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Trading Psychology

What Are The Pros And Cons of Intraday vs Swing TradingHello traders, There is not such a good or bad timeframe. Like cooking, everything depends on how you use the ingredients for your meals. Intraday timeframes Pros Earlier entries Earlier exits => losers are smaller compared to losers with SWING trades You make your daily goals earlier With Intraday trading, we're not impacted by contracts expiration, rollover, over-weekend, overnight fees It's rarely boring (especially with indices trading) Leverage isn't needed Perfect for beginners or small capital Cons More in/out entries => you have to enter, exit, enter, exit until the real move happen You have to be more reactive and accurate when taking a position or exiting. Swing timeframes Pros More time to react and prepare We don't need to be too accurate with our entries and exits You're less impacted by news/events/rumours/tweets - They have a real visible impact on intraday but generally don't change a thing for the swing trend Cons Bigger drawdown by design Forces to hold trades over multiple days/weeks. In a range, we pay a lot in funding/rollover fees before the real move happens. Being double digits percent down because of fees isn't pleasant. Big capital required to afford to lose a few percentages sometimes with those trading fees 1 click takes 5 seconds. Then you wait and wait and wait and wait, and then look on Twitter for ideas to invalidate your entries. When your favorite guru shares a contrary setup, you follow his/her call and wreck yourself. You really need patience with SWING trades. If the patience for you is an issue, I'd stick with Intraday. Have a great day Dave
Education
by Daveatt
22
10 Important Trading LessonsWhat are most useful trading tips you have heard so far? Today, I am going to share with you 10 important trading lessons which market taught me after years of experience and I wish these tips to help you in your future trades : 1. We should Only do trading whenever we can obey all the following items or we had better leave trading forever. 2. Never enter into a stressful trade. This means you have to set you stop loss and calculate you target before executing a trade and possible loss should be small enough that you can tolerate. 3. If you feel to need to sit behind your laptop or PC to monitor and check your trade after opening a position, you are entering into a wrong one !. Do not open it. 4. Doing an analysis in relax and comfortable condition is necessary before any trade. Opening a position without " an already done analysis " is a great mistake ! . 5. Running an immediate analysis when market has strong momentum and trading based on that is very risky. Try to avoid such trades. 6. Never fade the gain of a good trade with a loss of a bad one. Good here means trading based on pre-defined strategy and bad means throwing it away . 7. Using leverages can be dangerous as much as it can be fascinating. 8. Only use leverages when all elements of your trading strategy are present. 9. Stick to your Stop loss and Take profit which you set and calculated outside of any market excitation. 10. Being optimistic and over pessimistic is forbidden. Trading is all about being realistic. please share your own experiences as comments. I am eager to learn from you my friends. Good luck.
Education
by SaeedSajedi
8
How To Master Your SleepHello traders and investors, This week, I'll talk about physiology, but I'd like to relate how I went from being an overly worried, under-slept, overfed, under-muscular person to the MAN I am today. Let's start with how I conquered my sleep to get at least 7 hours of sleep per night, including hours of REM and DEEP sleep. Trading after a bad night's sleep is extremely difficult, if not dangerous. Because we can't think clearly when we have brain fog. And trading necessitates that we be hyperaware. I've had trouble sleeping virtually my whole life....  Even if I went to bed early, I usually experienced insomnia, woke up at 2/3 a.m., and couldn't fall back asleep.  It made my life unpleasant by causing chronic mental fog and an inability to be motivated. I'm happy to report that I've mastered my sleep issues and discovered routines and tools to help me stay and fall asleep. The majority of what follows was taught to me by Andrew Huberman, a well-known physiologist with about 2 million subscribers on YouTube (at the time of writing). Protocol: Right after waking up I go to my patio and soak up 10/15 minutes of sunlight. I'm fortunate to reside in a sunny location. On cloudy days, you'll have to increase your time outside first thing in the morning to 30 minutes. This approach is for awaking your circadian cycle and signalling to your body that the day has begun. It's critical to start as early as possible in the morning. I conduct a 10 minute HIIT workout on my terrace. You don't necessary need to do this; going for a walk outside is also a great morning routine. I've read several times that this early workout is highly useful for letting our brain know that it's time to start waking up the "machine." Protocol: During the day - I don't drink coffee after noon. Some folks do and sleep well. I'm one of those guys who is hypersensitive to caffeine and can't fall asleep anytime I consume coffee in the afternoon.
 - I don't consume junk food nor just eat whole foods.  I eat a well-balanced diet consisting of 60% carbs, 30% protein, and 10% fat because I work out for 1 hour every day.  
I also always eat below or at my calories maintenance - studies show metabolism are the healthiest when we don’t overeat - I don’t want no hormones, health issues - I want to live healthy, rich and for a very long time. 
This contributes to the development of my body, charisma, testosterone, and courage. 
 Courage is essential while dealing with difficult circumstances, especially when our trades are underwater. - I don't consume alcohol or smoke.  I don't feel smoking is harmful to sleep; I simply don't do it for health reasons.  However, alcohol is known to have a bad impact on our brain and sleep. Protocol: 2 hours before going to bed I go to bed around 9:30 p.m. every night. Going to bed at the same time every day trains our brains to allow us to fall asleep around that time. The caveat is that anytime I go out at night and go to bed beyond that time, I tend to have poorer sleep quality. -  Beginning with the most important: I am closing ALL of my intraday trades I don't want my intraday trades to turn into swing trades or, worse, long-term investments. I don't want to wake up stressed every night to check my trades PnL. I want to go to bed stress-free. -  Blue light glasses I still work late at night, so I wear blue light-blocking glasses. Our brain associates blue colors with "hey, it's still day time." That is why protecting our eyes from bright lights (even those in our homes) is essential for a healthy night's sleep. Looking at your TV or computer at night without them guarantees that you won't sleep well, that you'll wake up in the middle of the night and won't be able to fall back asleep. -  Self-massages I use a foam roller to roll my back and neck on, as well as a massage tool.  Eric Berg: shop.drberg.com I have no affiliation; that product improved my life by allowing me to remove nodes in my back and neck without visiting a chiropractor  -  Stretching   Shaolin Monks are famed for being highly flexible; they say flexibility is a sign of an extremely healthy physique, and I couldn't agree more.  Stretching my hamstrings and back on a daily basis greatly fixed my lower back/neck pain. Protocol: Back/Neck Pain 75% of the persons I spoke with were suffering from back/neck pain. Some people sleep on their stomach, which is bad for their neck, and they know they should sleep on their side, but they can't fall asleep that way. Some are extremely stressed and cringe. Cringing frequently causes neck pain. I needed a dental tray to prevent my cringing from causing nodes in my neck. Really a life-saving, or should I say sleep-saving, device. Protocol: What to Do If You Wake Up in the Middle of the Night - Self-massage using the foam roller and the Eric Berg’s massage tool. - Never check your phone or social media According to Andrew Huberman, checking your phone at night depletes your dopamine for the next 48 hours. 
Dopamine is the hormone giving us motivation

