Mark Douglas’ Guide to Trading Without EmotionDue to the critical role psychology plays in trading success, I’d like to share a summary of The Disciplined Trader by Mark Douglas. This book dives into the mental and emotional skills required for consistent and profitable trading, revealing the mindset needed to stay calm, disciplined, and focused in the markets. Here’s a brief overview of its key insights.
1. Importance of Trader Psychology
Douglas believes that success in financial markets depends more on mindset than on complex strategies. Emotional control and mental discipline are key to avoiding losses.
2. Embracing Risk and Market Rules
The book emphasizes risk acceptance. Traders must understand each trade is uncertain and only one possible outcome in a probability field. Douglas advises establishing clear rules and following them without exception.
3. Taking Full Responsibility
Douglas insists that traders are fully responsible for their market outcomes. Avoiding blame and excuses, traders should own every decision they make.
4. Building a Success-Oriented Mindset
Douglas explains how to create a mental framework that enables traders to make unbiased, emotion-free decisions based on market trends and signals, avoiding fear and greed.
5. Stress Management and Maintaining Calm
The book highlights managing stress and staying calm under pressure. Douglas suggests using mindfulness and focus techniques to stay composed and make sound decisions.
Emotionalcontrol
SSEE Framework for successful Trading I want to present you to the 'SSEE' framework today, . This framework is intended for all users, from novices just beginning their journey to seasoned experts seeking to improve their tactics. Three basic steps are involved: ,Self-awareness, Story, Analyze , execute, and Emotional Control. Let's examine each component in turn:
self-awareness:
Self awareness is very important just link finding a trading style that fits your personality, risk tolerance, and financial objectives is the first step towards becoming a successful trader. This encompasses your emotional ease in taking chances, your degree of patience, and the amount of time you dedicate to trading.
Analyzing possible strategies comes next after determining your trading style. Regardless of your preference for technical analysis, fundamental analysis, or a mix of the two, you need to be well-versed in the tactics you choose to use.
Lastly, assess both yourself and the tactics you have selected to develop a solid trading plan. What you trade, when you enter and exit transactions, and the standards you use to make decisions should all be part of your trading plan. Recall that following a plan rather than making exact forecasts is the aim.
Look for Story :
Trends : Identify whether the stock is in an uptrend, downtrend, or sideways movement. Trends can indicate investor sentiment and potential future movements.
Support and Resistance : Look for levels where the stock has historically reversed direction (support) or faced selling pressure (resistance). These can signify psychological barriers for investors.
Volume : Analyze trading volume in conjunction with price movements. Rising prices on increasing volume might suggest strong buying interest, while price increases on low volume could indicate a lack of conviction.
Chart Patterns: Recognize common patterns like head and shoulders, triangles, or flags. Each pattern can suggest potential future movements based on historical behavior.
Indicators: Use technical indicators (e.g., moving averages, RSI, MACD) to assess momentum, overbought or oversold conditions, and potential reversals.
Time Frames: Consider different time frames (daily, weekly, monthly) to get a broader context of the stock’s performance.
Events and Catalysts: Look for spikes or drops in price that coincide with news events or earnings reports. These can help explain the "story" behind sudden movements.
By synthesizing these elements, you can create a narrative that explains the stock's historical performance and potential future directions.
Plan:
Define Your Goals
Investment Horizon: Decide if you're investing for the short term, medium term, or long term.
Risk Tolerance: Assess how much risk you’re willing to take. This will influence your stock selection.
2. Conduct Research
Fundamental Analysis: Look at company financials, earnings reports, industry trends, and economic indicators.
Technical Analysis: Analyze charts, trends, and indicators to identify entry and exit points.
3. Develop a Strategy
Stock Selection: Based on your research, choose stocks that align with your goals and risk tolerance.
Diversification: Spread your investments across different sectors to mitigate risk.
4. Create a Buy/Sell Plan
Entry Points: Determine your buying price and criteria for entry based on technical signals or fundamental reasons.
Exit Points: Set profit targets and stop-loss levels to protect your investment and lock in gains.
5. Execute the Trades
Use a brokerage platform to buy your selected stocks at your planned entry points.
Monitor the trades and overall market conditions.
6. Monitor and Adjust
Regularly review your portfolio’s performance and market conditions.
Be ready to adjust your strategy if new information or trends emerge.
7. Stay Disciplined
Stick to your plan and avoid emotional trading decisions.
Reassess your goals periodically and make necessary adjustments to your strategy.
8. Educate Yourself
Continuously learn about the market, new strategies, and economic developments.
By following this structured approach, you can execute a well-thought-out plan in the stock market. Would you like more details on any specific step?
E xecute :
Step-by-Step Execution
Set Up Your Trading Account
Choose a reputable brokerage platform that aligns with your trading style and needs (e.g., commissions, tools, research).
Ensure your account is funded.
Finalize Your Research
Review your selected stocks, confirming they meet your criteria based on both fundamental and technical analysis.
Check for any recent news or events that could impact stock performance.
Create a Watchlist
Compile a list of stocks you are interested in, along with your entry points and target prices.
Place Orders
Market Orders: Buy stocks at the current market price. Use this for quicker executions but be aware of price fluctuations.
Limit Orders: Set a specific price at which you want to buy or sell. This helps control the price you pay but may not execute if the price doesn’t reach your limit.
Implement Stop-Loss and Take-Profit Orders
Set stop-loss orders to automatically sell if the stock price falls to a certain level, protecting your investment.
Set take-profit orders to secure gains at predefined price targets.
Monitor Your Investments
Regularly check the performance of your stocks and overall market conditions.
Stay informed about news that may affect your investments.
Adjust Your Strategy as Needed
If a stock isn’t performing as expected, reassess your reasons for holding it.
Be ready to sell or adjust stop-loss and take-profit levels based on market conditions.
Review and Reflect
After a set period, review the performance of your trades. Analyze what worked and what didn’t.
Use these insights to refine your strategy for future trades.
Stay Disciplined
Stick to your plan and avoid making impulsive decisions based on market noise.
Keep emotions in check and follow your predetermined strategy.
Emotional Control:
Set Clear Goals
Define your investment objectives, risk tolerance, and time horizon. Having clear goals can help you stay focused and reduce anxiety.
2. Develop a Trading Plan
Create a structured trading plan that includes entry and exit strategies, risk management, and criteria for buying and selling. Stick to this plan to avoid emotional decisions.
3. Practice Mindfulness
Use techniques like meditation or deep breathing to stay calm and centered. Mindfulness can help you recognize emotional triggers and respond more thoughtfully.
4. Limit Exposure to Market Noise
Reduce the amount of news and social media you consume related to the stock market. Constant updates can heighten anxiety and lead to impulsive decisions.
