futures quotes

Thought the quick article below is definitely worth sharing.

Costly hiccups – do YOU have any?

by RealityTrader.com

Continuing our mini-series devoted to trading psychology, let’s look into another very common problem traders encounter.

One of the most frequent questions I get: “OK, I seem to have mastered a lot, I can extract money from the markets and I have stretch of winning days BUT… one day comes when I seem to be unable to follow my own rules, I start doing everything against what I learned, dig deeper and deeper hole… and when the day is over I find myself giving back all I made in a week before that! I feel groggy… then I remember everything I learned, pick myself up, glue pieces together, start trading carefully, start making money… only to have another blow-off just like the previous one in a week or two! What’s going on, why can’t I control myself and how do I avoid these frustrating days??”

If all above sounds familiar – it should. I haven’t met many traders who avoided this problem. Good news is, it’s a somewhat good problem to have since it appears at the stage where your method is good enough and mastered well enough so you are able to make money consistently inbetween those disgusting days. Bad news is, there is no other way to overcome this problem but to understand the root of it. This, however, is true for all psychological barriers we encounter in trading – no magic button to push and turn the problem off, have to understand where the problem stems from so you can recognize it when it re-appears and apply the right patch. And this problem is pure psychological – after all, what could change so drastically on the fifth day after four days of winning? Aside of your own behavior that is.

Vadym is the author of Techniques of Tape Reading (McGraw Hill 2003), How to Scalp Any Market (2005) and Master Profit Plan (2005). Vadym is a frequent featured speaker at International Trader’s Expos and Financial Forum Conferences.

He is the founder of RealityTrader.com, a hands-on training company, working with a global community of individuals to achieve high levels of trading success.

Vad is a professional trader and an international private trading mentor responsible for turning around the trading careers of thousands of trader. He has also published articles and interviews in industry magazines, corporate product newsletters and trading forums Read the rest of this entry »