Trading Psychology - Becoming A Better Trader
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@daniel-cooper big thanks for your reply mate, I guess it's something that most if not all people will suffer with during the early stages and it's those that manage to break out of it that become successful. I suppose this is different for everyone and for me it feels extremely difficult to control as sometimes it has happened literally before I've even realised I've done it.
Your suggestion of recording random trades is an absolutely brilliant idea, to actually visualise the negative effects of placing these trades can only help, I need to implement some kind of filter that stops me for a moment to think before I enter a trade and this could well be that.
Best of luck to you mate, I hope that you manage to overcome your struggles with trading and if ever I can help in anyway I'd be more than happy to.
I've actually gone against what I said today and decided to trade, I threw my toys out of the pram a little this morning as I was annoyed with myself about yesterday but I know why, I know what I did so today I am setting up my trades, all 3 I'm happy to set and forget so I'm placing them now, 2 out of 3 are matched so I'll check back this afternoon.
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@daniel-cooper nailed this post bud
@Tom-David i did a post on this on my blog saying to do this, its a neat trick because at the start we are all curious at times to see if a certain trade wins or if these "sure things" win. We continually after everytime we do them go ah well ill not do that next time, yet next week we have done 2 more non planned trades. For me i didnt stop until i created a separate column on my sheets marking, as @Daniel-Cooper has said, if it was a planned or non planned trade. For me i was a terrible gambler so over a long cycle and long collection of data these extra trades were god damn useless, sometimes they would be up for the month or down for the month but over the long term they would be a total waste of time and effort.
In the beginning we have small banks so we always seem to go "just testing it" when really we need to instil a proper full time bank discipline. If you are doing these extras and losing, with a £10k bank which can be made within a year from a £1k start then your not always gonna be able to top that up and each unplanned loss is costing you big bank losses. Easy to go with a £1k bank and say a nah ill top up that £50 loss and forget about it, well that slowly adds up over the months, you begin to fool no one. Try to think of this as a business and be extremely tight with money. Only enter trades we have 100% confidence in. Everyone will have a criteria for a trade to go live, stick to that for every trade. You wouldnt buy a house/car if on the docs it said there is a small fault but dont worry about it everything else is fine, that small fault will catch you up over time, so dont do that with trading either.
Here the big question and a huge way to see how to move forward. On the planned trades in between them and after them what are you doing with your day? Are you then looking at other games scores or logging on here to see what others have posted? Typically we never plan to jump on other trades but after a loss or sheer boredom some lads jump on the forum or flashscores and check for "opportunities" we can word that however we like its called hunting for trades. There is a good reason these other games were not on your list of games to start with so they should be avoided. Easy for me now because i dont get sold the dream from other traders to jump on their trades, i have my own strats that make me my money and i know them inside and out, every strength and weakness. But for me iv always found when your in a trading window ie a game is about to qualify for an entry place it and only focus on those games. Once those games are done, then log in and see how everyone else has done for the day. See if the good traders also got on the same sorts of games as you. This build routine and discipline. When you go to flashscores or sofascore to keep tabs on scores only select your games, dont care about if barca have gone 0-1 down etc.
Iv loads of other little tips iv learnt along the way happy to keep tabs on this blog and post them when appropriate. Hope you have time at some stage to read my blog think it will help with a lot of these posts so far.
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@tom-david said in Trading Psychology - Becoming A Better Trader:
@tom-david
6 planned trades 6 out of 6
Annoyed I jumped on a half time LTD and a seperate LCS for absolutely no reason and ended up with a small loss
Back in the naughty corner for me
Bit of gamblers mentality crept in here, these are sure things etc etc etc yadda yadda yadda
Pissed off with myself here so no trading for me today
Hey dude. I’m actually annoyed at myself, I wrote a long reply to this thread about a week ago, on my mobile. I hit the refresh or something and lost the whole post!!!
I though “oh for f**k sake” and as it was late I figured I’s send it another time! Well, I’m back!I’m really new to this game - I hit a year trading mid June. I’ve been on the forum since July ish and its been great, I’ve learned so much. The trend is I’m definitely getting better, making green rather than red, making fewer mistakes and slowly but surely getting rid of some bad habits. Some still persist for sure! Its almost like when things are going well and the confidence creeps in, I start to make silly choices! I’d say my worst bad habit is chasing losses! Often spurred on my searching for trades when I don’t need to be (gamblers mentality like you said) and then it loses... well, I better make that back! And it spirals from there!