5. Keep a Trading Journal
Document your trades, including your thought process and emotions at the time. Reflecting on your experiences can help you identify patterns and improve future decision-making.
6. Manage Risk
Use stop-loss orders and diversify your portfolio to minimize potential losses. Knowing you have a plan in place can alleviate stress and help you stay composed.
7. Accept Losses
Understand that losses are a natural part of trading. Accepting this can help reduce the fear of losing and prevent you from making desperate trades.
8. Stay Disciplined
Commit to your trading plan and avoid deviating from it due to emotions. Stick to your strategy, even during market volatility.
9. Take Breaks
Step away from the screens when feeling overwhelmed or overly emotional. Taking breaks can provide perspective and help clear your mind.
10. Seek Support
Consider discussing your experiences with other traders or joining a community. Sharing your thoughts and challenges can provide valuable insights and emotional relief.
11. Focus on the Process, Not Just Outcomes
Concentrate on following your plan rather than fixating on short-term gains or losses. This shift in focus can help reduce emotional strain.
EMOTIONS! Chapter-2In trading, emotions can easily become your biggest enemy, and it's crucial to understand that “you are your own opponent.” The market isn’t against you—it’s neutral, driven by global forces like supply and demand, economic policies, and geopolitical events. It doesn’t care whether you win or lose. The real battle is internal, and your success depends on your ability to manage your emotional responses. Emotions like fear, greed, frustration, and overconfidence are powerful forces that, if left unchecked, can lead to impulsive decisions and costly mistakes. The key to thriving in the forex market is learning how to control those emotions, because if you don’t, they will control you.
I learned this lesson the hard way back in 2016. At the time, I had just started gaining confidence after a string of successful trades. That confidence quickly turned into greed. I started taking bigger risks, convinced that I was riding a winning streak. Then, things turned. The market shifted, and I began losing trades. Instead of stepping back and re-evaluating, I panicked. I felt this urgent need to recover my losses, so I started chasing the market. Every time I saw an opportunity, I jumped on it without thinking, trading out of desperation rather than strategy. I kept telling myself I could make it all back with just one more trade, but the more I tried, the deeper I sank into losses. It felt like the market was conspiring against me, but the truth was, I was sabotaging myself. I was letting my emotions dictate my decisions, and that was the real problem.
Fear took over when I lost, and greed controlled me when I won. I wasn’t sticking to my trading plan, and I wasn’t thinking rationally. Instead of approaching the market with a clear, calm mindset, I was reacting emotionally to every price movement. It was a vicious cycle—each loss made me more desperate to win, and each win made me more overconfident. I was chasing quick fixes, but in reality, I was only digging a deeper hole. That experience was a painful reminder that in forex trading, the market isn’t there to beat you—it’s neutral. *You beat yourself* by letting emotions cloud your judgment and control your actions.
After that tough period in 2016, I knew something had to change. I realized that emotional control was not just a skill—it was a necessity if I wanted to succeed. I had to stop reacting impulsively and start trading with discipline. The first step was getting back to basics: sticking to my trading plan no matter what. I began to follow my risk management rules strictly, using stop-loss orders to protect myself from the emotional urge to "let a trade ride" in the hope of recovery. I also limited the amount of risk I was willing to take on each trade. Instead of chasing profits, I focused on preserving capital and managing risk.
One of the biggest changes I made was learning to step away when my emotions were running high. If I felt myself getting anxious, frustrated, or overexcited, I would close my trading platform and take a break. This gave me the space to regain perspective and come back with a clearer mind. I also started keeping a trading journal, documenting not just my trades but also how I felt during them. This helped me recognize emotional patterns—like when I was more prone to making impulsive decisions—and take steps to prevent them.
Over time, I developed a deeper understanding of how emotions influence trading. I came to realize that *success in forex isn’t about controlling the market—it’s about controlling yourself.* The market will always be unpredictable, but how you respond to that unpredictability determines your outcome. You can’t let fear make you exit a trade too early, nor can you let greed push you into taking unnecessary risks. By learning to control your emotions, you can make decisions based on logic and strategy rather than impulse. I also learned to embrace patience. Trading is a marathon, not a sprint. The best traders are those who wait for the right opportunities and don’t feel the need to constantly be in the market.
Looking back, that difficult year taught me a vital lesson: the market isn’t out to get you; it’s indifferent. You are the only one who can stand in your own way. By mastering your emotions, you can avoid self-sabotage and make rational, calculated decisions that will lead to long-term success. Now, when I trade, I do so with the understanding that my biggest challenge isn’t the market—it’s keeping my emotions in check. Trading with a clear, calm mind has made all the difference, and I know that no matter what the market throws at me, my success or failure depends on how well I manage myself.
Happy Trading!
-FxPocket
Lesson 6: Staying Emotionally Aware in TradingWelcome to Lesson 6 of the Hercules Trading Psychology Course—Staying Emotionally Aware in Trading. Building on the essential traits of Patience, Initiative, and Discipline covered in previous lessons, today we explore the critical role of Emotional Awareness in achieving long-term trading success across all financial markets, including stocks, commodities, cryptocurrencies, and forex.
How Can You Stay Emotionally Aware in Trading?
Listening to advice and consuming educational content can significantly boost your confidence and help you achieve impressive monthly returns. However, there’s a catch: experiencing high returns can lead to emotional blindness, much like speeding in a fast car without recognizing the potential for a crash.
Once you encounter this emotional wall, the decisions you make next are pivotal for your trading future. That’s why maintaining emotional awareness is crucial. Understanding that there are both right and wrong ways to win in trading, especially during periods of success, is essential for sustainable profitability.
This lesson breaks down the importance of emotional awareness, covering both the big picture and the intricate details, while emphasizing the fundamental role of money management in any trading strategy.
Why Should You Care About Trading Psychology?
Risk management is undeniably important, and many traders are becoming more adept at it. While focusing on finding the best trade entries is essential, many overlook another key player: Trading Psychology. This aspect can profoundly influence your trading results. Despite the growing emphasis on risk management, not enough traders are tuning into the psychological components of trading.
This gap highlights just how crucial trading psychology is. When traders believe they have everything under control, they might ignore the emotional rollercoaster that trading can bring, undermining their success.
What Are Key Strategies for Trading Success?
To excel in trading, one golden rule is to avoid unnecessary interference and resist the urge to act as if you know more than your trading system. Stick to these three principles, and you might find success in the long run, even amidst the emotional ups and downs that come with trading.
Emotions play a significant role in our lives—from music to relationships—but in trading, it’s vital to keep them in check. It’s perfectly normal to feel emotions, but letting them dictate your trading decisions can be detrimental. Professional traders know how to stay calm under pressure, maintaining a clear and objective mindset.
