Here's yesterdays late FOMC meeting nice volatility trade and 11/11 trade #1.
The biggest discipline area for me and probably a lot of traders is to take a signal even if your gut/intuition/feel/whatever says no.
I know for me there are times, like yesterday where I noted in this journal that it really seemed like the trade would go against me, and it did.
However, there have been countless times where I felt that I shouldn't get in a trade or while in the trade that it would go against me and it does not.
This is where the signals have to be trusted.
I started trading with discretion. This was tough because when something goes wrong you feel that you were not in tune.
Then I worked out a totally rules based/mechanical system. This was good because if something went wrong it was the system. Of course, the trader is responsible for tweaking the system to optimize it, but that's another discussion. As well, totally rules based/mechanical systems can be backtested more effectively in comparison to a discretionary approach.
A mechanical system should be great for newbies because they can practice trade psychology. You can give a totally profitable mechanical system to 3 traders and get 3 different results.
The system that I am trading here now in this journal is pretty mechanical, but the recognition of the divergence is not mechanical. It is something that a trader needs to get a feel for, no matter which indicator is used to assist in reading the price action.