Yukoner's 2015 Psychological Journal

[jas_in_hbca]

There is actually a 3rd response..., seldom mentioned..., but imo more pervasive in trading


Fight..., Flight..., or Freeze

Just something to be aware of as we're monitor our selves


Keep on Truckin Yukoner

This shit was easy - it be all the rage

RN

I was thinking same thing.

Freeze. Missing trades, not exiting losers, not taking profits.

 

[Redneck]

Yukoner

Just a skosh under 14 hrs remaining

Time to begin preparing

Clear / center the ole noggin..., get some good rest tonight


RN

 

[Handle123]

Day #28 (Baby Step #9) - Took a break yesterday, and reflected a lot on what had happened and also on what other traders have been mentioning. Realized that I won't ever be a perfect trader, but I can strive for that... and again, I need to be comfortable with just doing my job.

Then I faced an interesting dilemma, all though small, as of Day #27 I was barely profitable for the whole month. The first two trading days of February absolutely sucked and I was in the hole -1274 at the end of Day #2 and who knows how much mental capital was depleted. So if I didn't trade Friday, I would have a profitable month... a whole $6. :eek:

I asked myself, what would be the purpose of not trading Friday? How would that help me become a better trader? Then I read @Handle123 post where he said... "tomorrow a new day, what are you going to make for us that day?" I realized that I needed to step up, and go do my job, and to hell with the results.

So my focus today was to do my job. It was a tough trading day early on, rangebound, and no real follow through, but I stuck with my plan. Checkmark. Checkmark. I had one trade that I debated if I really deserved the checkmark, but I had done the correct action.

Then later in the day, I was a bit ahead for the day, and there was another trade to take... tempted not to take it, as I was focused now on just having a profitable day... but that wasn't my job, my job was to take the freakin trade. So I did... and it contributed ticks... and now I am down for the day. And man, I felt this wave of emotion hit me... like I needed to revenge trade and get it back. - Pause, now... breath. Hadn't felt that all day.

So a bit later I get another setup, and I get in, and again that emotion really hits me. It was like it was yelling at me that I would lose, the trade wouldn't work, and my hand was hovering over the mouse ready to close it... and I stop, and tell myself to leave it alone... do what you are supposed to do. Stick with the plan!! So I did... and covered it above and beyond the profit zone I was expecting. I do have a rough idea why this emotion kicked in, and will work on that.

After that, decided it is best to call it quits for the day with a winning trade. I walked into the arena of uncertainty... I did my job... I traded well in spite of an emotional highjack. I am very pleased that when that happened, I managed to still just do my job. And secondly, I took an inventory of myself, and I just couldn't stay in that 85% or greater focused mindset. So it was time to call it a day...

Hello sweet weekend!

+133

Man, now you seeing the light, I can only speak for myself, what you went through on Friday are feelings I do still get no matter how many more trades I trade, I have split second pauses of "Oh crap" going the wrong way, or it not going in my profitable direction fast enough or pleeeease turn around OR that instant cold feeling going down my arms and nerves, but thankful lasts but a second, no one wants to lose even a tick, I go back into monkey mode, do what I need to hit buttons to get the monkey food, I can't dwell on if it going right or not, what do I do next as watching price action unveil, thinking of possible problems and form ideas of what to do next. You are starting to get it now Yukoner. You past the stage of not trading cause you want to take a break, breaks are for weekends, you have a good Trading plan, you are the captain of the ship, so each day you go boating!

So Monday is a new day, what are you going to make for us today?

 

[Handle123]

Hi,

In the past, you allowed 6.5 minutes for the trade to work. Now, you only allow three one-minute bars. (That is less than three minutes.) You are getting less and less patient.

Thanks for the chart, and other information.

I use three bars, so if I was trading two minute bars....comes down sometimes to speed of the instrument but three bars works for me

 

[Yukoner]

Quoted from "Thoughts and Feelings - taking control of your moods and your life"

So if you want to advance, you have to stay humble... this morning I struggled with that. Going through my mind,"C'mon @Redneck I just dug myself out of a hole and had a profitable month! Cut me a break!"... blah, blah, blah goes the hurt ego. But in this business you also have to stay tough, tough enough to look at yourself and your weaknesses... and your strengths.

Here we go... this is Friday's trading... taken from the above book, page 87.