How could you manage difficult trades without being motivated?
 Well….it’s harder…. Tool I use an OURA ring to track my REM and DEEP sleep. It's Bluetooth-enabled and linked to my phone. Every morning, the OURA app gave me a score; the greater the score, the better my sleep was. It also distinguishes between REM, DEEP, and STANDARD sleep. Supplements Supplements I consider myself to be in a deep level of calm. I follow the dosing guidelines on each product label. - Magnesium L-Theanone  - Zinc  - Argenin  - Tart Cherry  - I used to take Ashwaganda, but I discovered it reduced my overall happiness/excitement during the day, so I stopped taking it. How long should you do these protocols before seeing some effects 

 Talking from experience, it’s a matter of days. 

 Yeah really, it’s amazing how quick our body and brain adapts to weather great or terrible inputs. 

Feeding your body with mostly great inputs leads to a great mind, mood and is the first step at getting shot at being profitable with your trading. 

The second step is mastering your anxiety and stress. 
Article coming up on that topic on Monday :) Have a good weekend everyone Dave
Education
by Daveatt
9
Gambler's Vision VS Pro Trader's Vision 👁 Hey traders, In this article, we will discuss the perception of trading by individuals. We will compare the vision of a professional trader and a beginner. The fact is, that most of the people perceive trading performance incorrectly. There is a common fallacy among them that win rate is the only true indicator of the efficiency of a trading strategy. Moreover, newbies are searching for a strategy producing close to 100% accuracy. Such a mindset determines their expectations. Especially it feels, when I share a wrong forecast in my channel. It immediately triggers resentment and negative reactions. Talking to these people personally and asking them about the reasons of their indignation, the common answer is: "If you are a pro, you can not be wrong". The truth is that the reality is absolutely different. Opening any position or making a forecast, a pro trader always realizes that there is no guarantee that the market will act as predicted. Pro trader admits that he deals with probabilities, and he is ready to take losses. He realizes that he may have negative trading days, even weeks and months, but at the end of the day his overall performance will be positive. Remember, that your success in trading is determined by your expectations and perception. Admit the reality of trading, set correct goals, and you will take losses more easily. I wish you luck and courage on a battlefield. ❤️If you have any questions, please, ask me in the comment section. Please, support my work with like, thank you!❤️
Education
by VasilyTrader
7
10 Important Tips & Tricks To Improve Trading Skills In this article, we will discuss ten important tips and tricks that can enable you to improve your trading skills. A trading plan is a must Once you have tested the plan developed and it shows good results, that is the time to go full throttle investing in the stock market. Do not lose confidence Be a learner Be a learner and practice trading as a new entrant, even if it has been decades of trading for you. Look at trading as a classroom with much to offer and to be taken one thing at a time. Don't fall for rumours Treat it like a Business It is serious business here and requires precision, patience, commitment, in-depth analysis and cold-blooded research. A stop-loss is essential Have technology at your side Trader must be up-to-date on the happenings in the trading world and use technology to know about stock movements, new products, new trading schemes and pre-empt market movements. Defend your trading capital Take risks that you can afford It enables you to plan well and not overexpose yourself to the risks in share market trading. Be open to new strategies Never in trading should there be a time that you follow a trading plan that is outdated or rigid to change. What do you want to learn in the next post?
OANDA:XAUUSDEducation
by UnitedSignals
8
How to differentiate a fake-out from an actual break-outHappy Friday, sorcerers. Welcome on another educational post by Investroy! The trading and investing industry is a difficult one to succeed in as it has various complex details that you need to dig into both from technical and psychological perspectives. Predicting the price movement and understanding the logic behind it may be challenging at first. But as time passes and you gain experience, you understand the science behind price action and make more logical decisions. Today, we will talk about a rather puzzling issue faced by many beginning and experienced traders: the theme of differentiating fake price movements from real ones. Although, it is not always possible to separate the two to the full extent, it is feasible to build a plan around it and stick to it on a consistent basis. A fake-out is a failed attempt of the price to break above/below a key zone. Very often, it is associated with liquidity grabs and Stop Loss hunts. To demonstrate, looking at the illustration pictured on the chart, you can see how the price attempts to continue its bullish moves, but fakes out from the sideways-moving range and re-enters the borders of it instead. On the contrary, a breakout happens when price successfully penetrates a key level and continues its impulsive moves in the same direction Now, the question is: how to distinguish a real breakout from a fake one? Firstly, it has to be kept in mind that what goes up, must come down. In trading terms, after an impulsive move, a correctional one should come; after a breakout, a re-test should happen before continuing impulses. In order to identify whether a breakout is a fake or a real one, we should always look for a re-test of the penetrated zone after a break is completed. However, you have to keep in mind that it is not a 100% fact that a re-test will happen every time. Sometimes, breakouts will be so impulsive that price will not retrace back to re-test a penetrated zone. Nothing is 100% accurate in trading. Not every breakout will lead to a re-test before impulsive continuations. Not every fake breakout will seem like a fake-out at first. However, waiting for a re-test of a broken zone is a good way to evade fake breakouts and capture high risk-to-reward trades and opportunities. To conclude, if you want to make sure you don’t get faked out and liquidated, always wait for a re-test of a penetrated level before forming biases and executing positions.
BITSTAMP:BTCUSDEducation
by Investroy
9
What Kind of Person You Need to Become to Be ProfitableHello traders, All the below are based on my preferences, I don't give any financial recommendations and I have nothing to sell you with this article. I'm sharing content because I see a lot of traders being/becoming broke and I don't want you to be one of them. Why have I been sharing so many articles so far? I’ve shared one educational post a day because being a trader is a job.
And a job is the sum of many skills to acquire.
 Each skill taken individually won’t make you a profitable trader.
 Talking about me and the guys from my trading community, only all those skills applied altogether give us a shot at making money. Trading is one of the most challenging and one of the most monetary rewarding activity. Work on yourself first 

 Your trading profitability is a direct reflection of who you are as an individual. 
It’s just is. If you’re not profitable, it’s because you made some mistakes.
 And if you made them, it’s because you didn’t work enough on yourself yet.

