Traders Block

Quote from Steve Tvardek:

I disagree, once you've traded for a certain amount of time, then trading on intuition is really how you excel. Your intuition, assuming you have a sound system and are already consistent, can be the difference between good trading and great trading.
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Very true. In my 3 years of trading I think my intuition has improved. The only problem is I do not follow my intuition too well. I'll see a stock having a clean breakout/breakdown in the daily chart. I feel the stock is going to move more than a dollar. Instead of going in and riding a good move, I keep jumping in and out making only some scraps here and there. If I can only trust my intuition 100%, I know I'll do much better.

Example - I traded DBD today. It had a big gap down. I made ok going long in the morning but I either got out too soon or had too little shares. The tape was telling me it's strong but I couldn't bring myself to take on some size and ride the move. :(
 
Quote from BuddhaTop:

Very true. In my 3 years of trading I think my intuition has improved. The only problem is I do not follow my intuition too well. I'll see a stock having a clean breakout/breakdown in the daily chart. I feel the stock is going to move more than a dollar. Instead of going in and riding a good move, I keep jumping in and out making only some scraps here and there. If I can only trust my intuition 100%, I know I'll do much better.

Example - I traded DBD today. It had a big gap down. I made ok going long in the morning but I either got out too soon or had too little shares. The tape was telling me it's strong but I couldn't bring myself to take on some size and ride the move. :(
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I think this is part of what coolweb was referring to as a "problem" with intuition.
 
Quote from martys:

Didn't you advise me to take a break some time ago?

I think the key problem is that human beings always revert to our most practiced "simple" behaviors when under stress. That is why people lose money because they keep going back to their old pattern under stress. Proper diet, excercise and meditation help manage stress in general. I found breathing exercise to be more easily employed under fire. Once I throw my breathing out the window, I know I am in real trouble.

The other part of the equation is to practice good trading either in simulation or mentally enough that it becomes the basic pattern reverted to under stress. I don't think "bad" paper trading helps. I am currently trying a lot of visualization on "good" trading practices... :confused:

Meditation is a whole other realm to get in touch with the real deal... more like waking up from stuff we put ourselves through. If you believe trading is a lifestyle thing (I do), then it might not be bad to get into. But I would recommend to get reliable instructions from a real lineage... because a slight miss in some key points can make a huge difference. Sadly I suspect most meditators (even some instructors) are not meditating properly. Here is a concise and reliable meditation manual:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...1/102-5989514-6046518?_encoding=UTF8&v=glance

Maybe there are other more important areas in our life that need attention.
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cheers marty. thats a helpful post for me. funny how we can advise others, but sometimes we cant see the issues in our own lives (well in my case anyway!!)

coolweb et al - yes the intuition has gone to pot.

as for the intuition v if statements thing, i see gray here and this could be part of my problem now i think about it.

if have a set of criteria (if statements) which determine if i enter a trade or not. i often think they are there (intuition??) when they are not there really. i guess they are too ambiguous. maybe i need to rewrite them in a different way to reinforce their meaning to me.

my intuition (inner self/ego that wants to win) tells me the market is conforming to the if statement, (eg market is in a trading range in my timeframe) when in fact it isn't really - its trending in my timeframe, but it is in a trading range on a higher time frame, so i get greedy and tell myself its about to go into a trading range as its approaching support on both time frames.

of course i need to get my patience back and wait for the trading range to confirm its self rather than 2nd guessing.

im making all the mistakes i used to when i started out. this is a bit demoralizing!

shoot - i sure do need that break!!

chatting about this is good for me. cos i trade at home i dont have anyone else to discuss this stuff with.
 
lol - well the markets have been great so far today, and ive got my shit together and got the curve back into an uptrend at last. im still holding a position (paper :( ) as eurofx broke the 2236 level that i had my eye on. a few trades made on both sides of this level have also helped.

lets hope its not a false breakout - but that of course depends on me mostly, not the market!!

back to work tomorrow, then i'll take next week off i think.

i would still be interested in what people have to say about meditation though incase i get in this rut again.
 
It might sound a bit flaky, but consider trying yoga or even a routine workout (if you don't already do one). When I get up and move my ass I find it a bit easier to quiet my inner voice. That voice typically tries to thwart my good instincts (in trading and the rest of life).

Best wishes for a speedy return.


Regards,
 
Quote from FredBloggs:


i would still be interested in what people have to say about meditation though incase i get in this rut again.
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Freddy,
I don't believe it's wise to view meditation/mindfulness as a tool to be put back into the shed until spring. To get the full benefits out of it, it needs to become a habit in life. Otherwise you never really become unstuck.
 
cheers jango - i go for a run twice a week - about 4 miles each time.

youre right, it does help a lot. maybe i should do it 3 or 4 times a week.


sulong - ok thanks - did i sound quite flippant about it??? didnt mean to be. i appreciate its a serious subject, despite some folk thinking its a bit fluffy. i thought id take a look though as people often hear of top athletes meditating and visualizing. are they the same thing?? i know theres more to it than the lotus position (or is that yoga??)

i read the secrets to emotion free trading by larry levin a while back. its about visualization. seemed to work for a while, my progress seemed to accelerate sharply, then climaxed. since then the exercises havent seemed as useful, and didnt help me get out the rut - maybe they did cos i think im out of the rut??!!??

im still doing the exercises though. maybe im expecting too much from myself - if thats possible.
 
I am not sure about emotionless trading is realistic or even helpful (maybe). I use visualization to practice in order to achieve high number of instances of good trading. Notice "good" trades do not necessarily mean profitable trades. I see myself accepting risk and losses in my mind's eye and put thing in longer term perspective. The goal is to increase the number of practiced trades enough to make it second nature even under stress.

I don't think the way I do visualization can be counted as "meditation" because there is no awareness involved although there are meditation techniques that use visualization extensively.

Good trading!
 
It's been said a million times by a lot of pretty bright people that 90% of this game is mental. I think that's wrong. 100% of this game is mental. Think about it, what's the physical aspect??Pushing a button? Picking up the phone? Please, don't stress yourself!
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Wellllll... That's a pretty simplistic way of looking at it. No, traders aren't football players, but neither are doctors or lawyers or students or Bill Gates. Think about it, what's the physical aspect? Picking up a scapel and cutting, picking up a brief and addressing the jury? Writing a term paper? The CEO complains to his wife after a particularly long day: "Honey, I'm exhausted. I had to stand up several times today and walk, in between meetings and phone calls and reading reports and issuing directives. It's like running a marathon everyday."

Mental work is physical. So Warren Buffet isn't a coal miner, he doesn't feel some degree of physical as well as mental exhaustion after a big day?

Anything that requires serious mental effort consistently over a long period takes physical stamina, and a trader should be both physically and mentally healthy.

I said this in another thread, stress in any undertaking should only be present to the degree that it gives you energy and purpose. If it detracts from the work, then something either in your strategy and/or personal life needs to be adjusted. Simple physical exercise done consistently is one of the best stress-relievers known.

H
 
From what little bit I've read about meditation, the word seems to imply different things to each practitioner. I assume it has something to do with the goals of the individuals who practice.

I'm a more “make things simple” type of thinker. For instance “mindfulness” to me,is a exercise in creating one type of edge, boundary's, focus, observation.

Whereas visualization is an exercise for the other edge, advantage, form, technique, timing.

I think a problem that creeps up on us is that our boundary edge gets blurry (unnoticed), which makes our advantage edge degrade into a disadvantage edge. Once we bring our boundary's back into focus, we find that our visualization exercises begins to work again.
 
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