FIRST
"Worry thoughts anticipating danger"
1) Fear of loss
2) Fear of blowing it
3) Fear of failing
4) Fear of not having a profitable month

THEN
"They set the panic cycle into motion" and I feel "an intensification of physiological symptoms called the fight-or-flight (or freeze) response"
1) Heart beats faster
2) Occasionally fingers tremble
3) Occasionally pain/tightness in the chest
4) Body gets cold - blood leaves the extremities

NOW
"Have catastrophic thoughts about your..." Trading.
1) I'm going to lose
2) This won't work out
3) This is going to rocket up or timberrrrrr down
4) Going to stop me out, then move my direction

THEN
"catastrophic thoughts" about my trading "cause the release of adrenaline signaling danger" so now
1) Just fight back. Trade bigger size.
2) Close the trade - stop this pain. Stop trading.
3) Tighten up my stop and lower risk
4) Just do something! Anything!
5) Intensification of focus on the screen, as if I will pick up some secret clue that will help me to exit or make a better decision


NOW
"the cycle gathers momentum: triggering more adrenaline and more fight-or-flight symptons that continue until you pass the panic threshold"

AND NOW I AM BREAKING MY TRADING PLAN.

 

[Yukoner]

Yukoner:

I have been thinking about your post. Your point #5 (took a trade not in my methodology) was just unbelievable to me. I know I have already mentioned it in an earlier post, and am repeating myself, but that is how much this point bothers me. This is much more than the emotions related to looking at PnL, in my opinion. It is one thing for a trader to be afraid to take a trade 'cos of the fear of losing, but to take a trade not even in the plan -- it is, I don't know what!

I was trying to think why one would ever do it. What I could come up was that your trading plan might not be completely defined. I could be wrong here, but can you please share with us the details to which your trading plan is documented? I do not care for your secret sauce, but I would be interested to know how much detail there is. Even an outline of the headlines in the documentation would help. In my mind, I keep thinking that if a trading plan is specific (which is how it ought to be), there arises no questions of shooting from the hip, which seem to occur only when one is even moderately guessing on entries/exits when in a trade.

I am sorry, but I am still unable to shake this point #5 out of my head. Trying to see how I could be of help on that point. Maybe @Redneck has some specific thoughts?

Rooting for you. All the best.

Edit: In the interest of being open, I am attaching a trading plan for one of the sequences I trade. The reason my trading plan is this way is 'cos that is how my mind works!

Regards,
Monoid.

Thanks Monoid,

Appreciate the thoughts, and sharing one of your trading plans. I take what you say seriously, however today I have been solely focused on the emotional aspect of my trading and what I can do about it.
fwiw, that trade was the result of exiting a trade but my T4 DOM was still on auto oco mode so it closed the trade but enter an automatic stop and take profit. Market was moving fast, and I did have time to cancel those orders but in a brief second I decided to leave it and let it play out.... that was without a doubt a mistake.

Here is an example of the strategy I was employing on that day, cut and paste from my docs:

News Report Trade


This trade is fairly simple, and is based on news being the fuel for the market. I simply wait for the first 1 min bar after the news to establish direction of the market, then I wait for a retrace back and enter in that same direction.


The retrace is based on the one min bars starting to bottom out, and tighten up on the chart into 3 or more bars. An example is this 15 min chart below, which I will pretend is a 1 min chart.

My risk reward stays the same, as I am looking for 1:3 ratio. My target is that the trade will make a new high/low beyond the first 1 min bar. Example in the chart above I would expect that first 1min bar to be broken lower. My stop would rest higher just above the 2nd 1min bar (black one). So I might be risking 8 pts, but expecting a 24 pt gain or higher. At which point I just exit the trade.

This means I just set my orders and leave it alone. The discretion being if it comes close to my profit target, and then retraces I would be looking at closing it out manually with at least a 2R gain. OR if we just go sideways for more than 15 mins, then I am not seeing any more follow through because of the news, and I will look to “scalp” my way out of this trade.


Scalping means I am changing my exit strategy, and now am watching price action on the DOM to close out my trade by squeezing out as much possible profit. This could include tightening up a stop loss to just above 1min bar price action, or could mean closing out manually as I see the market start to rest at a certain area and maybe look like a retrace. This becomes an exit based on trading “feel”, but the premise is based on the fact that the market is no longer being “fueled” in the same direction as my trade assumption, which then means it is time to get out.

 

[monoid]

I have split second pauses of "Oh crap" going the wrong way,..., but thankful lasts but a second, ...., I go back into monkey mode

@Handle123: Do you remember the first time when you were able to recognize those detrimental thoughts and made it last only a short time before getting back to trading? How did you do it? What were the tools you used to do it?