New traders often experience a rush of emotions during winning streaks, leading to common mistakes. Understanding these pitfalls is essential for maintaining a disciplined approach during both profitable and challenging times.
How to Set Realistic Trading Expectations
Managing your trading success requires balancing consistent returns with emotional control, which can be a rollercoaster ride. Achieving milestones is exciting, but it’s not just about securing wins; it’s about venturing into new territory with realistic expectations.
A common trap is believing that your wins are guaranteed—thinking you can achieve a steady 15% profit every month without setbacks. This mindset can lead to overconfidence, making it difficult to sustain long-term success.
It’s crucial to set realistic earning goals and understand that trading involves ups and downs. Anyone claiming otherwise might be misleading you. Prepare for challenges instead of assuming trading will always be smooth sailing.
How Should You Approach Risk and Returns in Trading?
It’s important to remember that if you’re not hitting that 9% monthly return and only achieving 1.5%, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed. Instead, it’s a classic case of regression to the mean. A steady 1.5% monthly return is actually impressive and can pave the way to becoming a professional trader over time, even if some high performers overlook this perspective.
Avoid the temptation to increase your risk just because you think you’re on a winning streak. Such actions can lead to unsustainable returns and significant losses. Look to seasoned investors who stay calm and play the long game, consistently achieving impressive annual returns by focusing on disciplined strategies.
When markets take a downturn, refocus on these core concepts to avoid emotional trading and strengthen your grasp on risk management.
Why Is Trading Experience So Crucial?
Jumping into trading without real experience sets you up for significant struggles. While making a profit feels great, the reality of trading can hit hard sooner or later. When things go sideways, it’s an opportunity to pause and reflect—did you stick to your rules or make impulsive decisions? These mistakes can lead to overtrading, making it essential to review and learn from setbacks.
Learning from these challenges allows you to bounce back and tackle the market with renewed strength. Grasping the bigger picture and applying those lessons is key, especially when practicing on demo accounts.
How Can Emotions Affect Your Trading?
Trading can be an emotional rollercoaster! Many traders find themselves spiraling into different emotional states that can significantly impact their decision-making. To manage these emotions effectively, consider three simple actions:
Stay Regret-Free:
Avoid feeling regret over successful trades. Instead, focus on the strategy and the process that led to those wins. This mindset helps maintain a clear perspective by the end of the trading year.
Avoid Emotional Trading:
While it’s natural to feel emotions, don’t let them take control of your trading decisions. Keeping emotions in check allows for more rational and objective trading choices.
Learn from Mistakes:
Acknowledge that mistakes are part of the trading journey. Use them as learning opportunities to improve your trading strategies and emotional control.
By adopting these practices, you can enhance your trading performance and maintain a balanced mindset.
How Does Trading Psychology Impact Your Success?
Many traders feel disappointed when their performance drops from high returns to moderate ones. Instead of celebrating their wins, they focus on what they missed, which can lead to a negative mindset and hinder future performance.
It’s essential to stay flexible and not become fixated on specific performance metrics, especially in volatile markets. Regret can interfere with your trading game, so sticking to a reliable trading system is crucial. Always monitor your risks and be strategic about when to take profits to prevent unexpected losses.
How to Move Past Trading Regrets
Regret is a common emotion among traders, especially when reflecting on missed opportunities, such as exiting trades too early. Straying from your trading system invites losses over time, as these systems are designed to be effective when followed consistently.
Relying on emotions for trading decisions often leads to chaos, particularly for those who can’t adhere to their rules. It’s tempting to increase risks during seemingly easy trades, but this is a result of hindsight bias complicating decision-making.
Instead, focus on three key principles to simplify trading and achieve long-term success without overcomplicating the process.
Why Staying Focused in Trading Matters
Reaching your trading goals is the ultimate objective, but many traders encounter obstacles due to emotional fluctuations. Choosing the right trading path is vital, as the decisions you make are crucial, especially when emotions run high after a win.
This lesson delves into not just technical analysis but the entire spectrum of trading, highlighting the essential aspects of trading psychology and money management. For beginners, it’s important to absorb these foundational insights to build a solid trading career.
Staying committed to your trading system and continuously improving your strategies ensures sustainable success and minimizes the risks associated with emotional trading decisions.
Conclusion: Embrace Emotional Awareness for Trading Success
Emotional Awareness is more than just recognizing your emotions—it’s about managing them effectively to enhance your trading performance. By staying emotionally aware, you empower yourself to navigate the complexities of all financial markets with confidence and resilience.
In Lesson 6, we’ve explored the importance of staying emotionally aware, the impact of emotions on trading decisions, and strategies to maintain emotional control. These elements are essential for building a strong foundation and achieving consistent profitability across all financial markets, whether you’re a swing trader or a day trader.
Action Steps:
Reflect on Your Emotions:
Assess how your emotions influence your trading decisions. Identify triggers that lead to impulsive actions and work on managing them.
Develop a Comprehensive Trading Plan:
Create a detailed trading plan that outlines your strategies, risk management techniques, and criteria for entering and exiting trades. Ensure that this plan emphasizes emotional control and disciplined execution.
Implement Robust Risk Management:
Protect your capital by setting appropriate stop-loss orders, limiting trade sizes, and diversifying your portfolio across different financial instruments.
Maintain a Trading Journal:
Document every trade to gain insights into your trading behavior and identify patterns that need improvement. Reflect on your trades to reinforce emotional awareness and disciplined strategies.
Practice Emotional Control Techniques:
Incorporate mindfulness practices, meditation, or journaling into your daily routine to manage stress and maintain emotional equilibrium.
Engage with the Trading Community:
Join forums, attend webinars, or participate in trading groups to share experiences and gain support from fellow emotionally aware traders.
Trust in Your System:
Have confidence in your trading system. Understand that managing emotions is a continuous process that contributes to long-term profitability.
Ready to take the next step?
Continue your journey by enrolling in Lesson 7: Emotional Awareness continuation, where we will develop even further this subject so that you’ll learn how to enhance your trading performance across all financial markets.
Myopic loss aversion and market experience█ Myopic loss aversion and market experience
Myopic Loss Aversion (MLA) is a behavioral bias that severely affects trading behavior, particularly the tendency to avoid losses more aggressively than to pursue equivalent gains.
This bias can lead you to make suboptimal decisions, such as selling winning assets too quickly or holding onto losing assets for too long.
Today, we're exploring a study by Mayhewa et al. that explores the interaction between MLA and market experience.
Quick Results: Remarkably, experienced traders showed significantly reduced signs of MLA when operating in familiar market environments or under conditions of low-frequency information updates. This suggests that both familiarity with market dynamics and a strategic reduction in the overload of market information can help temper emotional, short-sighted decision-making.
