Jump to content

Welcome to the new Traders Laboratory! Please bear with us as we finish the migration over the next few days. If you find any issues, want to leave feedback, get in touch with us, or offer suggestions please post to the Support forum here.

  • Welcome Guests

    Welcome. You are currently viewing the forum as a guest which does not give you access to all the great features at Traders Laboratory such as interacting with members, access to all forums, downloading attachments, and eligibility to win free giveaways. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free. Create a FREE Traders Laboratory account here.

Joe Ross

Stress

Recommended Posts

Do you suffer a lot when you trade? Are you under constant stress from trading? What are your thoughts about stress, and is it a major factor in your trading?

 

Stress in trading is not always harmful, probably depending on the source of the stress. For some traders it is imperative that they run scared. For those traders it is the emotion of fear that can generate the concentration necessary to survive.

 

For all traders, it has been proven that trading is a stressful business. Tests have shown that even when traders appear calm, relaxed, and comfortable during trading, their heartbeat rises, blood pressure rises, and skin moisture increases.

 

In other fields we see constant demonstrations of performing under stress. It is the ability to thrive under stress that sets athletic superstars apart. It is the ability to go onstage when a person's stomach is full of butterflies that can make a stage performer into a star.

 

An effective trader learns to handle stress. His natural instinct of self preservation is what makes him effective when challenged.

 

There are other forms of stress besides fear. Selfishness can cause a trader to fight greedily for what he thinks he must have. Such a trader will trade without any consideration for personal honesty. The attitude of this kind of trader is "get what you want. Win somehow."

 

As a trader you must find out who you are and learn to accept yourself that way, or better yet, change; become a better person.

 

Regardless of the source of your stress, if you are going to trade effectively, you must face the cause of it and learn to deal with it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Joe, first off let me commend you - 50+ years trading!! That is phenomenal, no doubt you have a lot to teach us. As per your topic, I too suffer from stress (but it is self-induced). I have a nasty trading bias for the long side of everything, 'perma bull' in other words. Do you have any ideas on how I might overcome this ridiculous bias of mine?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Joe, first off let me commend you - 50+ years trading!! That is phenomenal, no doubt you have a lot to teach us. As per your topic, I too suffer from stress (but it is self-induced). I have a nasty trading bias for the long side of everything, 'perma bull' in other words. Do you have any ideas on how I might overcome this ridiculous bias of mine?

 

Come up with a system that fits your personality for trend and choppy markets then focus on looking for setups to both sides. Personally I like the idea of other people panicking so I tend to look for more short setups. Really it just comes down to screen time, the more you get the more you'll see setups from both sides.

 

 

Or when the market is trending down you can just turn your monitor upside down :o

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think if your hard earned money is at risk you're gonna have stress. The key to surviving is to have mechanisms in place to reduce the stress during trading, and to have decompression strategies when not trading.

If you're really stressing during trading, reduce your risk, or shrink your positions to a tolerable level.

For decompression, find an activity that helps you, for me it's Aikido training or long bike rides. Things that require focus so you can work off the stress while thinking about something else.

if you're hitting the Prevacid and Tylenol or worse alcohol or other drugs, you have to step back and evaluate what your goals are, and what your tolerance is. Killing yourself is not a good idea.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Joe, first off let me commend you - 50+ years trading!! That is phenomenal, no doubt you have a lot to teach us. As per your topic, I too suffer from stress (but it is self-induced). I have a nasty trading bias for the long side of everything, 'perma bull' in other words. Do you have any ideas on how I might overcome this ridiculous bias of mine?

 

GSX and Aiki both have good points and GSX has a very valid point when he says turn your screen upside down. From a real incident with one of my students I can tell you that capturing the chart and turning it upside down is one way to solve your problem. Of course you will also need to turn it mirror image so that the prices are where you expect to see them.

 

One other student who had that problem solved it by listening repeatedly to the CD "Trading Mind." It is available from many websites including our own.

 

Repeated affirmations of the kind included on the CD work extremely well for some people. But you must do them hundreds of times.

 

There will always be some stress as noted by Aiki, but you can learn to subjugate that stress and make it work for you rather than against you. If you believe in yourself and in your trading plan, eventually the stress will work in your favor.

 

Interestingly, the majority of traders prefer to be short. With the exception of currencies, prices move down much faster than they move up.

 

Cheers.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Joe, first off let me commend you - 50+ years trading!! That is phenomenal, no doubt you have a lot to teach us. As per your topic, I too suffer from stress (but it is self-induced). I have a nasty trading bias for the long side of everything, 'perma bull' in other words. Do you have any ideas on how I might overcome this ridiculous bias of mine?