 Having great trading signals is indeed an essential tool among the stack of tools to have but… this is not enough. 
And I’m saying this as someone selling trading signals (and a trading course). 

In a past life, when I worked as a back office Quant, we were strongly encouraged to workout, meditate, eat healthy, sleep 7+ hours, having some social life, etc… Being a trader is first being a human with great habits leading him/her towards nothing else but excellence. How can someone expects to perform well at such a tough job while being fat and/or sleeping 4 hours a night and/or not controlling his mind/emotions,…

 YOU JUST CAN’T. Trading is hard enough already and the market knows damn well how to take the hard-earned money from people who didn’t work on themselves enough. Your skills stack As an entrepreneur owning online businesses, I had to learn about sales, marketing, negotiation, copywriting, accounting, taxes optimisation, coding, hiring, building a company culture, …

 Each skill taken separately isn’t enough to bootstrap a business. 

All of them used together gave me a shot at succeeding 
The same goes with trading. The reason any very profitable trader I know became profitable after some serious time is because the stack of skills to acquire is consequential. 
And I’m not talking about skills we can learn in a short timeframe. I had to learn how to: (non-exhaustive list) - Meditate - Refrain myself from trading when I’m tired or sick or frustrated - Put my ego side and time to time get back to trading with smaller position size - Take my profit for the day and get out of my place and go outside - Eat/sleep properly - Relax and breath and do some NSDR (Non-Sleep Deep Rest) - Working out properly and building muscles -> I’m so sure there is a direct correlation for men between our Testosterone level and the courage to enter and manage difficult trades. - Not be greedy -> One needs to get slapped hard in the face a few times to understand that - Never anticipate -> many times I cut a trade before the stop-loss or I entered too early front-running some signal(s) - in retrospect, was really a stupid behaviour - Psychology and Game Theory - Code trading scripts and trading bots in multiple programming languages - Listen to the right mentors aka traders way ahead of me in term of net worth - … Those skills used altogether compound and made me a very disciplined person - those are my daily non-negotiable behaviours. If you’re not profitable yet, it isn’t necessarily because the signals you have are bad. And to figure out if they’re bad or not, you need some trading experience… which comes from….. taking a huge amount of trades for an extended period of time. Your lack of profitability, comes for most of you from some work you still need to do.

 And by the way, each trade you take works on you. Your trades work on you more than you work on them. 

 What I mean by that, the more trades you take, the more skilled you get as you keep learning about yourself. A virtuous feedback loop. Many traders who lost everything due to a big mistake knew how to make it all back and beyond because…. they already had the required skills. Conclusion 

 A red-pilled trader could decide to put his/her money into a 100% trading bot because… learning all those skills is time-consuming.

 My advice to that person is…. “Good luck with your endeavour, you’ll likely wreck yourself” If you don’t trust me… well… I worked as a back office Quant coding trading bots for about 5 years in NYC. I tested and built more bots than 99.99% of people. Retail trading bots sellers are selling a concept, a dream which by definition doesn’t reflect the reality. 
Regardless of the strategy, it’s unlikely a 100% automated bot performs well overtime as market conditions keep changing.