About a month ago I did a big tidy up of my spreadsheets and stuff - got rid of surplus filters I’d had pumping out selections for months that I was no longer interested in recording the scores or stats for. Its almost exclusively the filters for strats I trade, plus one little personal project I’ve been running since December.
ANYWAY, what I’ve found very very helpful (Darri mentioned doing it at some point) is that I have a page titled RANDOM TRADES. Its a recording space for all the random trades I do that weren’t pre-selected, weren’t on a filter, but for one reason or another I traded them. Theres a “source” column on there, most of which say “Myself” but occasionally theres the name of someone else on the forum there whom I’ve copied in the moment. Theres some amazing traders here who are safe and reliable - doesn’t necessarily mean you should copy without your own due dilligence - but I’m in a better place recording all these random trades because;
- I can see how much money I’m throwing away on trades I’ve pulled out of my ass. Annoyingly, since I’ve been tracking these I’m in a big green with them (my in play reading has improved since a year ago) but those trades that have lost money and have “Myself” next to them hurt to see, and reinforce to me that I shouldn’t be hunting for trades regardless of their quality as it loses me money.
- The amount of money I earn or lose from following other people here is no longer an unknown figure thats lost in the ether. The dream is to be self sufficient - we all know the pro’s and con’s of tipsters - obviously the guys on here aren’t tipsters, they’re very talented traders lending a helping hand, but I know how much green I can attribute to things that aren’t my own and over the years I’d like to move to more self sufficiency! In the mean time, I know which people to send a Christmas card!
- I can’t think of more good points, but I’d really recommend doing it! Its a great catch-all so that all trades I make are logged, I can see where the P&L is coming from and its given me clarity and control. If you’re finding yourself over trading - include the rationale behind why you made the trade on there under “Notes”, it may help break the habit!
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@tom-david
6 planned trades 6 out of 6
Annoyed I jumped on a half time LTD and a seperate LCS for absolutely no reason and ended up with a small loss
Back in the naughty corner for me
Bit of gamblers mentality crept in here, these are sure things etc etc etc yadda yadda yadda
Pissed off with myself here so no trading for me today
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@martin I’ve got a men’s designer clothing store, we’ve just made the jump to a limited company and looking to upgrade our premises and hire new staff so I’ve got a lot on at the minute but starting to see light at the end of the tunnel..........it’s faint but it’s there
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Didn't drop in yesterday really as getting abit down with work, running your own business is so rewarding but can be a huge burden sometimes and yesterday was one of them. Feel abit more positive about work today, have just been to view a bigger shop premises this morning so have a lot to think about over the next few days.
I'm still enjoying my evening and morning research and finding it easier and easier to select games to trade and also finding it a lot easier to discount games, sometimes when I just search the market looking for opportunities I'll often jump into something that's border line where as selecting them before I feel more comfortable to just ignore them.
4 games traded yesterday, 3 wins and loss so scratched out, should have cashed the loser when it went to break even but we live and learn.
6 games up today
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@tom-david
I couldn't be prouder here, a lot of people poo poo a trading plan because they see it as a negative thing and it means that they cannot trade - actually it means you can trade and much more effectively, helps you build a repeatable system too, success leaves clues - a plan helps speed this up 10 fold. -
Another cracking day today with 6 points profit, I used to think trading to a plan was just missing opportunities but turns out it really is the key to keeping profit.
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Time has always been an issue for me, I'm not the best at keeping time to say the least, I've never really been able to successfully manage a diary or any schedules and deadlines but this has really had a negative impact on my trading.
I run my own business and time management effects this quite negatively as well, but trying to fit in trading as well as s**t round the house and keeping a Mrs and kid happy can really take its toll. This is poor time management is one of the biggest reasons for my impulses, not taking the time to properly think something over before doing it usually means whatever you're doing isn't done the best it can be, whether it's trading, dealing with a task at work or even doing the weekly shopping, trying to meld them all together is never going to work.