 

One of the best cures for biases was when I decided to use mechanical trading to test our my so-called "great ideas for tomorrow". Dang it, it was mind-blowing to see how many bad ideas I had in my head (I won't go into others' but it was enough). By using the facts, I figured out that biases are the causes and quickly dropped the biases after seeing the facts for myself. You dont' have to be a programmer; a few lines of code on TS will be enough to prove or disprove your biases.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


  • Topics

  • Posts

    • Be careful who you blame.   I can tell you one thing for sure.   Effective traders don’t blame others when things start to go wrong.   You can hang onto your tendency to play the victim, or the martyr… but if you want to achieve in trading, you have to be prepared to take responsibility.   People assign reasons to outcomes, whether based on internal or external factors.   When traders face losses, it's common for them to blame bad luck, poor advice, or other external factors, rather than reflecting on their own personal attributes like arrogance, fear, or greed.   This is a challenging lesson to grasp in your trading journey, but one that holds immense value.   This is called attribution theory. Taking responsibility for your actions is the key to improving your trading skills. Pause and ask yourself - What role did I play in my financial decisions?   After all, you were the one who listened to that source, and decided to act on that trade based on the rumour. Attributing results solely to external circumstances is what is known as having an ‘external locus of control’.   It's a concept coined by psychologist Julian Rotter in 1954. A trader with an external locus of control might say, "I made a profit because the markets are currently favourable."   Instead, strive to develop an "internal locus of control" and take ownership of your actions.   Assume that all trading results are within your realm of responsibility and actively seek ways to improve your own behaviour.   This is the fastest route to enhancing your trading abilities. A trader with an internal locus of control might proudly state, "My equity curve is rising because I am a disciplined trader who faithfully follows my trading plan." Author: Louise Bedford Source: https://www.tradinggame.com.au/
    • SELF IMPROVEMENT.   The whole self-help industry began when Dale Carnegie published How to Win Friends and Influence People in 1936. Then came other classics like Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins toward the end of the century.   Today, teaching people how to improve themselves is a business. A pure ruthless business where some people sell utter bullshit.   There are broke Instagrammers and YouTubers with literally no solid background teaching men how to be attractive to women, how to begin a start-up, how to become successful — most of these guys speaking nothing more than hollow motivational words and cliche stuff. They waste your time. Some of these people who present themselves as hugely successful also give talks and write books.   There are so many books on financial advice, self-improvement, love, etc and some people actually try to read them. They are a waste of time, mostly.   When you start reading a dozen books on finance you realize that they all say the same stuff.   You are not going to live forever in the learning phase. Don't procrastinate by reading bull-shit or the same good knowledge in 10 books. What we ought to do is choose wisely.   Yes. A good book can change your life, given you do what it asks you to do.   All the books I have named up to now are worthy of reading. Tim Ferriss, Simon Sinek, Robert Greene — these guys are worthy of reading. These guys teach what others don't. Their books are unique and actually, come from relevant and successful people.   When Richard Branson writes a book about entrepreneurship, go read it. Every line in that book is said by one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time.   When a Chinese millionaire( he claims to be) Youtuber who releases a video titled “Why reading books keeps you broke” and a year later another one “My recommendation of books for grand success” you should be wise to tell him to jump from Victoria Falls.   These self-improvement gurus sell you delusions.   They say they have those little tricks that only they know that if you use, everything in your life will be perfect. Those little tricks. We are just “making of a to-do-list before sleeping” away from becoming the next Bill Gates.   There are no little tricks.   There is no success-mantra.   Self-improvement is a trap for 99% of the people. You can't do that unless you are very, very strong.   If you are looking for easy ways, you will only keep wasting your time forgetting that your time on this planet is limited, as alive humans that is.   Also, I feel that people who claim to read like a book a day or promote it are idiots. You retain nothing. When you do read a good book, you read slow, sometimes a whole paragraph, again and again, dwelling on it, trying to internalize its knowledge. You try to understand. You think. It takes time.   It's better to read a good book 10 times than 1000 stupid ones.   So be choosy. Read from the guys who actually know something, not some wannabe ‘influencers’.   Edit: Think And Grow Rich was written as a result of a project assigned to Napoleon Hill by Andrew Carnegie(the 2nd richest man in recent history). He was asked to study the most successful people on the planet and document which characteristics made them great. He did extensive work in studying hundreds of the most successful people of that time. The result was that little book.   Nowadays some people just study Instagram algorithms and think of themselves as a Dale Carnegie or Anthony Robbins. By Nupur Nishant, Quora Profits from free accurate cryptos signals: https://www.predictmag.com/    
    • there is no avoiding loses to be honest, its just how the market is. you win some and hopefully more, but u do lose some. 
    • $CSCO Cisco Systems stock, nice top of range breakout, from Stocks to Watch at https://stockconsultant.com/?CSCOSEPN Septerna stock watch for a bottom breakout, good upside price gap
    • $CSCO Cisco Systems stock, nice top of range breakout, from Stocks to Watch at https://stockconsultant.com/?CSCOSEPN Septerna stock watch for a bottom breakout, good upside price gap
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.