█ Study Overview
⚪ Methodology and Participant Structure
The research, conducted by leading economists, employed an experimental market setup where participants engaged in trading sessions under controlled conditions.
The study distinguished between inexperienced and experienced traders to gauge how repeated market exposure influences MLA.
Participants were divided into two main groups based on their trading experience, with further subdivisions based on the frequency of financial information they received. One group received continuous updates (high-frequency information), while another received less frequent updates (low-frequency information), allowing the study to isolate the impact of information frequency on trading behavior.
⚪ Experimental Design
The core of the experimental design involved a series of trading tasks where participants were required to make investment decisions across several trading periods. The study introduced a key modification from previous research by incorporating a 'moving average' display—showing the average asset values alongside real-time prices. This addition was intended to reduce cognitive load and help participants make more informed decisions by providing a clearer context for the asset's performance over time.
⚪ Initial Hypotheses
The researchers hypothesized that:
Traders with more market experience would exhibit less myopic loss aversion than their less experienced counterparts.
Providing a moving average of asset values would help mitigate the MLA effect by smoothing out the emotional impact of short-term price fluctuations and emphasizing longer-term trends. Less frequent information updates might reduce MLA by limiting the 'noise' or emotional reaction to price movements, thus encouraging more rational, long-term thinking.
█ Key Findings
⚪ Impact of Information Frequency
The frequency at which traders receive market information plays a crucial role in shaping their trading decisions and susceptibility to Myopic Loss Aversion (MLA).
The study found that high-frequency information updates, which provide continuous price data, tend to exacerbate MLA. This is because constant exposure to market fluctuations heightens emotional responses, leading traders to make more short-term decisions to avoid perceived losses.
Conversely, less frequent information updates can help mitigate MLA. By reducing the noise from constant price movements, traders are encouraged to focus on longer-term trends rather than reacting to short-term volatility.
⚪ Role of Market Experience
The study revealed that experienced traders with substantial exposure to market dynamics show markedly reduced signs of MLA in familiar trading environments. These traders may be better equipped to handle the emotional pressures of trading, well not so much. The research also indicated that experienced traders might revert to MLA behaviors in different trading setups or allocation tasks with which they are less familiar.
⚪ Moving Averages and Cognitive Effects
The findings suggest that displaying moving averages is effective in reducing MLA. Traders with access to moving averages were less likely to make impulsive decisions based on short-term losses.
Instead, they were more inclined to consider the overall trend and value of the asset over time. This cognitive tool helps traders maintain a broader perspective, which is crucial for mitigating emotional biases and making more informed, strategic decisions.
█ Conclusion
Understanding and mitigating Myopic Loss Aversion (MLA) is crucial for improving trading outcomes, particularly in the volatile and fast-paced markets.
Experienced traders tend to exhibit lower levels of MLA in familiar environments, but they are not entirely immune to it.
The context-dependent nature of MLA reduction among experienced traders highlights the importance of continuous adaptation and learning.
Additionally, reducing the frequency of information updates and utilizing moving averages can help traders maintain a broader perspective, further mitigating the impact of MLA.
█ Reference
Mayhew, B. W., & Vitalis, A. (2014). Myopic loss aversion and market experience. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 97, 113-125. doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2013.10.007
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Disclaimer
This is an educational study for entertainment purposes only.
The information in my Scripts/Indicators/Ideas/Algos/Systems does not constitute financial advice or a solicitation to buy or sell securities. I will not accept liability for any loss or damage, including without limitation any loss of profit, which may arise directly or indirectly from the use of or reliance on such information.
All investments involve risk, and the past performance of a security, industry, sector, market, financial product, trading strategy, backtest, or individual's trading does not guarantee future results or returns. Investors are fully responsible for any investment decisions they make. Such decisions should be based solely on evaluating their financial circumstances, investment objectives, risk tolerance, and liquidity needs.
My Scripts/Indicators/Ideas/Algos/Systems are only for educational purposes!
Why is so hard to exit a losing trade?Think about a trading situation where you find yourself in a losing position without a stop loss.
You have the option to take a certain loss or just continue to see what happens.
Exiting the trade could help you minimize your loss, but why do you delay to make a move?
Psychologists explained that we favor to believe that actions can do more harm than inactions, even though the result could be similar or painfully.
So, in a trading instance we feel that our action – to exit a losing trade immediately – could have a bad outcome than our inaction. This mind flaw was named as the omission bias.
We fail to step in because our misunderstanding of our feelings about the future outcomes.
So next time when you have a trade going against you, think about what consequence inaction could have to your portfolio.
How to control your trading mentality 🧠Mental training helps individuals to improve their performance by preparing their emotions and mind. Focus, confidence, and motivations are important factors of mental factors. According to a study done at Brown University, it may be possible to train your brain’s automatic emotional responses. It may improve your experience in trading. To be a mentally tough trader, one should tap into his emotional and mental resources that keep his mind in check at its peak as often and consistently as possible. One may make wrong decisions when he/she is unstable emotionally and mentally.
Stop 🚫
It does not matter how you good or how experienced you are in trading. If you don't see the whole picture 100%, your trading experience would end unsuccessfully. What happens when you keep hitting that stop loss and losing money? Your body starts to release cortisol, the primary stress hormone, which increases blood sugar in the bloodstream. When cortisol level is more than normal, you will have high blood pressure, will become agitated, irritated and start to sweat. You have to STOP! You will only lose more if you continue to trade. Take a breath and take a step back. When you come back, you will have a better perspective and a better picture of how to trade.
Accept ✅
Every trader has their own pace of learning and trading. Don't compare yourself to others. Your friend may have started earlier and made more than you. You just have to ACCEPT! Trading is not about competition. You cannot start trading with a competing mentality. Don’t take a higher risk than you can handle. If you have only $100, just accept that you have $100. 100 is a start of a bigger number. Don’t follow social media group who claims how much they made and how easy it is. Your brain may unconsciously make competitive decisions.
Make a plan 📝
You have to make a plan. You may have made a plan and failed. Let me tell you what worked for me. Like many traders, I lost in the beginning. The more you lose money while trading, the more you focus on the money not on the trading. When you focus on money, you may try to find money by different ways; borrowing, stealing and some in easy ways. To make a plan to trading, you have to see the whole picture; the risk, the situation it is creating for you, your family and finance and your future.
Summary
It is important to stop when you are overwhelmed and take a step back. When come back you will see how much difference it makes when you are calm and in control of your emotions and mind. Accepting that you have your own pace of learning and trading is also crucial in trading. Last but not least, to make a plan consider the risk and the situation. Be prepared and be in control of your emotions.
