Gooner70

Great discussion. Which I would love to contribute to. I work with traders as a coach, following a 25 year career as a trader. This is a common problem I have seen with virtually every trader, though in different degrees, and naturally as you would expect the smaller the degree, the more successful they are. I believe, and this is merely a theory or mine so please do not take it as gospel, that the root of the problem lies in our need to be right, btw something more far more prevalant in men than women. We almost seem to have an inate need to be right, with anything less being a bruise of our ego. - Think of how much you hate your wife or girlfriend telling you that you are lost, you'll probably deny it even though you are blatantly lost. The market is your worst girlfriend (or wife), its there every day, and almost of every minute of every day, reminding you you are an idiot. Hence when we find ourselves in profit, we have a hunger to book it and at that moment in time tell us how great we are, before we lose it and become an indiot again. - Whilst when we are down, its like being lost, but we won't admit, so we hang on hoping we'll find our way back, and are thus not an idiot. - However, ironically no one else knows what you are doing, only you, yet you often feel like someone else knows. Those feeling are your ego, you are caught in a near oermanant battle with your ego. BTW. I still fall for this, even though I know all the rules. - Though I do try my hardest to overcome this, putting little practices into play to try and offset this. - One recent case was a great trade I put in which went very well, if you don't mind me blowing my own trumpet here. - I went long USDJPY in low 80s in Nov. Just before Christmas, sitting on a nearly 5 big figure profit, I decided to book the profit, the suspense of being long, and the fear of giving it back was starting to nag away at me. However, I also happen to provide Technical Analysis on a number of currencies for a TA service provider, when I did my weekly analysis, I wrote to stay long usdjpy, no sign of a top in sight. I then thought I must be mad cutting, and reinstated fortunately, I eventualy cut in the low 89s. It felt good at the time as the market seemed to be stalling, but even now as it oushes 92, there is a little voice in my head calling me an idiot. However, just as a bit of postulation. I wonder if I had not reinstated the lone, whether i may have been tempted to go short as it rallied, in a revenge trade to prove myself right. - Who has ever doen that?

JT - Do n't get sucked into any traps, you've put yourself out there enough.... You don't need to tell anyone anything..--- A little information is good, but your not trading for anyone else,,, and besides their comments don't do define you, your own sense of your self does. I am sure this forum has been good for you though... - But don't let it take over....

This question is for 'Strongtrader' - I am baffled where you get your excellent return of 5% per day from. - Can you clarify. Its just that at 5% a day you would be far and away the top trader on earth. - Let me explain. If you start with a balance of $1000, and add 5% everyday, assuming 250 trading days and allowing for compounding the balance would be around $198,000,000 after 1 year, and within 2 years you'll be worth around $39,000,000,000,000. Of course if you are not compounding then it is much less, and perhaps you are averaging 5% of the original balance of the assumed $1000. After one year your balance will be worth $13500, very respectable still. Increasing your capital by 1250% is no mean feat, and technically would still put you amongst the all time great traders, if not almost top of them.... I don't mean to be critical in anyway, but I have come across many traders who incorrectly calculate their performance, and the escapism from reality comes back to bite them hard quite often.....

Hi You have posted many questions in there, which to me suggest that you have really thought about this from a Psychological and Strategic angle. - Which is one thing many starters fail to consider. You first month of trading has been very successful, you have increased your account by over 10%, which is no mean feat, Obviously this is not a linear process, but continued performance like that would more than triple your account in a year if you were to compound your gains. On the other hand if you do not compound your gains you restrict this to approximately this level of performance to roughly doubling your account. If you can trade without disruption, whilst using your money added to your account, then do it. - I assume if you lost money and reduced your account, then you would also reduce your trade size accordingly, it cuts both ways..... . - I do on the other hand understand that from a mental perspective, putting money aside is a form of discipline, and if you feel that would benefit you more than optimizing your trading, then you should follow that course of action. - Ultimately it is up to you, you want to remain comfortable, perhaps if your success continues and appears consistent, you coudl start optimising and compounding. Yes it may be beginner's luck, but maybe you've actually got a knack for this. Right now you are doing something right, try and build upon that, try and note what you are doing right and wrong and continue to build upon that. Over-confidence is one of the risks of trading, and can scupper many a potentially good trading, your awareness of that is a very good starting point Regards Gooner70

Great Post. I think you getting your wires crossed a bit though, but I can easily see why. I had a 25 year career as a trader, and now coach trader on the psychological aspect of their trading. Trading is a performance activity, success in trading (as in all performance activities) is largely about right attitude and mindset (2 psychological factors), but do you need to learn about psychology to trade - absolutely not. - You need to learn a trading system or method, you need to learn about risk and money management, and you need to learn all about aspects which affect trading, e.g. - Products, markets, economics, politics, finance, Tech analysis, fundamental analysis, behavioural finance (very psychology loaded), etc,etc. though these are things you learn over time, partly through immersion in trading. Trading Psychology underlies all these aspects. Learning discipline, keeping emotions in check, controlling your ego, remaining confident, but not-over confident, being able to take decisions under duress, avoiding self-doubt etc,etc, etc - the list is almost endless.......- If you lose the psychological game in trading, you lose at trading, simple as that....... BTW - Don't full for the hype... you said traders are aggressive and out-going.. You may have watched Wall Street one too many times. -- Like most professions, you get all-sorts, your more likely to find sales-people and brokers as aggressive and outgoing, traders tend to be thoughtful and inciteful.........