 We’re now in uncharted territory with a very high inflation rate, extreme tensions between countries, an extreme defiance of people of their governments, the WEF, WHO, … (and how could we not blame them seeing what they did to us those past 2 years) Anyway, what I’m strongly recommending as someone who built non-retail trading bots for a living: learn to trade manually first and then learn how to pilot a bot. Quotes of the day - “Never chase opportunities. Let it come to you by creating value and building rare skillsets.” ― Johannes Larsson - “The ability to make wise choices is the most valuable skill a person can develop.” ― Abhishek Ratna “Skills don’t die; only people do.” ― Anas Hamshari “A good trader converts his skills to cash.” ― Michael Bassey Johnson I'll keep bringing a few articles like this every week because it helps me clarifying my thoughts AND giving back to the community makes me feel good about myself somehow :) Thank you for reading Dave
NYSE:TWTREducation
by Daveatt
13
Trading Psychology – FOMOJS-Masterclass – FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) Definition FOMO – Fear of Missing Out - is a relatively recent addition to the English language, but one that is intrinsic to our day-to-day lives. A true phenomenon that affects many traders and can be a major hurdle to become a successful trader. For instance, the feeling of missing out could lead to the entering of trades without enough thought, or to closing trades at inopportune moments because it’s what others seem to be doing. It can even cause traders to risk too much capital due to a lack of research, or the need to follow the herd. For some, the sense of FOMO created by seeing others succeed is only heightened by fast-paced markets and volatility; it feels like there is a lot to miss out on. To help traders better understand the concept of FOMO in trading and why it happens, this tutorial will identify potential triggers and how they can affect a day trader’s success WHAT IS FOMO IN TRADING? FOMO in trading is the Fear of Missing Out on a big opportunity in the markets and is a common issue many traders will experience during their careers. FOMO can affect everyone, from new traders with retail accounts through to professional and institutional traders. In the modern age of social media, which gives us unprecedented access to the lives of others, FOMO is a common phenomenon. It stems from the feeling that other traders are more successful, and it can cause overly high expectations, a lack of long-term perspective, overconfidence/too little confidence and an unwillingness to wait. Emotions are often a key driving force behind FOMO which can lead traders to neglect trading plans and disrespect their trading strategy. Common emotions in trading that can feed into FOMO include Greed, Fear, Excitement, Jealousy, Impatience and Anxiety CHARACTERISTICS OF A FOMO TRADER Traders who act on FOMO will likely share similar traits and be driven by a particular set of assumptions. Below is a list of the top things that guide a FOMO traders’ behavior: 1. Listen too much to the news. ‘They are all doing it so it must be a good idea’. 2. Be too much focused on potential profits versus thinking risk first. 3. Not sure but just let’s give it a go. 4. Getting frustrated in hindsight: ‘OMG, I should have seen this coming’. 5. This will be a great opportunity and if I do too much analysis, I will miss this great opportunity. What factors contribute to FOMO trading? FOMO is an internal feeling, but one that can be caused by a range of situations. Some of the external factors that could lead to a trader experiencing FOMO are: • Volatile markets. FOMO isn’t limited to bullish markets where people want to hop on a trend – it can creep into our psyche when there is market movement in any direction. No trader wants to miss out on a good opportunity • Big winning streaks. Buoyed up by recent wins, it is easy to spot new opportunities and get caught up in them. And it’s fine, because everyone else is doing it, right? Unfortunately, winning streaks don’t last forever • Repetitive losses. Traders can end up in a vicious cycle: entering a position, getting scared, closing out, then re-entering another trade as anxiety and disappointment arise about not holding out. This can eventually lead to bigger losses • News and rumours. Hearing a rumour circulating can heighten the feeling of being left out –traders might feel like they’re out of the loop • Social media. The mix of social media and trading can be toxic when it looks like everyone is winning trades. It’s important not to take social media content at face value, and to take the time to research influencers and evaluate posts.
BITSTAMP:BTCUSDEducation
by JS_TechTrading
Why You Should Meditate - And How To StartHello traders, All the below are based on my preferences, I don't give any financial recommendations and I have nothing to sell you with this article. I'm sharing content because I see a lot of traders being/becoming broke and I don't want you to be one of them. Why to meditate? It will help you closing these unsolved thoughts that come from living and are based on fear, pain, ... Eventually, you will have resolved all of these unsolved issues, and you get into a state of bliss and peace = true happiness. If you can get there, it changes your life. Protocol to get started - Timeline: 60 days - Duration: up to 1 hour a day, start with 5 minutes your first time but the end goal is reaching 1 hour a day. I started with 5 minutes, then added about 5/10 minutes more every week - Protocol: First thing to do in the morning - No music, No sound, No apps. Get super comfy because you don't wanna move for the next hour. If you really struggle to stay within yourself, you can use an app or any guided meditation content - there are plenty for free on Youtube and Spotify. Why do I even meditate? I'm doing it every day as it helps turning off my "monkey mind" You know that state of mind when we take trades we shouldn't or with a position size we shouldn't :) Basically, acting like animals living in a pretty blank state...living in the moment.... following their instincts, feelings, wants. Trading is very often going against what I feel. Then, meditation helped me kind of suppressing this "FOMO/FEAR/OH CRAP I HAVE TO TAKE THAT TRADE BECAUSE EVERYONE IS IN IT" state of mind When we let the monkey mind governing us, we may develop a strong self of self/ego. We then tend to see the world as we want and mold it to our desires and preconceived notions, instead of seeing it as it actually is. The huge issue with this is it leads us to trade based on on our vision of the World and not based on the charts. For an investment or a SWING trade, it's always uncomfortable and painful to see it as it is. How many times was I plain wrong and I held because I wanted to believe it would sort itself out and I'll end up making a profit. The longer I waited to react and cut my losses, the higher the odds that trade could wreck me Anyone else got in that situation? Conclusion The mind should be a servant and a tool, not a master. My monkey mind should NOT control and drive me 24/7. I want to break the habit of uncontrolled thinking, which is very hard. Quotes of the day - “Meditation is not about stopping thoughts, but recognising that we are more than our thoughts and our feelings.” — Arianna Huffington - “Mediation is not spacing out or running away. In fact, it is being totally honest with ourselves” – Kathleen McDonald - “I meditate so that my mind cannot complicate my life” – Sri Chinmoy - “Meditation is like a gym in which you develop the powerful mental muscles of calm and insight.”– Ajahn Brahm - “Meditation is not about feeling a certain way. It's about feeling the way you feel.” — Dan Harris I'll keep bringing a few articles like this every week because it helps me clarifying my thoughts AND giving back to the community makes me feel good about myself somehow :) Thank you for reading Dave
NASDAQ:TSLAEducation
by Daveatt
9