I've tried everything from getting up ridiculously early to going to bed ridiculously late, too working into the evenings and not taking any days off but none of these have worked. One of the podcasts that Ryan put me onto about containers has really got me thinking about this over the last few weeks. It was about putting all the separate areas of your life into containers, where each part has it's own rules and parameters, this might sound simple but putting it into practice is really quite difficult, sure you can say you finish work at 5pm but when you're self employed sometimes customers, suppliers etc aren't prepared to wait for you to clock on again at 9am so managing this can be incredibly hard.
Sometimes when I'm chilling at home with my girlfriend, we will just be watching TV and I'll slyly answer a quick couple of messages on my phone and there's a brief moment when I can see how disappointed she is that I'm not fully present. Or sometimes when I nip out to do the shopping I'll end up sitting in the carpark for a couple of hours dealing with staff or customers and come home to the "where the f**k have you been!!!" look.
So anyway, I'm rabbling but back t containers, listening to the podcast and the experiences that I've had are making me realise that I have to separate all these things and to keep them separate I need to implement rules for all of them, the main rule is time allocation, so over the last couple of weeks I have started to figure out some kind of daily schedule for my time......remember I'm not a schedule kind of guy, in fact I pretty much hate them but I realise that if I'm going to get to where I want to be with my business, my trading and my family as well as fitting in some hobbies (which have all been dead for years) then I have to implement them.
I'll not bore you with what the schedule is but just another incessant rambling to clear my head.
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In terms of trading today it was a busy one, traded more than I normally would with 11 trades completed, this would have been an amazing day but two trades went against me completely ending 0-0, really surprised by both, perhaps I should have cashed out but one market was suspended for the entire final 20 minutes and the other seemed like it was going green at any moment but never did, anyway we end day the 1.7 points up and all trades were planned in advance.
Having a day like today with two big loses could potentially have caused me to lose control and jump into more trades but kept my cool and bossed the day.
Proud of myself and the results I’m starting to see from it.
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Scanning the markets again today and looks to be another busy one, since joining this community and looking through the stats software I’ve had my eyes opened to a few extra leagues which are perfect for me as they are in play during the day so not cutting into family time.
I keep lapsing and forgetting to fill in my trading spreadsheet log but I am updating it the following day, other than that I am sticking to all aspect of my plan and feel happy both with trading and family life.
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Evening everyone, thanks for the positive comments, I really appreciate it.
It’s been a really busy day for me today, I’ve been abit stressed out with work, usually I’m cool with work and stressed with trading but today was the total opposite.
Nearly decided to not trade today as felt abit down in the dumps and didn’t want to make any mistakes but as soon as I started researching the games my head cleared and the opportunities were too good to pass up, 7 trades entered, 1 cashed out and 6 wins so up 6.25 points today.
I got abit excited and nearly caught myself jumping into another trade this evening but realising I’d have to admit it on this blog stopped me from doing it, as it happens it looks like the trade is going the way I wanted with 80 minutes still left to play but I’m happy I resisted as it could so easily not have worked and with high lay odds could have wiped out the full days profit.
Another day sticking to my plan and it’s paid off perfectly for me, I used my own methods for highlighting games today but also had another mess around with the BTC software, looking forward to digging deeper into this over the coming months.
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@tom-david I find it fascinating these blogs, no matter how we all trade and think getting out thoughts out of our heads is actually a very good thing to do and we can all relate to some part of each others writing.
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@tom-david I find this a great read too.
There is no hiding from your own trading demons when you write it all down in full view, kudos for putting yourself out here like this.
Echoing Ryan, this blog is as much for you, if not more so, than anyone else so it doesnt matter about structure etc. If it helps you just do it.
Personally I read most things people post and a great deal of it might not be directly applicable to me but there is always something there to be learned and quite often somethings people post have really hit home about my trading.
Keep it up
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@ryan thanks mate, I’m glad someone is, trading less but focussing more on the trades has been a huge advantage for me, I think it’s one of the biggest reasons I’ve finally managed to stay profitable.
I now know that I am 100% confident for my reasons behind placing a trade and removes so much of the emotion and stress of trading.
Writing all my thoughts down here gives me a huge boost, it’s like being accountable to myself in full view of others as I find ignore many of my own bad practise when summarising the days trading but doing this as well as keeping a spreadsheet of my trades means I have to be honest, if I didn’t do this publicly I’d lie to myself.
