Fear or Greed - What drives you?

[Trade Up 10]

As we all know, Fear and Greed drive the stockmarket - and life in general.

 

The fear of failure and the pursuit of more (Greed).

 

What drives you most in your trading ?

 

I must admit that I am slightly more driven by fear, than I am driven by greed. There are a few times when I have sold stocks too early, in a knee jerk reaction to a short term fall.

 

I am however starting to balance the fear and greed factors, which is helping my trading performance.

[Robert 10]

Excellent poll Trade Up!

 

Fear drives more more than greed. I am still working on getting my stop losses in the right location. I have a tendency to place them too tight.

[Trade Up 10]

Fear and Greed in small doses are very useful emotions, but they need to be balanced. If one of them is a lot stronger than the other, then this will be reflected in your trading history.

 

It would have been interesting to see what people thought in the 1980s pre-crash market and the 1990s technology boom. I bet it would be a lot different to todays trader mentality.

[Follow The Trend 10]

I am driven by the fear of failure, which I think lurks deep in the mind of any trader. Traders are winners by nature, and do not like to come second.

 

The competitive nature of investing is what shapes Traders, what gives them the will to succeed, and pushes them to the limit. Add in the fear factor, and you have a very very potent mix.

[ezduzzit 10]

An interesting poll to be sure, though I doubt there shall be many surprises in either the overall results or the comments.

 

I have seldom been too terribly driven by fear of loss as I am more easily motivated by gain or perhaps greed if that is the only choice here. I have a sneaking suspicion that those who are more heavily motivated by fear are perhaps either struggling more than necessary with their trading because of it or else they have not yet trained themselves to think in terms of probabilities.

 

They say that in trading, the greater issues to watch out for (even more so than fear) are euphoria over your successes and over-confidence (one likely stemming from the other.) I personally struggle on occasion with that exact issue as when I am feeling a little too confident I start making silly mistakes. I have found however, that if I get up and go for a short walk or something physical, the euphoria and over-confidence soon passes and I can return to either take another trade or shut-down for the day and bank my money.

 

Happy Trading

[Soultrader 12]

Fear and Greed in small doses are very useful emotions, but they need to be balanced. If one of them is a lot stronger than the other, then this will be reflected in your trading history.

 

It would have been interesting to see what people thought in the 1980s pre-crash market and the 1990s technology boom. I bet it would be a lot different to todays trader mentality.

 

ahh yes.. the height of emotions. If there was a barometer for fear and greed, I am sure both emotions would of went off the scale.

 

I find fear easy to control mainly because I am comfortable with all my setups. The problem I have is greed. There are so many times greed interferes with logic. Even if the markets tell me to exit, greed alters my thinking in suggesting price might go up. I have seen many paper profits disappear because of greed.

[ezduzzit 10]

Ok S.T. that makes two of us that have stepped up to the podium to profess what greedy gluttons we are.. what about the rest of you slackers? heh, heh.. just kidding.

 

They say emotional control and professional mindset are 90% of successful trading. Though I am a newbie I would say they were being conservative.

 

Happy Trading

[Soultrader 12]

I am not a greedy person in general but when it comes to trading somehow that emotional side of me comes out to the fullest. In Japan, our culture teaches us not to be greedy. Greed = disrespectful in my culture.

 

Perhaps this suppression of emotion explodes in the trading arena.

[ezduzzit 10]

Well, they say that most any desire or powerful emotion that is suppressed strongly seeks and outlet. Perhaps you have found the outlet you needed to relieve the pressure of holding it all in check.

 

I think a little greed can be good as long as you recognize it for what it is and don't let it consume you. Everybody wants to get far enough ahead in life that they can finally just kick back a little and smell the roses and sip a few drinks (with the little umbrellas) on a nice beach somewhere. Some call it greed, others call it ambition. Uncontrolled ambition/greed will dash your hopes almost every time, so perhaps the trick is to give the feeling a little freedom once in awhile so it doesn't hunger for too much all at one sitting.

 

Happy Trading

[Soultrader 12]

Nicely said ez. Trading is possibly the greatest outlet for emotional expression. Everyday I learn a little more about myself by being engaged in the markets.

 

I learned alot about controlling emotions during my years as a poker player. Besides from tilt, I found one of the biggest distraction to be euphoria. A euphoric mind can not think rationally. Always a good sign to ring the register or cut some portions loose.

 

How important do you think Emotional Intelligence comes into play in trading? There was a phase in which I studied NLP and anything related to emotional intelligence intensely. I had a debate once with a fellow trader who claimed emotional intelligence had nothing to do with trading. Any thoughts on this?

[ezduzzit 10]

Hmm.. emotional intelligence? Well, I don't want to get into semantics and definitions but I sense this subject could be a real toughie!

 

Emotional control is more up my alley. To control your emotions you first have to recognize that you are experiencing them. Once you know that you are in the midst of an undesirable emotion, there are any number of ways of dealing with it, most of them unacceptable when trading. However, as a prior student of NLP you know about pacing, reframing, mirroing and modeling and the like, so I doubt there is much I can help you with there.

 

Everyone is somewhat a product of the sum total of their experiences. However, what you do with what you have experienced and what you choose to learn from it and employ in your life thereafter is what I suppose could be called emotional intelligence.

 

The ones who fail in dealing with their emotions are those who forcibly try to change them through logic and goal-setting, etc. I would also suggest that even professional therapy is most times a lost cause as many of the therapist are more screwed up than their patients. We all have had and will continue to have what we consider bad emotional experiences or events, it is simply up to us to revisit those situations in our mind, reframe them, see them at a distance if you will, and imagine in our mind's eye a different result. Once properly learned, you can control a great deal of what would normally bother you or restrict you from being successful at something that normally stirs up your emotions.

 

I don't know if this is at all what you were hoping to hear from me but it is how I deal with things and it has worked for me thus far.

 

Happy Trading

[Soultrader 12]

I would also suggest that even professional therapy is most times a lost cause as many of the therapist are more screwed up than their patients.

 

hehehe

 

Some good points in your post EZ. Thank you for sharing it with us.

 

Reframing our negative experienes is a concept taught in NLP as well. I find it to be very helpful. Its important in trading to understand how your emotions affect your behavior. Without this self understanding, traders will have a tough time dealing with the emotional up and downswings.

[vinodg 10]

Most of the time, I was driven by the fear whenever I trade. I never feel the greed while trading. I think I may be too emotional that's why I am feeling more fear inside me. I don't know how to get rid of this fear.

[kipjohn 10]

no Absoulutes In the Makrkets So . Fear,

 

Greed Is what can keep our fear Abased.

[Minis Trader 10]

As we all know, Fear and Greed drive the stockmarket - and life in general.

 

The fear of failure and the pursuit of more (Greed).

 

What drives you most in your trading ?

 

I must admit that I am slightly more driven by fear, than I am driven by greed. There are a few times when I have sold stocks too early, in a knee jerk reaction to a short term fall.

 

I am however starting to balance the fear and greed factors, which is helping my trading performance.

 

For me it would be more Greed. Well come to think of it I dont know if you can call it Greed, it is more of being anxious to trade whan there are no clear signals.

 

Well maybe it is Greed, oh heck I know I am a bag full of emotions and there are times that they sneek out and get in the way of my financial plan!