Do not get caught in this trap!Good time of the day, friends! Rushing into trades is definitely among the top #3 common mistakes done by relatively newer market participants who we would call early sellers in this context. The chart/infographic above is pretty self explanatory, but let’s still cover some aspects of it by considering a following scenario: Market was moving sideways the whole week, you almost lost hope to finish the month in profits and now you see the up-trending channel with already 2 lower trend-line touches. You instantly get excited and set a long position in the area of a third touch. Well, next thing you know it plummets right past through it. Lesson learned, but what can be done to avoid that? Well, first of all “look for multiple confluences”. Does the third touch coincide with a potential support zone? If not, that already weakens the point. Was there any signs of bottom forming and reversal? Another strike if not. Did it coincide with any Fibonacci levels, for instance? No? You’re out. Going over mistakes is easy, as there are always so many things that can go wrong, but what’s an alternative then, you may ask. On the chart above, we also indicated a point where we would consider entering the mentioned trade. Patient execution with a proper Risk-Reward is a way to do it. Hope this helps, and tune in for more content for us!
BITSTAMP:BTCUSDEducation
by Investroy
12
Trading-Psychology: Fear & GreedFear & Greed Trading psychology is different for each trader, and it is influenced by the trader’s emotions and biases. The two main emotions that are likely to impact the success or failure of a trade are greed or fear. Greed is defined as the excessive desire for profits that could affect the rationality and judgment of a trader. A greed-inspired trade may involve buying stocks of untested companies because they are on the rise or buying shares of a company without understanding the underlying investment. Greed can also make a trader stay in a position for too long in an attempt to squeeze every event out of the trade. It is common at the end of a bull market when traders attempt to take on risky and speculative positions to profit from the market movements. On the other hand, fear is the opposite of greed and the reason why people exit a trade prematurely or refrain from taking on risky positions due to concerns of incurring losses. Fear makes investors act irrationally as they rush to exit the trade. It is common during bear markets, and it is characterized by significant selloffs from panic-selling. Fear and greed play an important role in a trader’s overall strategy and understanding how to control the emotions is essential in becoming a successful trader.
BITSTAMP:BTCUSDEducation
by JS_TechTrading
Your Ability To Stick To a Strategy MattersHello traders, All the below are based on my preferences, I don't give any financial recommendations and I have nothing to sell you with this article. I'm sharing content because I see a lot of traders being/becoming broke and I don't want you to be one of them. Your ability to stick to a strategy matters more than the strategy itself As a systemic trader, I've always said knowing what to do is the easy part. Applying a proven strategy with unconditional conviction is when it starts getting hard. Trading against your deep beliefs You want to believe a narrative You want to believe it has to go up or down because someone from CNBC/Twitter said something When any trading strategy then gives a signal in the opposite direction of your beliefs, you're undecided, you can't take the trade. I've heard those sentences from unexperienced traders "It has to go down because the FED increased the interest rates so I'm not taking that Long" "It has to go up because ABC is an inflation hedge and we're only 3X from the previous ATH" Let me ask you this... Don't you think most traders are losing money because of their beliefs? Trading against yourself There is a signal to exit but you don't want to exit because the last few exits made you exit too early.. There is a signal to enter but you don't want to enter because the last few entries weren't winners... Then comes an entry that you decided to ignore, the trade worked wonderfully but you ignored it.... Then comes an exit for a trade you're in that you decided to ignore leading to a bigger loss.... See a pattern here? Following a strategy is hard because it's trading against who we are and what we think. But, once we learn to ignore as much as possible our "human" side, is when we start making the sweet gains!!! Quotes of the day - “Everything must be made as simple as possible. But not simpler.” ― Albert Einstein - “Any system was a straightjacket if you insisted on adhering to it so totally and humourlessly.” ― Erica Jong, Fear of Flying I'll keep bringing a few articles like this every week because it helps me clarifying my thoughts AND giving back to the community makes me feel good about myself somehow :) Thank you for reading Dave
Education
by Daveatt
10
Trading-Psychology: Fear & GreedFear & Greed Trading psychology is different for each trader, and it is influenced by the trader’s emotions and biases. The two main emotions that are likely to impact the success or failure of a trade are greed or fear. Greed is defined as the excessive desire for profits that could affect the rationality and judgment of a trader. A greed-inspired trade may involve buying stocks of untested companies because they are on the rise or buying shares of a company without understanding the underlying investment. Greed can also make a trader stay in a position for too long in an attempt to squeeze every event out of the trade. It is common at the end of a bull market when traders attempt to take on risky and speculative positions to profit from the market movements. On the other hand, fear is the opposite of greed and the reason why people exit a trade prematurely or refrain from taking on risky positions due to concerns of incurring losses. Fear makes investors act irrationally as they rush to exit the trade. It is common during bear markets, and it is characterized by significant selloffs from panic-selling. Fear and greed play an important role in a trader’s overall strategy and understanding how to control the emotions is essential in becoming a successful trader.
BITSTAMP:BTCUSDEducation
by JS_TechTrading
Losing is a tough pill to swallow.Losing is a tough pill to swallow. No one wants to admit defeat, but in order to win, you have to learn how to lose first. It's not easy to do, but understanding and accepting that losses are a part of trading is crucial to your success. If you can't handle losing, then you're never going to be able to win. In trading, as in life, it is important to know when to admit defeat and move on. There should be a point at which you are willing to say "I was wrong about this trade" and exit. This requires a certain amount of detachment from your ego and emotions. Of course, it is not always easy to know when to cut your losses. That is why it is important to have a solid trading plan with clear entry and exit points before you even enter a trade. Once you are in a trade, it is important to stick to your plan and resist the urge to second-guess yourself. If the market moves against you, take a step back and reassess the situation objectively.
CME_MINI:ES1!Education
by UnknownUnicorn33550147
How To Improve Decision Making SkillsHello traders, All the below are based on my preferences, I don't give any financial recommendations and I have nothing to sell you with this article. I'm sharing content because I see a lot of traders being/becoming broke and I don't want you to be one of them. Decision & Outcome As a trader, I often noticed a disconnect between the right decision and the right outcome. If you read my previous content, I talked about repeating successful trades, finding a trading strategy that works and keep trading it over and over again. Your decision-making process in the most valuable thing that you have. 

