond its a personal choice.

My personal opinion...you can easily discover if you're suitable for trading the Emini ES futures or any other trading instrument prior to the first trading without having to look at your personal capital requirement. That too was discuss in prior with you in another thread that you did not reply to.

Its simple...backtest your trade method on all available trading instruments you have access to. Next, let your backtest results tell you which trading instrument performs the best via your trade method. Thus, you may discover you should not be trading the Emini ES futures and you should be trading something else.

For example, someone here at ET recently discover via backtesting...his trade method performs the best on Hang Seng HSI futures instead of the Emini ES futures that he's been losing on the past 2 years. In fact, his method is profitable on the Hang Seng HSI futures and not on the Emini ES futures after he did his first real backtesting...something he had not done before.

Thus, isn't the goal to be profitable...to make money.

P.S. I'm not promoting the Hang Seng futures. I know many that blow up on it. Your trade method test results will tell you what trading instrument you should be trading.

P.S.S. I'm hard on you since your arrival to this forum because you continue implying certain types of information (e.g. psychology) is the responsibility of someone that clearly has no qualification involving such.

Go get a book by Dr. Ruth Roosevelt involving psychology.

P.S.S.S. You stated you still have problems with poor trade decisions in fast markets. What's your trade results when you remove the trade results while trading fast markets ? Simply, are your overall trade results better when you're not trading fast markets ? If so, you have an easy fix...don't trade fast markets.

We now get into another issue that's part of psychology...called discipline. That too should be resolved prior to any trading.

 

[wrbtrader]

A follow up to the proper mindset for discretionary traders (traders not using automation).

Most of us do not know what is the proper mindset. Some of us may have clues about psychological importance if we've played competitive sports, prior job positions were performance was a key issue (e.g. store manager, restaurant owner), academic pressure in college and so on.

Do we remember how we handle or manage those prior pressures (stress) and the results ?

Did we learn anything from them that can be useful in trading today ?

Reality is that most traders will not know if they have a problem with the psychological aspects of trading until after they've begun trading with real money (not simulator, not backtesting). Unfortunately, most will continue trading under the facade they will figure things out and that's when the drawdowns hits or the account blowups occurs.

At best we can do here is to share experiences and then hope its enough. Whereas the real help can only be done by a professional in psychology or similar like.

Seriously, many professional athletes have a sports psychologist to help them stay at the top of their game or to improve their game or to overcome a traumatic experience that's preventing them from reaching the top. Same is true for well know celebrities in other professions (e.g. world leaders that have a great fear of speech in front of an audience).

In fact, many top institutional trading firms have their own in house psychologists or they are contracted with a psychologists. Further, many firms do profiling via trying to identify the best potential employees prior to hiring them via having them take a psychological profile test.

Just about any high pressure job does the same (e.g. fireman, policeman, military).

Unfortunately, its not true for us retail traders. We're on our own. We need to take responsibility and get help instead of waiting for someone to knock on our door.

Talking about it in threads like this for us retail traders is a start.

P.S. I played sports on an international level when I was younger and I had a sports psychologist (parents hired for me) to help be get past some issues that was holding me back involving "failure".

A lot of things I learned from competing in sports...I use it in trading and I truly believe that any one serious about trading for a living and smart enough to know that they have a psychological issue that's preventing them from reaching their trading goals...I highly advise you to get professional help instead of listening to anonymous folks at a forum about the issue and instead of expecting others to do it for you.

What occurs in our mind is truly individual when comparing one trader to another trader.

Simply, one size doesn't fits all.

 

[Q3D]

A follow up to the proper mindset for discretionary traders (traders not using automation).

Most of us do not know what is the proper mindset. Some of us may have clues about psychological importance if we've played competitive sports, prior job positions were performance was a key issue (e.g. store manager, restaurant owner), academic pressure in college and so on.

Do we remember how we handle or manage those prior pressures (stress) and the results ?

Did we learn anything from them that can be useful in trading today ?

Reality is that most traders will not know if they have a problem with the psychological aspects of trading until after they've begun trading with real money (not simulator, not backtesting). Unfortunately, most will continue trading under the facade they will figure things out and that's when the drawdowns hits or the account blowups occurs.

At best we can do here is to share experiences and then hope its enough. Whereas the real help can only be done by a professional in psychology or similar like.

Seriously, many professional athletes have a sports psychologist to help them stay at the top of their game or to improve their game or to overcome a traumatic experience that's preventing them from reaching the top. Same is true for well know celebrities in other professions (e.g. world leaders that have a great fear of speech in front of an audience).

In fact, many top institutional trading firms have their own in house psychologists or they are contracted with a psychologists. Further, many firms do profiling via trying to identify the best potential employees prior to hiring them via having them take a psychological profile test.