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@tom-david I'm loving these posts and I wouldn't worry about the lack of structure - that's what these blogs are for they are in effect a journal for documenting how you feel and think and it will make a huge difference to just let it all fall out your head.
Interesting point here, when I started trading less I actually made more as well - focusing on the quality of the trades rather than the quantity - this was over 8 years ago now. I've never looked back!
What do you feel most empowered about when writing these?
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Morning everyone, yesterday was the prime example of how spare time can be spent learning rather than getting caught up in old habits. If you’ve read my previous posts you’ll know by now that my biggest enemy is impulse! Spare time would be spent scanning through the markets looking for tradable opportunities, in my opinion there are so many of these you could literally trade 24/7 but without backing it up with research and stats you are leaving yourself open to losing trades.
It wasn’t until I started documenting trades and taking a step back to look at the overall picture I realised that the more trades I was doing the less profitable I was and sometimes having some pretty bad losing stakes.
So now I ONLY trade on fully researched and backed up events, this has meant I’ve had a bit of spare time, yesterday I decided to have a mess around with the BTC stats software, not something I’ve used before but really glad I did! So simple to set up rules and filter the events afterwards, I’ve got my own methods which although time consuming I do actually enjoy so from now I’ll be doing a mix of both, was very interesting to see how many of the same games were included in the results but the stats software brought in fixtures from other leagues that I don’t really pay any attention too.
Anyway, I’m struggling to give any real structure to these posts, so apologies if they come across scatty or awkward to read but I’ve started it to clear my head more than anything else, however if anyone else struggles with anything like me feel free to reach out and I’ll happy share some of the tips and tricks I’m using to focus my mind and stick to a profitable trading plan.
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Really finding writing this blog helpful, just rambling about my thoughts for the day but it helps to clear my head and focus my mind. I'm trying to be as honest about my failings as I can here and one of my biggest failings is probably trading too many different strategies at once, this definitely spirals if one strategy isn't working very well that day. Sometimes I find it difficult to put time into perspective and see the long game, so if a trade goes against me I'll jump straight into another, I've been struggling with this for a long time so my plan to get out of this habit is to stick to one strategy, I'm not going to talk about what that is on this blog as it's irrelevant but this is a strategy that I know is profitable for me, suits my trading style and can be planned in advance.
So to keep in full control of my emotions and impulses over the next 6 months I am only going to trade the strategy, if nothing is meets the criteria for this strategy on any day then I'll leave trading for the day.
As it happens today is a busy day and lots fits the bill, I have my own ways of finding events that meet my criteria which I research the evening before and again in the morning, however I've got a little spare time today so I'm going to dig into the BTC software and set some filters so I can see how this works.
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Without doubt the biggest issue I have faced when it comes to trading is impulse, I'd spend all my time when trading just flitting through different markets looking for opportunities. Opportunities are always there, but without being fully researched you are leaving yourself open to big losing runs.
Trading like this sometimes I would have an absolutely amazing day and go home buzzing but other days would be awful and I'd go home miserable, this was having an obvious effect on my family life as I'd not want to let on what had happened during the day and they could see that I wasn't being myself.
After a pretty solid cycle of this I started getting used to it so the mood swings slowed down abit and it was like I didn't even care I'd lost but getting to this point made me realise that I needed to concentrate on winning and the only way to do this was to analyse what I was doing wrong.
I quickly started researching, usually researching mindset for forex trading as in my opinion that it is very much the same mindset approach but is much more widely spoken about and doing this made me realise that I have to start planning my trades!
This was the first step to having some idea of not only what I was going to trade for the day which freed up more time but it also has almost entirely stopped my impulsive trading habits.
Each evening before I go to bed and each morning before I get ready for work I spend an hour researching my trades for the day, I organise them into a spreadsheet and set alarms on my phone so I can be ready without rushing and settled at my desk in order to trade the events that I want to trade.
Doing this has meant that I am no longer spending excess time within the markets and scatting about like an idiot, I know exactly what I am going to do for the day, I know exactly how much I am going to risk each day and I am comfortable with that, so even if every trade that day goes against me I was aware of this before the day started so I'm no longer having bad evenings at home with the family, feel less stressed and I'm generally a lot more relaxed.