It’s what make you decide who you’re going to marry, what business opportunity you’re going to pursue, which mentors you’re going to follow, what assets you’re going to trade etc… You could take the money away from the most successful traders or entrepreneurs and they’ll make it back again.
 Ray Dalio, Elon Musk for example, lost everything and made it all back. The hardest part about trading (and life in general) is you can make the right decision and have the wrong outcome. Warren Buffet Warren Buffet says “I wouldn’t touch Bitcoin” because it’s speculative, has no intrinsic value and would buy it only because someone else will buy it at a higher price.
 Plus, a Bitcoin doesn’t produce anything… unlike a stock that produces dividends….unlike some real-estate that produces some rental income…unlike a business spitting out profit. Those who listened to him chose to not buy Bitcoin years ago. 
And until 1 year ago, the amount of money if would have been worth would have been a lot more.

 Was the decision wrong? Or was it that the outcome did not match the quality of the decision? If you’re going to change the way you made decisions because a decision you made in the past ended up bad, you have to apply the same decision making context/framework to everything else. If I say, I’m now going to be a speculator - someone who buy things in the hope to sell it later for more even though the things themselves don’t have more value. 

If I choose to start making this kind of decision, I have to think about all the other investments I would have and lost money on as a result of that decision making framework. I heard this first from Ray Dalio. Ray Dalio He said, the hardest things is passing up on an opportunity and then seeing it do really well. If I were to use the decision framework that would have made that deal a winner then I’d have to apply that same framework to all the other trades that would have been losers. And my net net of having that decision making framework would ultimately cause me to lose. 