Now you know when to stop and accept. You are ready to start your trading journey.
Don't put at risk what you already built. Take it slow at your own pace.
Don't let the dopamine get you 🥴Do you feel excited? 😅
This is why. It's all down to the chemical reaction in your brain. Dopamine.
Dopamine is a chemical in the brain that makes us feel good.
Should you be feeling excited when trading?🤔
No.🙈 As this isn't gambling and shouldn't give you the same dopamine rushes like a gambling win does.
What's starts as initial excitement will move to fear, anxiety, stress and excitement again. 🤷🏻♂️
You become irrational and unable to stick to your plan.🤯
Entering trades through boredom for the 'rush' and closing profitable trades too early because of fear of the profit disappearing - all because you risked too much for that 'buzz'.
'So what can I do about it?' I hear you shout loudly....📢
Well this depends on if you really want to change or not, the downside is you'll think you will make less money ....
Think about it - you have a £5000 account right?
Option 1 - you trade 15 pairs at 0.5 lot size and your account is up and down like a yo yo - but it's exciting right?
Option 2 - you trade 3 pairs at 0.01 - your account movement is marginal.
Option 2 is less exciting for sure, but if you want excitement go and jump out of plane.
Option 1 will eventually lead to a blown account.
Option 2 will give you sustainable consistent trading - you'll let your winners run and you'll lose less on the losing trades. A win win.
Only when you get this bit right will you start to see positive change.
Emotional control is key
Be present doing other things without checking your phone to see how trades are going.
Exercise patience by sticking to your plan and letting your trades run instead of closing them early.
The only thing you can control in trading is YOU
Just don't end up letting the dopamine take control!
Have a good weekend everyone and thanks for looking
Darren👍
Want To Improve Your Trading Game? Play Poker!In virtually any field of athletics it is advised that you should cross-train in order to both avoid injury and increase performance . For example, Football players are encouraged to take up pilates, yoga, and swimming. Runners can reduce injury and increase performance by incorporating Rollerblading, Barre, and Zumba into their routines.
So what should traders do in order to "cross-train" that will make them better traders, to help them "avoid injury" (as in lose money ) and "increase performance" (as in make money )?
My answer: Play Poker!
Yes, Poker and Trading are both "sedentary" activities where you are sitting at a desk or table. It is the brain that needs to be toned, limbered up, and made flexible, not the body. (Though you need to make sure your body is healthy too!) So it is safe to say that the peak performance trader needs a mental cross-training routine, not necessarily a physical one.
So why is Poker the ideal cross-training exercise for traders?
1: Poker Teaches Risk Management
Unless you're a novice or not seriously playing in a virtual poker App, there's little chance you will go "All In" at the poker table. I can count on one hand the number of times I went "all in" and I won every time. Such opportunities rarely happen. When I did move my pile of chips to the center of the table it was because I knew what was in my hand. I "managed my risk". Likewise, the trader or investor should almost never go "all-in", putting their entire account into asset X, Y, or Z because "the market will market" on you and you will lose it all. In trading terms, you can very easily "blow up your account."
As Kenny Rogers says, "You've got to know when to hold'em... and know when to fold'em."
Good risk management requires that even if you lose say, 5 times in a row, you will live to trade another day. I frequently talk about never risking more than 1% of your account on any single trade . A 5% loss is easy to recover from with two 3-R wins, or one 7-R win. Likewise in poker, with a $100 buy-in, you usually have $1 antes, allowing you to play up to 100 hands (even if you were the worst poker player in the world) risking only 1% per hand.
In poker, only if the "odds are in your favor", that is, you have two-pair, or you have three or four-of-a-kind, or a straight, would you consider raising the stakes to 2, 5, or even 10% of your bankroll. If you can make 20R from a 4R "risk" with the odds in your favor, you are now thinking like a professional trader where Risk Management is "Job One".
2: Poker Teaches Emotional Management
I like to teach that our goal as a trader is to be totally mechanical - totally rules-based. Our goal is to "Trade like a Vulcan" or "Trade like Spock: Trade long and prosper!" What's the poker analogy? Having a " Poker Face ". Or as the old antiperspirant commercial said, "Never let'em see you sweat."
We may have an awesome hand, but we can't display a "woo-hoo" face because no one will bet against us. We may have a terrible hand, but we can't put up a "oh, good grief!" face and let others know that they have even the slightest chance of beating us. We have to play every hand waiting for the last card drawn (the river) because that last card can make or break what we are holding in our hand. And very often it is that last card dealt, "the river", that can make or break a poker hand.
3: Poker Teaches You to Play the Probabilities
Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, I remember the famous slogan from the New York Lottery: "You gotta be in it to win it!" They threatened (coerced?) every New Yorker with "fear of loss" if they didn't play the lotto... "Well, yeah, we all know the odds of you winning are are actually close to zero, but of you don't play then they really are zero so you better play or you will feel more like the loser than you already are!"
Thankfully, the odds in winning at Poker are much higher than winning a set of numbers printed on ping-pong balls, which teaches you that when you have an "edge"... when you have a "system" that has the odds in your favor (a winning trading system) you can't try to outsmart the system – you need to play every hand that meets the criteria of your system.
As hockey great Wayne Gretzky said, "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." So as Poker players and as traders, we have to play every hand, or every trade that appears that meets our trading plan's criteria, otherwise if we try to "outsmart the market" we will lose every time. And more often than not, even with a terrible hand, say a 2 and 4 of spades, you might find that if you don't fold, every once in a while three spades will appear on the table giving you one of the high-probability hands: the flush . So play every hand . And in trading, take every trade opportunity that appears that qualifies under your rules-based trading system.
4: Poker Teaches You To Stay Humble
My poker buddies and I play every month or so. Early in my tenure when I learned to play poker I realized "Hey, I'm pretty good at this.... I'm gauging the probabilities, I'm keeping my risk-per-hand low, I'm taking small profit after small profit and leaving with twice the money I bought in for or more. Drinks are on me!"
Then I got cocky... Walking into game four I thought to myself "I'm the Vulcan, emotionless, rules-based, odds-calculating poker player, right?"
And that night my proverbial hat was handed to me.
It was one of the worst games I'd played to that point. I over-bid, I bluffed (something I had never done before and my opponents knew it!), and I raised bets on hands I know I should have folded. I re-bought in after losing my original buy-in and lost all of that! And I went home with a valuable lesson: Don't think you can out-smart the probabilities.
The reason we win at poker is the same reason we win at trading. We must always play the odds, we must never play the low probability hands, we must always keep our emotions get the best of us, and when it's time to fold, it's time to fold!"
