Skip to main content

LEARN TO EXECUTE ORDERS QUICKLY

 Practice your execution skills daily. Create speed drills for yourself. Being fast and light is an advantage that the intraday trader must learn to exploit.

As such, learning to be fast with your orders is a skill that you will have to master.


FINE-TUNE YOUR FOCUS

A bad start is just an opportunity to make a comeback.

CONTROL YOUR EMOTIONS

Active intraday traders deal with rejection more than longer time frame traders. We trade more, so we are wrong more. If a losing trade sets you off, then this can affect your trades going forward. And this is dangerous.

We call this trading on “tilt.” You are in an temporary emotional state where you are not thinking as clearly as you can. You are angry, or frustrated, or disappointed. And then you make decisions that you normally would not. And rips result. In short, you manifest trading data that does not reflect your ability. 

A few days later Notorious Underperformer, a bright Ivy League graduate capable of much better trading results, sent me his list of things that set him off. They were a typical list. One of them was getting upset when he exited for a loss greater than he expected. I suggested the following visualization exercise (shortened considerably below):

Find a quiet area. Breathe deeply in and out for a few minutes until you are calm. Then visualize not getting out of a stock where you expected. In as much detail as possible, remember the last trade like this that set you off. Then expose the logic of getting upset. Something like if I let this upset me, then I will miss easy trades in this stock about to come. Then breathe in and out deeply again until you are calm. Repeat this process a few times.


“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort.”

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

 Loss is painful, guilt can be devastating. Worse than losing one's dream is the knowledge that the loss was self-inflicted. Problems are solutions that have outlived their usefulness. Problems are pattern that were learned in emotional circumstances during one period of life and that now have taken an existence of their own. Many times, outdated solutions replay themselves in a variety of life situations, leaving people mindlessly repeating their mistakes in work, love, and trading. There can be no free will for people who are locked into patterns developed for past challenges. Successful traders are therapists both learn to do what comes unnaturally. The resolution to problems can be found in what people are doing when those problems are not occurring. The problem with many traders is not that they have problems, but that they are focused on their problems. It is this problem focus that prevents them from appreciating what they are doing right, that blinds them to solutions alrea...

Three Choices

When we are unhappy and our Life Conditions do not match our Blueprint, we have three choices as to how we’re going to handle the challenge: First Choice: Blame The first choice people have is to assign blame, and there are three things you can blame: a) Event . There’s a story, something that happened, behind why things are the way they are. However accurate the story may be, blaming an event is convenient because it helps preserve an identity designed to shield us from our true fears: fear of failure and fear of not being loved or accepted. b) Others . “I’m in this situation because this person …” Similarly, the story may be true, but it’s convenient and gives you comfort in the moment. “There’s nothing wrong with me. It’s this other person. There’s nothing I need to change.”  c) Yourself . Most people think that this is being responsible, but blaming yourself will not make it better. There’s a difference between responsibility and beating yourself up—between “Here’s a pattern th...

Wealth File #15 Rich people have their money work hard for them. Poor people work hard for their money

Working hard is important, but working hard alone will never make you rich. Rich people can spend their days playing and relaxing because they work smart. They understand and use leverage. They employ other people to work for them and their money to work for them. You do have to work hard for money. For rich people, however, this is a temporary situation. For poor people, it's permanent.. Rich people understand that "you" have to work hard until your "money" works hard enough to take your place they understand  the more your money works, the less you will have to work. To win the money game, the goal is to earn enough passive income to pay for your desired lifestyle. In short, you become financially free when your passive income exceeds your expenses. Rich people think long-term. They balance their spending on enjoyment today with investing for freedom tomorrow. Poor people think short-term. They run their lives based on immediate gratifications. To in...