This has been one of the most powerful concept for me as a trader because it allows me to separate the outcome from the quality of the decision. Most speculators don't make money so that's why even if I feel pain when assets I don't own go up, I comfort myself thinking I made the right decision to choose to only trading cryptocurrencies and not holding any long-term. And god bless..... I was right based on the events from last week #FTX Reflecting on my trading It’s not because I missed some opportunities or failed some trades that my decision-making framework was wrong. My father and mentor taught me during my first year to only trade based on a convergence of indicators - to never use fundamental analysis nor blockchain analysis for those trading cryptos. My decision-making process is 100% based on the chart and nothing else.

 Whenever I get a bad outcome but traded my system as I should, it’s okay as I know overtime it gives me more winners than losers.

 However, if I trade based on something I read on social media then more often than not, I end up losing money. I've been trading using the same trading system for almost a decade - the convergence of indicators used encapsulates automatically a list of checkpoints verifying if a trade has enough momentum/strength/volume for me to consider whether I should take it or not. Quotes of the day - "We all make choices, but in the end, our choices make us." — Ken Levine
 - "Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance." — C.S. Lewis
 - “It's not about making the right choice. It's about making a choice and making it right.― J.R. Rim, I'll keep bringing a few articles like this every week because it helps me clarifying my thoughts AND giving back to the community makes me feel good about myself somehow :) Thank you for reading Dave
CME_MINI:ES1!Education
by Daveatt
4
Indecision is the enemy of success.The most successful traders have one thing in common: they know when to pull the trigger. They don’t hesitate. They don’t second-guess themselves. They make a decision and they stick to it. Indecision is the enemy of success. It’s what causes trading losses. If you can’t make a decision, you’ll never make any money in the markets. The trick is to not let indecision steal your opportunity. When you see a good trade setup, don’t hesitate. Take action and be confident in your decision. Remember, even if it turns out to be a wrong decision, it’s better than no decision at all. Follow Me For More 👉 @MarketsCoach
BITMEX:XBTEducation
by UnknownUnicorn33550147
It's only fiction with out convictionI think most traders are correct in the direction they chose, they just don't trust themselves to commit to that trade, according to their plan. Why do some traders learn very quickly and become profitable, others it takes awhile and then they get it, or they just end up quitting? It has to do with them having the conviction that their system is going to work and they hours and hours they spent researching and analyzing is pushing them on the correct side of the market. There have been a bunch of times where I was correct on price movement, but didn't commit and follow through with my plan. I had the correct position sizing, my research and analyze was on point, and I thought I had the belief, faith, trust, and conviction I needed. But, I ended up losing tons of money, only to see price push in my favor, and me standing in the corner to think about how dumb I was. It all begins with a thought and idea as to what the next move in the market will be. Are stocks, currencies, crypto, and so on over priced and you see that price could possibly be topping? Maybe your research and analysis tells you that it is highly likely that it is. That idea turns into a belief that you act upon and decide to get in. Price starts to push higher. Your position sizing is good so you continue to hold. Price continues to push higher. You now start turning that belief into faith that price will push your way. Price continues higher. You start doubting yourself and don't trust in your research and analysis and start to question it and yourself. What will you do? Hedge? reduce your position? Add to your position? Keep holding? Eventually you exit and afterwards, price starts moving in the direction that you had determined it would. That belief and faith was not strong and you didn't have trust in what you researched and analyzed, so that never turned into conviction. What is belief? trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something What is faith? complete trust or confidence in someone or something What is trust? firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something What is conviction? the quality of showing that one is firmly convinced of what one believes or says Without conviction, it will be difficult to succeed in figuring out the trading puzzle. It is not blindly pumping yourself up and just saying, "yup this will go up," it's knowing that you put as much in your favor as you can (Fundamentals, Technicals, Market Sentiment, Position Sizing, Conviction) that you commit to seeing your trade through if it is according to your plan. There are plans that created, and worked on for hours, to only be thrown out because it did not work out for a few trades. The first thing that needs to be done, is building that conviction in your plan and in yourself, that you will be able to learn, excel, and improve your system, before committing money to trading. A small story I have for one of the trades, was in 2019 when I was trading the GBP in the beginning. The GBP was trading above the 1.30 lvl and the UK was going through Brexit. I had determined that price would push lower after conducting hours and hours of research. My price target was 1.20 (based off the dealing with Brexit, Teresa May possibly resigning, and the FED raising rates, the monthly chart showing a descending wedge, sentiment in favor of the USD and against the GBP, and my belief that price would push lower). I got in at above 1.30 a few times, exiting when price hit my 2% threshold. After a while I gave up. Only to come back afterwards, and exit with same profits. Eventually I focused on another pair, only to see the GBP push over 1000 pips lower, below the 1.20, surpassing my price target. After the move lower, I had determined, again with hours and hours of researching and analyzing, that price would push higher. I had levels, that if broken, I would add additional positions on the long side. The UK Government was determining who the next prime minister was going to be, since Teresa May had resigned, and since the Boris Johnson was determined to be the next prime minister, this was good for the GBP. I thought price would push higher, with my target at 1.35, which price did, and of course I kept getting in and out and getting into other pairs because I kept doubting myself and the conviction was only hope. If you don't have the conviction you need in your trading plan, build it up until you do. You can only do this by sticking to one plan and improving it. Have that conviction in your plan that you know you will commit to the trades you place and see it through.
AEducation
by DollarSaenz
3 Ways Traders Can Prepare For SuccessComing into trading with only the desire to make money, often results in not making any. I didn't make a dime for 4 years till my lucky day came. Before it, like most traders, I gambled my way into the game with little to no knowledge. I started off with free information. (Youtube and Babypips were my buddies.) After gathering data from them for 2 weeks, I felt I'm ready, then funded my first trading account. Luckily, I doubled the account on my first day but blew it the next. It was awful but I repeated the process for 3 months till I gave up. However, I got back a month later. Because I was still hooked by the idea of making money wherever I am. Though at the same time feeling stressed, anxious, and depressed to see my hopes and dreams out of reach, I had faith. That I carried with me throughout the years, until one day, I found out what was holding me back: a short-term mindset. Which is what I'll show you how to escape from before it's too late. **Thus Begin By Thinking In Years Than Months** Ignoring this advice will be costly. It will cost you your time, money, and mental health. You don't want that. But you get that by being a short-term thinker. Which is a person who focuses on the now, with little regard for the future. Someone who focuses on short-term results at the expense of long-term interests. A trader who focuses on making money instead of focusing on the 3 stages of becoming a trader: 1. Learning to trade. 2. Becoming a trader. 3. Full-time (profitable) trader. It's almost impossible to reach stage 3. Yet it is possible when you begin the journey like a long-term thinker. Which is a trader who envisions, plans, and works toward the future. While ignoring the monetary side to focus on the skill (that will serve you till you meet bro, Jesus). Like what all medical students do. From the get-go, they know it will take them 6-7 years to become professional doctors. Being aware of this allows them to focus on the stages of becoming doctors. (But lucky for them, they make money along the way through student loans.) So, coming into trading with an idea that it will likely take you 5 years to become a consistently profitable trader, will assure that. Because it will keep you grounded, focused, consistent, and patient with the process. And that will allow you to enjoy it while growing fast. With that said, let me show you how you to prepare for trading success below: 1. Create a long-term vision. A clear vision with a plan will save you from falling into traps that will delay your progress. It will allow you to navigate through the dark cave till you reach the light. But that's only possible when you have a torch and a compass. Powerful questions and a plan of action. Questions help you to discover the path. A plan helps you walk the path. Thus to find out if trading is the right path, ask yourself: - Why do I want to become a trader? I know you are in it for the money (like I used to be), but that mindset will prevent you from getting it. So take your time answering this question. Don't rush because whatever answer you get will determine your success or failure! Once you're satisfied with your answer, start planning out your journey by... 2. Setting Objectives In simple terms, an objective is a measurable step you take to achieve a vision. For a trader who's in the first stage of "learning to trade" while working a 9-5 job, the vision could be to become a full time professional trader. And the objective could be to buy a trading course from a mentor you perceive as legit, then study and practice till you reach the 3rd level. To discover that objective, the reason behind it, and how to achieve it, you need to ask yourself: - What do you need to do? - Why do you need to do it? - How you’re going to do it? After figuring out all that, move on to the next step, which is... 3. Keeping your job Do not quit your job before becoming a profitable trader. It will save you from unnecessary mental and emotional pain that are caused by forcing profitable trades to pay bills. That’s a bad approach to trading. It always delivers opposite results that will definitely make you stressed, anxious, depressed, and unsuccessful. You need not worry about money along your journey, so you can focus on the process of becoming an elite trader. I’ve made that mistake and it cost me too damn much. So, keep your job to save up at least 2 years of monthly expenses that will get covered once you’ve decided to become a full time trader, and save for a 6 to 7-figure prop firm trading account to manage once you’ve resigned from your job. Follow the above steps and witness the fruits of being a long-term thinker who focuses on the processes instead of results.
Education
by Doji-2k1
3
