Trading and Stress

[Ron]

I just took my family to a trip and trade today for the first time in 10 days. I had a hard time trading for 8 hours straight. I never realized how trading can take so much out of you. Anyone have any similar experiences?

[Nubrand]

I have a similar problem. I get pretty drained mentally by the end of the way. Im planning on trading either the morning session or afternoon session only. Anyone know if either session provides a more profitable opportunity?

[Jacob]

I used to trade all day now I simply don't have the energy to sit in front of my monitors 8 hours a day. I used to pretty much do nothing after the close. I suggest going for a swim during lunch hours. That can help relax your mind a bit.

[Stockaddict]

Theres really no need to sit in front of your charts the entire day. Just have your homework done and trade the opening hour and the afternoon session from around 2pm eastern. Go have a monster lunch. Are traders usually big in size from a long lunch? Or is it just me?

[artp01]

Actually trading required the best of your physical ability to take stress and the best of your mental ability to take mental stress. You need to be constantly monitoring and thinking. I guess some breaks in between is a must.

[bdwarr6]

Im normally fine with it, It sounds bad but a bag of doritos and Vault energy drinks I am fine, although I only watch screens 2-6 hours a day. it still can take alot out of you. I just eat, drink and jot notes all day and oh yea sell some stock on the side

[Soultrader]

I get burnt everyday at the close. Although I am not 100% focused all the time, whenever I am in a trade or watching a setup I use 200% concentration. This takes alot out of me. Plus the 2-3 hours of daily homework and analysis.

[eusdaiki]

Im usually beat after a day of trading. Taking a swim during the luch hour sounds like a very good idea... get rid of all the stress...

[ezduzzit]

Gosh, this forum always has such great topics for discussion and interesting posts. I really like it here and I rarely say that about forums of any kind.

Anyway, back to the idea of stress from trading. Would you think it wishy washy of me to say there are probably as many answers to this as there are traders out there? Would you think that a cop out?

I agree 100% with the point that trading can take a lot out of you. If you research the average adult attention span you will find claims that it lasts from anywhere as low as 7 seconds all the way up to about 20 minutes. But let's get real here. It is easy to give your undivided attention to something you are really passionate about, isn't it? Isn't that especially true in trading when something is actually "happening" in the market?

Unfortunately, most of the time each day is spent by traders having to wait for that something to happen. Is it perhaps the sheer boredom that wears us out? Assuming for the moment that you actually very much enjoy action movies (whether it is true in reality or not) how bored do you get watching a good two hour action movie? I would bet you seldom miss an important detail during the entire two hours. Yet put you in front of a slow, plodding 65 minute drama and you can barely remember the plot at times and feel totally drained by the time the movie is over.

Personally, I find I am sometimes a little miffed or upset when the trading day comes to an end too soon. Sounds strange until you realize I spent 25 years as a banker in commercial finance wherein I spent 10 hours per day or better (when not out in the field visiting companies) behind a desk examining cash flow projections, reams of historical financial statements and the like. Trading for upwards of 6 hours or so per day sometimes seems like a bit of a vacation.

Time spent following stuff like price charts, etc. is probably different for most of us personally, based upon our prior life experience, our passion for trading and last but not least, our tolerance for posterior pain and numbness.

However, is it waiting for the trades to trigger or living through the emotions of the live trades we take that is really getting to us? If for you it is the former, then perhaps you need to find a more active market or instrument to trade. If it is the latter then perhaps you need to learn how to harness the power of your most positive emotions so that you can trigger those when taking your live trades.

Now I know some traders shy away from the more volatile markets in favor of what they view to be safer, steadier and more stable price movement in some other instrument (for instance some e-mini players will avoid the Russell like the plague yet happily volunteer to trade the slow and steady ES, whereas I am just the opposite.) But I say show me a more quiet and mostly stable market and I will show you a bunch of traders so bored out of their skulls that they are sometimes even nodding off momentarily at their desks and often missing out on the few good moves that ever take place there anyway. Now that of course is just a personal feeling and I have not confirmed it by any national surveys or anything so perhaps you can just enjoy that as a little foolish but hopefully entertaining conversational rambling.

I do know from many years of sitting behind a desk and in front of a computer that you must, of necessity, make sure you get plenty of exercise for both your body and your mind. What's that you say? More exercise for our minds! Are you nuts? Well, not having ever visited a shrink I shall have to defer an answer to that last point for the time being, but let me just say that my spare time spent playing brain jumbles, mind based games and the like, as well as speed reading drills, have served to improve not only my attention span and powers of observation but seem to have given me some improvement in making decisions faster. Does that mean I can easily sit there for long periods of time scanning those screens incessantly during slow periods? Well, the honest answer to that is that I am quite often in a trade in the market and thus that is far less of an issue for me (and no I am not a scalper.. far from it actually).

Is there an overall answer that works for everyone to bust trading stress? I highly doubt it. But, staying healthy and phsyically fit is, I think, paramount if you wish to do this for any extended lenth of time without it weighing so heavily on you that you are forced to give it up.

Beyond that, I would say pick out what works for you. Don't ask others when is the best time to trade and then take it as fact! Find it out for yourself. If they told you "Hey, don't waste your time with lunch hour trading, there is light volume, not much chance to make money and you will probably get your head handed to you by the locals".. and let's say you blindly followed that advice for the next several years. Then you happen to have other time commitments and find you have to trade lunch hours in the markets or you will miss trading for several weeks or months. Once you trade those periods regularly let's say you suddenly realize that some of the best moves of the day take place during that time (I am not saying this is a fact, find out for yourself is what I am saying.) How would you feel upon finding that out? Would you waste time and heavy emotion blaming that other person who supposedly "wrongly" informed you or would you feel silly that you had not taken the time to confirm it for yourself one way or the other, learn your lesson and vow to do your own homework in the future?

Remember, "One man's meat is another man's poison" as they say, so please do your homework and decide those important issues for yourself. No, it does not hurt to ask and get some hints from more experienced traders, but for your own peace of mind, please verify for yourself that what you have been told holds up to the light of day and make sure it fits with how you best function as a trader.

Meanwhile, if you wish to at least reduce the stress, exercise, eat healthfully, get plenty of rest and do NOT risk capital that you need to pay your monthly bills or put food on your table. If you follow those simple guidelines in addition to figuring out for yourself how, when and for how long eacy day you personally trade best, this should become less of an issue for you.

Happy Trading

[torero]

Nice post, ez.

I remember I used to trade the scanned stocks: whatever the scan comes up for the day, 5-20 at the opening. That was stressful. Couldn't take it after a few months (losses to add to the story).

After a while, I decided to get smart and stressless by just concentrate on one instrument and watch it like a hawk for a few hours and during those few hours, make the most of what's given and profit from there. Now at times it can be boring because nothing is happening. If I'm bored, it tells me to stay away from touching the buy/sell button. Bored but certainly not stressful. Others may disagree but trading is like driving, if you get to your destination bored, that means you survived the journey, else you arrived stressed out, chances are you've come close to involving in a collision or worst. Stress makes the worst mental state to trade. But then again so is boredom. Choose your poison. Mine is the latter, one difference is that this state help me concentrate and trade better.