Just about any high pressure job does the same (e.g. fireman, policeman, military).

Unfortunately, its not true for us retail traders. We're on our own. We need to take responsibility and get help instead of waiting for someone to knock on our door.

Talking about it in threads like this for us retail traders is a start.

P.S. I played sports on an international level when I was younger and I had a sports psychologist (parents hired for me) to help be get past some issues that was holding me back involving "failure".

A lot of things I learned from competing in sports...I use it in trading and I truly believe that any one serious about trading for a living and smart enough to know that they have a psychological issue that's preventing them from reaching their trading goals...I highly advise you to get professional help instead of listening to anonymous folks at a forum about the issue and instead of expecting others to do it for you.

What occurs in our mind is truly individual when comparing one trader to another trader.

Simply, one size doesn't fits all.

Excellent posts, but I do believe the advice I gave of avoiding possibly narcissistic low-empathy trading gurus is very important. I don't think Mark Douglas had an educational background in psychology, he was a trader, but from his books he was clearly high in empathy and low in sociopathy, I think he even could have written a better price action book than Brooks.

In keeping with the sports analogy, since posting on here I've been in a state like Joe Theismann after his career-ending broken leg during a game. I think my coach should have prepared me to avoid that preventable injury.

 

[wrbtrader]

I dated someone that was in medical school and her explanations of anything was horrible. Many times I often had the fill in the blanks myself. I also notice a disconnect problem with her classmates too.

If you had a coach (mentor)...make sure it was real coaching (in person) and not a poor substitute (online or book). Simply, real mentoring should only be done in person.

 

[d08]

This forum contains tons of trade journals or threads by traders saying they backtested their trade strategy and that the results has a positive expectancy or that it produced profits on the simulator for many months. Yet, as soon as they traded with real money...it all fell apart and they became confused about what happen.

This is because their backtest was a simple curve fit, that's about it. The only aim needs to be executing and matching backtested results (incl. expected slippage).
The only real enemy is making rapid changes to your trading plan after a few bad trades, if you keep making changes every time you're in a drawdown, you will never make significant profit.

 

[Apip_saepudin]

I dated someone that was in medical school and her explanations of anything was horrible. Many times I often had the fill in the blanks myself. I also notice a disconnect problem with her classmates too.

If you had a coach (mentor)...make sure it was real coaching (in person) and not a poor substitute (online or book). Simply, real mentoring should only be done in person.

And it a rare thing to find a real coach when most of them are subtitutional coach or even just a broker's representative...

 

[wrbtrader]

I think its easier than most traders think to find a in person mentor.

From what I can tell at this forum and others, most traders don't make the effort to find someone to help them that lives nearby them because they are fixated on trying to learn how to trade via a forum, chat room or something else online...it just seems easy like that.

In contrast, using the above is OK as follow-up after in person mentoring or for sharing tips but if someone needs for someone to see what they really are doing in their daily routine before, during and after trading. I'm talking about more than what's on the monitors. In person will see what the home/office trading environment is like, see what the trader is like as he/she interacts with the markets and so on...a lot of critical information about the trader that's beyond just what's on their computer screen.

Only someone in person can see that.

Seriously, as traders, a lot of crap is hidden online because everybody can be anonymous. Its a lot more difficult to do such when someone is standing next to you and watching you trade with their own two eyes.

Yet, if someone is living on some remote island, out at sea on a boat or in some rural area where mail is dropped in once a month via airplane or living in a war zone...I get it...finding an in person mentor that lives in your area is not an option.

Also, even if you find someone in your area that's a trader too...the real problem is that you two may have different trading styles and trading different types of markets. Therefore, easy to find someone in person but matching trading styles...the latter is not easy to find but they can still be helpful in identifying things you're doing wrong even if there's no commonality in trading styles.

 

[schizo]

The best trading psychology is to avoid all psychology in the first place. Don't think, just react like an automaton. Hence, if you can't do that on your own, automate your trading strategy and let the machine trade for you.

 

[Redneck]

The best trading psychology is to avoid all psychology in the first place. Don't think, just react like an automaton.

Very naive

We are human.., life happens..., and trading is predominantly psychological - whether one chooses to believe it or not

Not to mention..., wait till you start making real money - LMAO

==================================

Instead of avoidance - become at peace - it the only way

RN

 

[schizo]

Very naive

We are human.., life happens..., and trading is predominantly psychological - whether one chooses to believe it or not

Hmm, this is a bit out of your usual character. I thought you were, for the most part, a rational fella.

Anyway, had you read between the lines, you would know that being an automaton isn't just trading blindly. Rather, you react to situations without harboring needless emotions.

Not to mention..., wait till you start making real money - LMAO

RN

Seriously? I guess you consider all the live calls that I've made here as trivial bullshit.