The path to becoming a good trader When a beginner learns to trade, they progress through stages as they develop their mindset. The most commonly used learning model for trading is an adaptation of the 3 stages of competence model. 1. Unprofitable trader This is the first stage that a trader goes through and they do not know that they have a lack of knowledge. In this stage, beginner traders will take their first few steps by downloading a platform, opening an account and begin to place trades. However, they are influenced by emotion – usually lured by the thought of making a great deal of money in a short period of time. Either one of two things are likely to happen for traders in this stage: The trades turns against the trader immediately. They simply lack the experience to deal with the market environment. New traders take large risks without a basic knowledge of risk management and they wipe out all previous profits and more. 2. Boom and bust trader Boom and bust traders will realise that successful trading comes down to the psychology of the trader and their approach to the markets. A basic understanding that you will never be able to predict what will happen in the markets, starts to form. You begin to realise that making money is based on a series of trades that incorporate winners and losers, and that it takes discipline to stick to a system, cut losses short and let profits run. A trader in this stage will begin to enter and exit the markets whenever their system tells them to, without judgement and despite the emotion they are feeling. 3. Profitable trader A trader is said to have reached the stage of unconscious competence once they have traded with so much practice that they are able to trade in an almost automatic mindset. A disciplined approach requires very little effort and has become second nature. At what stage are you at the moment?
OANDA:XAUUSDEducation
by UnitedSignals
7
How To Know When To Quit (Part 2/2)Hello traders, All the below are based on my preferences, I don't give any financial recommendations and I have nothing to sell you with this article. I'm sharing content because I see a lot of traders being/becoming broke and I don't want you to be one of them. Sharing the second part of this article posted yesterday 5. Know your limits and set rules around it Set out the rules beforehand rather than waiting until you are in it. Because you will not make good decisions then. There are particular states where you’re going to feel suboptimal that have to do with your own physical state. You’re tired, you’re stressed, whatever, but then there are also cognitive states where you’re going to behave sub-optimally. And the particular cognitive state where you’re really going to behave sub-optimally is when you’re in the losses. And the reason that you’re going to be a terrible decision-maker is, except for the part it’s going to cause you to be emotional, is that you’re going to want to get your money back. And this is a really big problem for investors. You start down a path, it starts to lose and you don’t want to sell, because you can’t get your money back. That’s the moment that you go from a loss on paper to a sure loss. It’s when it becomes a realized loss. And that is a moment that we do not like. And so we will come up with all sorts of reasons to think we’re being rational in continuing on, when we’re being completely irrational because we’re just trying to protect ourselves from having that moment of having to take the sure loss. 6. Loss aversion Our loss aversion prevents us from selling investments at a loss. But this extend beyond trading too. Decisions should be made based on the future, not the past. I think people are familiar with loss aversion. We don’t like to start things that carry with them a chance of loss, even if we’re winning to the decision. When you already have a loss on the books, or even a cognitive loss on the books, it was trading at one level and now it’s trading lower, we don’t like to sell. In other words, this becomes loss aversion stops us from starting aka taking trades sometimes. Of course this is irrational, because what matters is, is the next dollar that you spend worthwhile, not did you already spend a dollar. We shouldn’t care. 7. Endowment effect We value things we own, much more than things we don’t own. Even though the opposite might be true. It could be stocks, bonds or our IDEAS. We wrap our identity in things and won’t quit despite the warning signs. And then we also have the issue, which I think is really important for investors, you have something called an endowment. We value things we own, much more than we value things that we don’t own. And it’s not just ownership over investments, we actually own the stock, or we own the bond, or whatever, we own the option, but it’s also our ideas. And every time we invest, we have ownership over our thesis. And here’s the interesting thing, is that when the thing that we’re doing is out of consensus, this is when it gets really bad. So when we think about these issues of sunk cost, and sure loss aversion, and the way our identity gets wrapped up in things, and the way we have ownership over things, and the way that affects our inability to stop, you have to put a big huge blinking warning sign when the thing we’re doing is out of consensus. 9. The kill criteria Think in advance the signals you might see in the future that means that it is time to quit. To continue holding this investment, what do you need to see in the next few quarters or years? Sticking to things too long denies us future opportunities. Think in advance about what are the signals that I might see in the future that would tell me that it’s time to walk away and you will get better at it. What do I need to see within the next quarter or the next two quarters from the way that this investment might perform? Essentially think, “How long can I tolerate this, or how much time do I need in order for me to actually get the information that I would need in order to be able to make a decision?” Figure out what that time period is and then figure, at the end of that time period “What would I have to see? What are the benchmarks that this thing would have to hit in order for me to feel like I ought to continue? And if it doesn’t hit these things, then I should walk away. Quotes of the day - "Losses loom larger than corresponding gains" ― Amos Tversky - "If we could be freed from our aversion to loss, our whole outlook on risk would change"― Alan Hirsch I'll keep bringing a few articles like this every week because it helps me clarifying my thoughts AND giving back to the community makes me feel good about myself somehow :) Thank you for reading Dave
Education
by Daveatt
4
Be that traderA structure is necessary to actively improve all the skills required to master trading. Start by rating yourself on a scale of 1 to 100 for all these skills to come up with "stats" as you would have in a videogame. Next step is to take the same approach as you would to level up in a said video game. Focus on the grind and to complete a couple of "levels" per day. You will see that with this concept in mind you will attain higher stats that you would want for your "perfect build". Cheers to many pips.
FOREXCOM:XAUUSDEducation
by FXKG
3
How To Know When To Quit (Part 1/2)Hello traders, All the below are based on my preferences, I don't give any financial recommendations and I have nothing to sell you with this article. I'm sharing content because I see a lot of traders being/becoming broke and I don't want you to be one of them. Splitting this article in 2 parts because it’s dense and I don’t want to lose people who might think “too much text I won’t read” Let’s talk about: – Cognitive biases – Decision-making 1. Be at ease with a bad outcome Focus on the decision-making process instead. Think in probability and play to the best of your hand. Don’t dwell on a bad outcome if the process and decision-making were sound. You have no control over outcomes when luck is involved. Embrace uncertainty. Understand that you have to get down to what do I have control over, and what don’t I have control over. 
And I have to accept the tremendous influence of luck, I have to accept the fact that I’m having to make these very high-stakes decisions without being able to accurately predict where the candles are going. 2. Advice from Eric Seidel: Do not dwell on unlucky events Eric Seidel is a 9-time world series of poker bracelet winner who made $40 million. By all means, discuss what could have been done better. If you played to the best of your "cards", that’s all that matters. He goes, “I don’t want to hear about it if there’s not a question. I don’t care that you got unlucky. I get unlucky too. And I have to deal with losing with two jacks against two nines all the time also. I certainly don’t want to take on your emotional trash about it myself. And what’s the point of talking about it? You made a great call and lost, who cares? Would you have changed anything about what you did? Do you think you got the read wrong? It sounds to me like you did everything right. So why are we even talking about this? I mean this is the thing, if it really was just bad luck, who cares? This is about embracing that uncertainty, right?” 3. All decisions are probabilistic And we make these probabilistic decisions all the time. Consciously or subconsciously. Whether its choosing your partner or the route you are taking to work. You’re making a forecast. The moment we make it explicit, we start to create feedback loops we can learn from. Even if you don’t think you’re doing it explicitly, literally every single decision you make is probabilistic, because it’s a forecast. 
It’s a forecast made under conditions where you don’t have all the facts. 
You generally know very little in comparison to all there is to be known. 
We have to reject the idea that if you’re not doing it explicitly, that you aren’t thinking probabilistically because every decision is a probabilistic decision just by its nature because the world is probabilistic, that is how we decide. Now the act of trying to make these things explicit will make you better at it, because what it will start to do is allow you to create good feedback loops. 4. Don’t trade if you don’t have an edge And we are very good at fooling ourselves into believing that we have an edge. Set up structures, write down your thesis. What new information will break your thesis? When should you quit? I think we’re very good at fooling ourselves into believing that we have a rational reason, that we have an edge. And I think that that’s particularly so when we’re in a situation where the thesis would affirm other things that we already believe about the world. I think it’s particularly so when we’re already in the investment/trade. So one of the things that we need to do is set up structures around us that will allow us, first of all, to be better at those, are we really being rational and starting… but more importantly, because the starting decision is always uncertain, is to say, as we discover new information after we’ve started, are we stopping, right? Are we figuring out when we should stop? Because it turns out that we’re very, very dense when it comes to actually paying attention to the signals after we’ve started something that we ought to stop it. And that’s where we get particularly irrational. Quotes of the day “Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.” ― Lance Armstrong “The elements of good trading are: (1) cutting losses, (2) cutting losses, and (3) cutting losses. If you can follow these three rules, you may have a chance“ ― Ed Seykota "Confidence is not “I will profit on this trade.” Confidence is “I will be fine if I don’t profit from this trade." ― Yvan Byeajee I'll post the second part tomorrow I'll keep bringing a few articles like this every week because it helps me clarifying my thoughts AND giving back to the community makes me feel good about myself somehow :) Thank you for reading Dave
Education
by Daveatt
32