Yesterday, I met with a trader who wanted to make it in the markets. Advised on the following psychological pointers from my own exp:
Time:
1. You cannot become a successful trader overnight. 2. How long it takes depends on a person, the time they can dedicate everyday, their level of emotional control and balance etc.
Expectations:
1. There is no magic setup to turn 1L into 10L in a week or month. 2. Compared to other professions, trading can make you rich faster but not UNREALISTICALLY faster. If you have a golden goose, take one golden egg per day, don't cut its stomach in greed.
Trading setup:
1. A setup with 20% accuracy can make you money and a setup with 60% accuracy can make you money. 2. But diff setups suit different persons. 3. Ex: To master discretionary setups, greater emotional balance is required when compared to system based setups.
Behavior:
1. Challenge yourself but be brutally honest with yourself. You know the best what your strengths and weaknesses are. 2. If you kid yourself or try not to confront your shortcomings, (we all have one or many, we aren't god), success becomes almost impossible.
3. More than you are aware of, how you are in your personal life will impact your trading. 4. People disciplined in their personal life will find it a bit easier to stick to rules than those who are not. Again, be honest with yourself. You cannot lie to yourself in this game.
Emotional stability:
1. Try to keep your mind balanced. If I will earn money in trading, I will be happy in life is the BIGGEST misconception (personally experienced.) 2. Make your life outside trading better, trading will naturally be easier and less stressful.
3. Remember, money doesn't improve your emotions, in fact involvement of money amplifies your behavior and emotions by 10 times. Hence, trading becomes difficult when mind is not calm.
Losses:
1. If you can manage to shut down system when you have a small loss, you are already 50% there. Sounds easy but very difficult to master. 2. A part of mind will keep giving reasons to carry on trading, you have to shut it and the system for the day.
Experience:
1. No matter whose seminar or workshop you attend, certain things in the markets can be learnt only through experience.
2. Market behavior, how you expect it to react at certain times, hunches - All these come from your own personal experience with the markets. No book or webinar can teach you this. And trust me, they are priceless.
System Hopping:
1. Sit with one setup. Even if you try one setup for every 3-6 months, you will be profitable faster than those who change setups every week after watching a new video.
Lastly, remember markets are here forever. Some make it sooner, some make it later, but if you keep working hard, you will eventually make it.
THERE ARE NO EXTRA MARKS OR GOLD MEDAL FOR BECOMING THE FASTEST SUCCESSFUL TRADER.
Thread on risk and trading psychology in day trading:
Some traders stress too much on RM and TP to cover their many incurably inept trading methods. Some simple rules which is all you need are:
(1/n)
Pre-Trade:
1. Have a proven system in place. 2. Do not risk more than 1% of cap per trade. 3. Fix a number of trades per day. I don't go beyond 4-5 trades at any cost. Many days, I am done in 3 trades only. 4. Focus on R:R but also make sure you focus on POP.
(2/n)
During the trade:
1. Be a trend follower. Higher rate of success. 2. Do not always book in full at target in the direction of trend. Book partial, move SL to cost and let it trail. More often than not, trends continue than reversing and will give extra gains.
1. Momentum is the one of the most important and crucial aspects of TA in trading without which opportunity cost is lost.
2. The main purpose of RSI is to assess the momentum of the current and past price moves (which we will discuss later). 3. RSI is measured between values of 0 and 100 with certain values being defined as overbought and oversold. 4. These values are not constant but depends on:
a. Time frame of analysis.
b. Overall strength of the stock's/market's trend.
c. Current Market cycle. 5. The size of the TF and value of RSI are inversely proportional. 6. Ideal trade conditions are when RSI on 5 mins>15 mins>1hr in case of bullish trend.