Last week our poker group met again. I bought in for $50 and left with $135. In trading parlance, that was a 170% return. I was grateful. I learned my lesson. I've got to stay humble and let the hand come to me, let the trade come to me, and never think I can out-smart the table or the market.
5: Poker Teaches You To Set a Financial Target
One of the reasons that casinos give their players free drinks, free upgrades to already expensive suites, and free food is they know that "the more you play, the more you'll pay." You can be up $5,000 for the night, then go get yourself some free lobster tails paired with filet mignon, a bottle of wine, and a decadent dessert. Then you return to the tables all fat, happy, and lubricated and proceed to hand all your winnings back to the House.
I know more than one poker player who has a rule: "When I double my money, I'm done . I may walk in with $500, and when I'm $500 to the positive, I quit and go on to enjoy the rest of my night, otherwise I'll just give it all back."
Similarly, I know many a trader (yours truly included) who may have been up a sizable amount wonderfully early in the trading session, then proceed to give all those winnings back to the market an hour or so later. Setting a daily "win" will prevent you from getting mentally "fat and sassy" where you will become overconfident and then hand your winnings back to the market.
As a Poker player, you may want to make a certain amount of money per game. As a trader, you might want a daily amount of "R" or dollar amount to the positive. In either case, when you hit your goal, even if it's in the first 20 minutes of the trading session you need to close all open trades and enjoy the fact that you did what 90% likely did not do that day: end the day in the green! On other words, "Quit while you're ahead!"
6: Poker Player Are Part of a Vibrant Community Full of Fun People!
Like traders, the number of people who are committed to improving their poker game are few. We need to belong to a strong community of passionate poker players to perfect our craft just as we need to belong to a strong community of passionate (and profitable) traders in order to continually perfect our skill at taking money from the markets each and every day. There are online poker communities you can join (think: Simulated Trading) and there are global in-person Poker communities that can link you up with other players once you're ready to "go live". These communities are generally free to join and will help you build up the skill to become a proficient and profitable Poker player which, more importantly, will help you become an even more proficient and profitable trader.
Is there anything else about Poker that you think needs to be added to the list? Leave a comment below.
As always, Trade well! (And maybe I'll see you at the table!)
Are you revenge trading 😖🤔Revenge trading!
It all catches us all out at some point in our trading journey's.
The markets don't care about your loss and neither should you!
Losses are a part of trading and have to be accepted.
No one can be right 100% of the time regardless of method used.
Revenge trading will add to those losses and compound that account draw down even more.
Irrational emotions have no place in trading and they are what lead to revenge trading.
The way to eradicate this issue is by going about your trading a logical manner.
First off is build or use a strategy with a known proven edge.
Second is follow that strategy to the letter and only enter trades when all your parameters/confluences are met.
The markets take from the impatient and give to the patient ones.
The example I am using on chart is using a trend following strategy of our own.
This strategy is a good win percentage and I know that as the built in strategy tester shows me all the stats.
As always the report box is at the bottom of the idea showing those very stats.
A 61% win rate means losers still happen and as you will see on the chart the buy trade hit stop loss before price went on an upward trend.
The old trader in me would of been pouring over this chart trying to guess which way will it go?
What should I do enter a long again? That would of paid of in this instance but not the logical thing to have done it would of been luck and luck only.
Who knows with emotions at play would I of had a thought the price was going to head down? Then place a sell order?
Luckily I didn't have to make any of those choices with emotions at play.
I accepted the loss on the fact I know I'm trading a proven strategy and I simply waited for the next trade alert and let probability play out.
The next trade was a short that found it's intended take profit target.
This process is more simpler for those who are using a mechanical trading system like the one on chart.
But regardless of system or approach in use if you are following the trading plan to the letter revenge trading shouldn't occur.
Find an edge, apply that edge, stick to the proven plan and revenge trading won't be your issue.
Instead you'll be one of the patient ones that the market is giving to 👌👍
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I try and share as many ideas as I can as and when I have time. My trades are automated so I am not sat in front of a screen daily.
Jumping on random trade ideas 'willy-nilly' on Trading View trying to find that one trade that you can retire from is not a sustainable way to trade. You might get lucky, but it will always end one way.
------------------------------------------
Please hit the 👍 LIKE button if you like my ideas🙏
Also follow my profile, then you will receive a notification whenever I post a trading idea - so you don't miss them. 🙌
No one likes missing out, do they?
Also, see my 'related ideas' below to see more just like this.
The stats for this pair are shown below too.
Thank you.
Darren
Risk management lessonI mentioned it on another day already, but this topic is very important so I decided to share it again to reach as much as possible. Hope it will help some!
The last weeks it happend again, I saw some traders with less knowledge (young and old) who crashed their accounts very hard. They lost a lot of money and for some it was very dreadful!
It is hard to watch this people how they burn money and bring even his own family in financial danger. That´s why I decided to share one important chapter from my book here to you.
May be some will find very helpful, or some will remember this rules again.
I will keep it a bit shorter here as in my book, but the main points are still mentioned!
I can´t say it often enough, keep the important rules in trading. Trading is not the way to get rich quick, it is a serious and hard business! It take a lot of time to learn, it requires a lot of patience and it will happen a lot of failures.
This failures are even more important than your success! Success will not open up how it will not work, failures will.
Let´s talk about risk management!
For each investment you have to consider you take for each trade the risk to lose money, that´s why it is mandatory to handle each investment with a good risk/reward distribution.
You have to keep in mind, the determined risk/reward is only theoretically and can result complete different. But with knowledge you can dedicate a good entry for your trades to keep your risk as low as possible.
Determine important support and resistance levels and think about all situations what could happen and what will you do if you are going into the red or into the green? Which levels are the best entry and exit?
This all will help you to determine your riks/reward ratio.
What is the Risk/Reward Ratio?
Successful day traders are generally aware of both, the potential risk and potential reward before entering a trade.
The goal of a day trader is to place trades where the potential reward outweighs the potential risk.
These trades would be considered to have a good risk/reward ratio.
A risk/reward ratio is simply the amount of money you plan to risk, compared to the amount of money you believe you can gain.
For example, if you think a potential trade may result in either a $400 profit or $100 loss, the trade would have a risk/reward ratio of 1:4, making it a favorable setup. Contrarily, if you risk $100 to make $100, the trade has a risk/reward ratio of 1:1, giving you the same type of unfavorable odds that you can find in a casino.
Which ratio should you desire?
Like described above, finding trades with high risk/reward ratios (1:2 or higher), will help you maintain higher average profits and lower average losses, making your trading strategy more sustainable.
The common suggestion between traders is a distribution of minimum 1:2 ratio. In reality there are often even better ratios available, if you do your technical chart analysis.
But what should you do if you have to cut losses?
We have to place our stop loss right below our support or other important levels we determined before.
