How Much Stress is Daytrading?

[TroyMaster 10]

Hey guys,

 

I have 2 more questions to you where I get confusing answers on the internet.

This threat is for the one question about stress.

 

How much stress do you have on a daily basis?

 

Are you constantly stressed? Or almost never?

I hear/read both.

 

Obv. it depends on the market and your strategy. That might be the reason why there are differences how people feel about stress in daytrading.

But I get confused when people say "no stress at all" or "poker is more stress" (for me poker is no stress at all) and other say its pure stress.

 

Cheers

Troy

[Tams 20]

Hey guys,

 

I have 2 more questions to you where I get confusing answers on the internet.

This threat is for the one question about stress.

 

How much stress do you have on a daily basis?

 

Are you constantly stressed? Or almost never?

I hear/read both.

 

Obv. it depends on the market and your strategy. That might be the reason why there are differences how people feel about stress in daytrading.

But I get confused when people say "no stress at all" or "poker is more stress" (for me poker is no stress at all) and other say its pure stress.

 

Cheers

Troy

 

if you fight the market, it is stressful.

 

but trading is not about fighting.

 

the market is your friend

he feeds you, nourishes you, serves you

you do not fight your friend

you do not manipulate your friend

you listen to your friend

you understand your friend

you go with the flow with your friend

you and your friend are in harmony... all the time

 

if your friend is in a bad mood, you give him room; you stand aside

if your friend wants to have some fun, you join in and have fun too.

 

daytrading is a blast.

[electroniclocal 10]

Troy, the level of stress is directly related to 2 things:

1. How undercapitalised you are

2. How proficient you are.

 

If you are both well capitalized and proficient = no stress.

 

EL

[MadMarketScientist 11]

I've been trading since 1995 actively. I took my first trade back in about 1986.

 

I can tell you it is far less stressful for me today than it was in the beginning.

 

However, I will also tell you it has always been stressful for me -- I took trades today and I felt some stress. My first short didn't work - stressful. My buy worked fine but I had entered it a little further up due to a rule I question, and it hit what would have been my first target if I didn't adjust then struggled to reach my real target. You think I was stressed and second guessing? Yep. And, that's after 15+ years of doing this.

 

I always think that I'm not completely coded to be a trader who can throw caution to the wind so it's always a struggle to some degree. My least stressful trading? By far my swing trading. Because I don't need to watch it. I let it do what it needs to do and the simple fact of not having to look at the chart 1,000 times per trade helps immensely.

 

If you feel a lot of stress I'd swing trade.

 

MMS

[Frostyx7 10]

A little stress is a good thing. Keeps you in the zone and ready to react. Its distress that is bad.

[MadMarketScientist 11]

Good point on stress vs. distress.

 

I had a short going today on Crude Oil futures -- was targeting 88.78. It hit 88.79 then bounced back up to about 88.88 and didn't look good though did ultimately make it to 88.78. For as long as I've been trading you think I would have just been 100% stress free but I felt the stress in the trade.

 

However, I was not distressed -- I certainly wasn't panicking maybe just a little bitter for a bit

[crusso 10]

Interesting topic for me. I've been trading for only a few weeks, in addition to another few weeks of paper trading. The first week of staring at the tradestation matrix window, wishing for the little price indicator to go in the direction I wanted was really stressful. I had a stress headache every day that first week and I wondered if I could handle the pressure long term, despite the fact that I've made money fairly consistently.

 

Since that first week, I've made it a part of my trader development to actively control my stress. I try to keep other things to do during the trading day so that once I set up my entry, stop, and target... I look away from the screen and wait to hear my audible alerts. In the meantime, I learn more about trading by reading, I write software, I even watch hulu if I really need to distract myself. Maybe I should set up another computer for World of Warcraft.

 

As I get more comfortable with trading and practice keeping myself distracted during the actual trade, I find my stress levels going down. I haven't had a headache in about a week, so that's a good sign.

 

I mean, what good is the money you make if you have a heart attack or stroke within 5 years?

[MadMarketScientist 11]

One of my best things I do? I turn off the volume and put my browser over the chart so I don't have to stare at the ticks going buy, nor do I really need to hear the sounds of a trade hitting a stop, etc.... Psychologically this works for me. I'm with you on that -- distract yourself once the trade is on -- you only need to know what's happening if there's a reason to adjust a stop -- otherwise let the trade do its thing and do NOT watch every tick.

 

Like you mention, you want to be here 5 years from now!

 

MMS

[Kiwi 16]

Two things I would add to the comments:

 

- its a good idea, once you've confirmed that targets and stops are correct and you should actually be in the trade, to physically walk away and maybe do a little exercise. stress is mainly bad for our bodies because it isn't associated with exercise as it was in hunting days

 

- work out when the earliest next event can happen and set a timer so that you KNOW that you don't have to look until the timer goes off. I have a nice little free minute timer I use, Easy Timer from InspireSoft which doubles as an analogue clock in the background.

 

- ok, three things: its a good idea to sometimes just watch the action but sit and focus on calm and breathing. Becoming calmer while watching those ticks = $$ could well make future trading easier.

[MadMarketScientist 11]

Great feedback Kiwi - thanks for that.

 

I don't want to be too "New Agey" but something that works great to give you that calm you mention is to breathe out everything through your mouth until all the air is out. Then resist the temptation to draw a breath right back in for as long as you can. Once you resist just breathe in slowly through your nose and feel the calm.

 

Now hopefully that trade will work! Otherwise repeat!

 

MMS