I think your answer will be very helpful to Yukoner.

In my opinion, Yukoner is recognizing these detrimental thoughts, but doesn't seem to posses the tools to make that transition. What is the use of listing and recognizing all the defects when one doesn't know how to correct them, even though one has the desire to correct them? Our mind is funny in that way! The way I did it was by using mindfulness as a tool, but my journey was inverted: I had the tool of mindfulness with me before I started trading!

Regards,
Monoid.

 

[monoid]

Going through my mind,"C'mon @Redneck I just dug myself out of a hole and had a profitable month! Cut me a break!"...

Yukoner: You seem to put the cart before the horse. The cart is the PnL/profitability. The horse is your mental abilities (Trader's mindset). There is no use talking about profitability if you don't posses the Trader's mindset. That was the point @Redneck was making. So, please stop talking about profitable month etc for this is just an illusion which could as easily become a loss making month. Work on your mindset and get it anchored before talking about profitability.

FIRST
"Worry thoughts anticipating danger"

THEN
"They set the panic cycle into motion" and I feel "an intensification of physiological symptoms called the fight-or-flight (or freeze) response"

NOW
"Have catastrophic thoughts about your..." Trading.

THEN
"catastrophic thoughts" about my trading "cause the release of adrenaline signaling danger" so now

NOW
"the cycle gathers momentum: triggering more adrenaline and more fight-or-flight symptons that continue until you pass the panic threshold"

AND NOW I AM BREAKING MY TRADING PLAN.

Fine, you recognized it -- you have been recognizing it for a while. How are you going to move from recognizing it to getting back to trading without that thought affecting you? What is your game plan? I think it is time for you to start thinking of how you can make that transition. If you read back in your journal, there have been some suggestions; but, here too you have to make a method your own, and follow it so that you make that transition to acquire that Trader's mindset.

As Handle123 mentioned, these thoughts will come to you even after you acquire the trader's mindset. So, you cannot expect to get rid of them. The only way is to let them go and get back to work. How are you going to do that -- letting go and get back to work? (another way of framing the same question asked in the previous paragraph).

All the best. Rooting for you.

Regards,
Monoid.

 

[Handle123]

@Handle123: Do you remember the first time when you were able to recognize those detrimental thoughts and made it last only a short time before getting back to trading? How did you do it? What were the tools you used to do it?

I think your answer will be very helpful to Yukoner.

In my opinion, Yukoner is recognizing these detrimental thoughts, but doesn't seem to posses the tools to make that transition. What is the use of listing and recognizing all the defects when one doesn't know how to correct them, even though one has the desire to correct them? Our mind is funny in that way! The way I did it was by using mindfulness as a tool, but my journey was inverted: I had the tool of mindfulness with me before I started trading!

Regards,
Monoid.

I meet a gentleman in 1978 who told me to keep two sets of journals, one for the trade itself and other for "me", he said to divide them into each. Trades could be great and I stink if I am not thinking and body not right. Trades can be horrible but I was doing well in mind/body, so he stressed that money is for keeping score, and when I can get to where both are doing well, score will be where I want it to be. It was everyday for couples of decades, then every week, month, as far as how mind/body but still do trade journal, very much like Yukoner a checklist and each trade must be in different colored ink, don't want to fall into just checking boxes. I also use plastic covering for blank white and number of colors and use water based markers for different markets on price and support, green for ES, brown for coffee, yellow Swiss Franc etc. I suppose last fifteen years I have noticed more of numbing effect of feeling "scared as hell" to reduce and watch clock of how long and still watch chart. Many say to reduce size, but feelings never change whether trading 200 lot or 1 lot, so why change. We all have battles, if that the only one I ever have, I am blessed.

I think even if you have the tools to control "self", when it comes to money, often goes out the window cause "self" in normal everyday life is nothing like trading contracts that is highly leveraged and in sneeze time you can lose few to many thousand bucks. I have mentored quite a few psychiatrists who had their life in order yet come to trading they got shakes. I have found often that higher the IQ, longer it took them to learn how to trade and that janitors did much better faster both in trade and self cause they just did the rules and didn't over think. I use to think I was smart, but markets have a way to make you poor and in my case I am one dumb sob and push buttons for fun and profits. But I think all have to find their own way of finding "CHI".

 

[Redneck]

Today simply another new day

We are the same


No matter what happens / we think - feel / mkt does

We work through it / set it aside / move on

We do our job

Trade well today Yukoner - screw the results

RN