The purpose is to cut losses before they grow too large. Stopping out of a losing trade can be one of the hardest things for traders to do consistently. However, failing to take stops can result in margin calls, unnecessarily large losses, and ultimately account blowouts.
How big should I enter a position?
To lower your risk I recommend to think about your size to enter a position.
Overall you shouldn´t risk money you need, only deposit money in your broker you can afford.
Entering small can be the smartest way to safe your account.
I suggest that because of four reasons, the first reason is, you don´t risk to much of your funds and your stop loss should be tight anyway.
The second reason is, you can average down if the price is going in the other direction, but consider this option only if you are sure what you are doing.
The third reason is, you can buy the dips/pullbacks if the trend is strong and still heading in your desired direction.
In addition, the fourth reason is, your emotional control is stronger if the price movement is heading in the wrong direction.
That brings me to another topic.
Should you use leverage?
Yes I know, big leverage will give you big gains...but as a beginner you will not have the experience to know which trade has a very big potential or not.
Even experienced traders use only a small amount to enter a position and not the whole fund.
If you use leverage the losses can be much higher and the problem with that is, if you lose money, your leverage will also decrease significantly and the losses are harder to recover after each loss.
So the answer of the question, if you should use leverage:
For beginners we can easily answer: Take your hands of a big leverage!
You can so hardly blow up yourself with that tool, it is ridiculous. Your way back into the profit zone will probably take years.
But you have to save yourself and after a period of time, a period of taking profits and cutting losses you will gain knowledge until you feel much more comfortable on the market and you understand how trading really works, then you can consider to use leverage.
Conclusion:
As I said, I want to share only some big points about this topic, because I think many new investors don´t understand how important that topic is!
Safe yourself and have fun in trading and learning!
Sincerely,
TradeandGrow
Trade safe!
Today I want to share some very important points in trading!The last weeks it happend again, I saw some traders with less knowledge (young and old) who crashed their accounts very hard. They lost a lot of money and for some it was very dreadful!
It is hard to watch this people how they burn money and bring even his own family in financial danger. That´s why I decided to share one important chapter from my book here to you.
May be some will find very helpful, or some will remember this rules again.
I will keep it a bit shorter here as in my book, but the main points are still mentioned!
I can´t say it often enough, keep the important rules in trading. Trading is not the way to get rich quick, it is a serious and hard business! It take a lot of time to learn, it requires a lot of patience and it will happen a lot of failures.
This failures are even more important than your success! Success will not open up how it will not work, failures will.
Let´s talk about risk management!
For each investment you have to consider you take for each trade the risk to lose money, that´s why it is mandatory to handle each investment with a good risk/reward distribution.
You have to keep in mind, the determined risk/reward is only theoretically and can result complete different. But with knowledge you can dedicate a good entry for your trades to keep your risk as low as possible.
Determine important support and resistance levels and think about all situations what could happen and what will you do if you are going into the red or into the green? Which levels are the best entry and exit?
This all will help you to determine your riks/reward ratio.
What is the Risk/Reward Ratio?
Successful day traders are generally aware of both, the potential risk and potential reward before entering a trade.
The goal of a day trader is to place trades where the potential reward outweighs the potential risk.
These trades would be considered to have a good risk/reward ratio.
A risk/reward ratio is simply the amount of money you plan to risk, compared to the amount of money you believe you can gain.
For example, if you think a potential trade may result in either a $400 profit or $100 loss, the trade would have a risk/reward ratio of 1:4, making it a favorable setup. Contrarily, if you risk $100 to make $100, the trade has a risk/reward ratio of 1:1, giving you the same type of unfavorable odds that you can find in a casino.
Which ratio should you desire?
Like described above, finding trades with high risk/reward ratios (1:2 or higher), will help you maintain higher average profits and lower average losses, making your trading strategy more sustainable.
The common suggestion between traders is a distribution of minimum 1:2 ratio. In reality there are often even better ratios available, if you do your technical chart analysis.
But what should you do if you have to cut losses?
We have to place our stop loss right below our support or other important levels we determined before.
The purpose is to cut losses before they grow too large. Stopping out of a losing trade can be one of the hardest things for traders to do consistently. However, failing to take stops can result in margin calls, unnecessarily large losses, and ultimately account blowouts.
How big should I enter a position?
To lower your risk I recommend to think about your size to enter a position.
Overall you shouldn´t risk money you need, only deposit money in your broker you can afford.
Entering small can be the smartest way to safe your account.
I suggest that because of four reasons, the first reason is, you don´t risk to much of your funds and your stop loss should be tight anyway.
The second reason is, you can average down if the price is going in the other direction, but consider this option only if you are sure what you are doing.
The third reason is, you can buy the dips/pullbacks if the trend is strong and still heading in your desired direction.
In addition, the fourth reason is, your emotional control is stronger if the price movement is heading in the wrong direction.
That brings me to another topic.
Should you use leverage?
Yes I know, big leverage will give you big gains...but as a beginner you will not have the experience to know which trade has a very big potential or not.
Even experienced traders use only a small amount to enter a position and not the whole fund.
If you use leverage the losses can be much higher and the problem with that is, if you lose money, your leverage will also decrease significantly and the losses are harder to recover after each loss.
So the answer of the question, if you should use leverage is:
For beginners we can easily answer: Take your hands of a big leverage!
You can so hardly blow up yourself with that tool, it is ridiculous. Your way back into the profit zone will probably take years.
But you have to save yourself and after a period of time, a period of taking profits and cutting losses you will gain knowledge until you feel much more comfortable on the market and you understand how trading really works, then you can consider to use leverage.
Conclusion:
As I said, I want to share only some big points about this topic, because I think many new investors don´t understand how important that topic is!
Safe yourself and have fun in trading and learning!
Sincerely,
TradeandGrow
Trade safe!
The three O's that have to go ❌The O’s in your trading game that have to go are shown drawn on the chart.
The three O’s in the idea can all overlap one another and allowing one to creep in can lead to any of the other also creeping in to your trading.
We have all suffered at some point in our trading journeys of these three phenomena.
All of these O’s can lead to capital being impacted and potentially a blown account.
We’ll start with over trading.
On the face of it, over trading is taking too many trades.
Over trading can occur when chasing losses or being on a particularly good winning steak.
Either of those situations mentioned is essentially a loss of control.
The loss of control leads to a loss of focus.
The loss of focus leads to too many trades.
Too many of those trades will be stupid trades.
Those stupid trades will be losing trades at some point.
All these trades mean increased commissions.
The cycle continues and instead of compounding profits the only thing being compounded is risk.
Compounded risk leads to losses and if the cycle isn’t broken a blown trading account awaits.
Next is over risking.
Risk management is key to any trading plan being successful.
Stating the obvious in that first sentence.
But I’m also stating the obvious when I say we’ve all been there and risked more than we should on some trades.
Over risking more than our capital allows will only lead to tears and one outcome which is the blown account outcome.
We end with overconfidence
Probably the worse O of the three to allow in your trading behaviours!
Allowing this one to sneak in can quickly allow the other two already covered to sneak in.
Usually seen as a positive emotion in the world we live in, this emotion can quickly become a negative emotion in the trading world.
Allowing this emotion to creep in blurs our perceptions to so many concepts we need for trading and can lead to a gambling mentality.
Greed will take hold with overconfidence and when the winning streak comes to a cashing end the trader runs the risk of allowing the other two O’s to creep in leading to only one outcome.
The blown account yet again.
The O’s can crossover
All of the traits mentioned can be experienced individually or some can crossover one another. Below are a few examples.
We covered in the overconfidence how it can lead to the O’s creeping in. Overconfidence from a winning streak leads to overtrading which in turn leads to an inevitable losing streak and capital impacted with losses.
Worse case scenario is overconfidence from a good run of trades leads to over risking on the next set of trades which loose. You then end up over trading in revenge to gain back the losses which could lead to yet more losses.
You could be a new trader starting out with no confidence.
You start to over risk from the off and lead to your trading account being blown.
You could over trade combined with over risking which accelerates the loss of trading capital.
In those scenarios mentioned confidence hasn’t been an issue at all. But risk management and trade volume have.
How to avoid the O’s
I'm pretty sure we all suffer one of O traits at some point in our trading journey.
The key is to recognise the incident and the issues it caused and learn from that.
It lies with us as individuals to own up to our trading mistakes. Some of us will suffer all three O’s in our trading paths.
In owning up to our shortcomings all the O’s can be avoided going forward in your trading life's.
Hope you all enjoy your trading week.
Darren
------------------------------------------
Please hit the 👍 LIKE button if you like my ideas🙏
Also follow my profile, then you will receive a notification whenever I post a trading idea - so you don't miss them. 🙌
No one likes missing out, do they?
Also, see my 'related ideas' below to see more just like this.
Thank you.
Are you a champion hopper? 😬🙈Morning traders.
I started yesterday morning by posting an idea with the phrase below.
'Lets start the morning with everyone's favourite! Gold'
Well I'm kinda doing the same again this morning but this time it so we can all have some more food for thought at the breakfast table instead!
Now here me out, I have drawn the two graphs in this mornings idea on the same gold H1 strategy chart I shared yesterdays idea from.
The comment section was a good mix of feedback, some miffed at the stop out possibly and others very realistic in the reality that stop losses occur in trading.
For this strategy yesterdays stop loss means we now have 5 losses in a row. But I wont be hopping off to another method or style either.
90% of traders get spooked at the first sign of a losing run and jump to the next strategy.
Why will I stick with this strategy for gold on H1? Because of probability being factored in from the back tested data available.
Hand on heart how many people out there actually back test a strategy?
You can't plan for probability in your risk management if you have no data for your strategy.
Transparency when sharing ideas has always been key for me and strategy test data is always included in my ideas just as the H1 gold data is at the bottom of this idea.
This leads me back on to the graph drawings in this idea.
The one on the left is the last two weeks of data for this strategy the one on the right is the last two years! Growing capital takes time.
Losing runs are part of trading the growing capital part comes from trading a strategy with a proven edge.
If you have a proven system why hop on to another one?
I'll end this idea with a great quote from Steve Burns.
'10% of successful trading is creating a system with an edge. The other 90% is following it'
Enjoy your day traders.
------------------------------------------
Please hit the 👍 LIKE button if you like my ideas🙏
Also follow my profile, then you will receive a notification whenever I post a trading idea - so you don't miss them. 🙌
No one likes missing out, do they?
Also, see my 'related ideas' below to see more just like this.
Thank you.
Darren
5 ways to Eliminate the Emotional Risk?Anything can happen
You don't need to know what is going to happen next in order to make money
There is a random distribution between wins and losses for an y edge
An edge is an indication of a higher probability of one thing happening over another
Every moment in the market is unique
70% midterm potential on EthereumI'm not sure if you were around when ETH made a double top around $400 but I do remember it like it was yesterday.
At that point, a friend bought it nearly at the second double top price. Just a few dollars below that.
He did not listen and as a novice "crypto investor" he wanted to be smarter then experienced ones and even than the market itself.
Traders that have been around for some time know that it's the riskiest to buy just before the breakout happens unless you have really solid ground and knowledge about why you are so sure it will.
By solid, I don't mean "BTC went to ATH, so ETH will do it now also". It did not! At some point, he and his portfolio were down. Emotionally and financially.
At least he did listen and did not sell at the bottom but he waited for some months before ETH broke $400 mark and for him to finally be in the profit zone.
He bought high and nearly sold low. Instead of buying low and selling high.
Right now ETH is relatively low. I wrote about that in the "Catch short term potential on ETH!" post that you can find in the links to related ideas bellow.
This post is more about midterm potential. Maybe 70% is not much for somebody but if we do compare that to other financial markets it's great for a few weeks. Even for a few months.
And the beauty is that you can buy it, put automatic sell order on the next strong resistance if you are happy with that profit target and forget about it. Financially and emotionally.
As you can see there is a nice cup and handle pattern forming. It's should take us really close to that $400 resistance again.
However, it all depends on what game you are playing but if you devote some funds to short-term play, others to midterm gain and leave the rest for longterm potential your emotional wellness can be well served.
At the end of the game, health is more important than money and going thru the same stress as my friend did is for sure not good for your energy and well being. Sometimes even the close ones can get sick of you being under the stress all the time. You might get a bit more money but you might lose something even more precious. Is it worth it?
PS: It's just an idea. It's not investment advice!
EU - APRIL FOOLS! DONT GET FAKED OUT!Price just made its way into a previous monthly resistance that could hold as support for a little longer. We definitely had some buyers waiting there in the previous months showing the strength of this level. (ORANGE LINE)
1.12150 is our support which has been holding back that bearish momentum. There's also a break of structure on 4h at this level. Reinforcing my speculation for about a 100 pip pull pack. Targeting our daily LH for 100% retracement. My bias will change if the market closes below the 4h support. If that happens I will wait for the market to show me a high probability trade. The beginning of the weeks and months are hectic. so be careful not to get caught up in the mess.
This is just speculation from my experience with EU. It's known for saying goodbye before leaving a range. I also have 2 take profit levels in case the market turns around sooner.
I want to remind you to not piggyback of my ideas and have your own bias. I will be fine if my trade works out or not. RM is key.