Trading psychology is crucial if you wanna crush it in the market game. You can't just rely on charts and trends. You have to know how to handle your emotions, manage your risks, and stay disciplined.
In this article, we'll go deep into the essential components of trading psychology and show you how to level up your trading game.
You'll also learn the tricky parts about confidence in trading, so buckle up!
Emotions and Trading
Your emotions can mess up your trading like a parking ticket on a windshield. Fear and greed can push you to make bad decisions and lose your hard-earned cash. But don't worry, you can handle your emotions in trading like a pro with some practice. Here's how:
- Get mindful: Meditate every day, even if only for five minutes. Take a few deep breaths and clear your mind before making any trades. This will help you chill and stay present in the moment. For breathing, I prefer a variation on the "Physiological Sigh" technique.
- Visualize success: The greats in every game visualize the crap out of their success. Why should trading be any different?
1) Picture yourself making smart trades, following your process, and making great entries and exits. This will keep you motivated and confident, even when things get rough.
2) Visualize yourself doing the right thing in a trade that isn't working. Yes, losing sucks, but it's part of trading. Preserve that capital in your head before you have to do it live, and it'll get easier!
Visualize:
1) Keeping a stop in place as a trade goes against you
2) Getting stopped out and regrouping rather than revenge trading
3) Immediately correcting mistakes (fat-fingers, wrong orders, etc)
4) Sitting there bored and wanting to trade but doing nothing because there's no good setup. - Monitor and record: Take stock (no pun intended) of your emotions constantly during the trading session. Write them down.
How did you feel when the last trade went your way? How did you feel when it turned back into the red? How about when you got stopped out? What urges did you have, after that?
Write down these and every other emotion/thought that weasels its way into your thoughts while trading. - Create a scale: Use your observations of your emotions to create a measurable scale of your emotional weight each morning and throughout the day.
Take a holistic approach. Emotions might be heightened by trades, price action, or by something in your personal life. You might have lingering emotions from past trades. - Weigh in, tap out: Be aware of the emotional level at which you start to screw up. Stop trading as you get close to that level.
Take this back to your visualization exercise to work on it and reduce the frequency of that emotional trigger. - Stay positive: Sounds hokey, but it's the baseline. Believe in yourself and focus on the opportunities, not the risks. You got this!
If you haven't read this in-depth article about trading emotions, don't skip it!
Risk Management
Managing your risk is crucial to your long-term success. You have to know how to protect your gains and cut your losses. Here's how to do it:
- Make a plan: Create a solid trading plan that maps out your goals, strategies, and risk management techniques. Stick to your plan and avoid impulsive moves.
- Position size like a boss: Decide how much you're willing to risk on each trade. This will help you avoid losing big on a single trade.
- Stop-loss orders are your ride-or-die friends: Use stop-loss orders to bail out of a trade if the market turns against you. This will keep your losses in check and your head in the game.
- Take-Profit orders are the Harvey Dent to your joker: Have them in place automatically, so when price hits your target you get out. None of this "looks really good, think I'll hold for more" BS. This will ensure you get paid when you win.
Patience and Discipline
Patience is key, young padawan. You gotta wait for the right opportunities to present themselves and not rush into trades.
There's a reason I call it "paytience".
Discipline will keep you focused and on track. Here's how to get there:
- Use a playbook: Create a playbook of your setups and watch for them. Wait until you see them and then strike.
- Set a routine: Set aside some time each day for research and analysis. Stick to your routine and stay disciplined.
- Get alerts: Set alerts for potential trades so you don't have to keep your eyes glued to the market all day. What conditions do you want to see? Set an alert for those.
- Commit to trading with discipline: No matter what. Practice sitting on your hands when there's no disciplined trade to take.
Traders who succeed never stop learning.
Continuous Learning and Self-Improvement
The market is always changing, so you have to keep learning and improving your game. You can't afford to get complacent. Here's how to do it:
- Read, read, read: Stay informed about market news and trends by reading books and articles by experienced traders.
- Trading replays, baby: Record your trading and play it back. Or use a trading journal that provides that function.
Watch for what you missed, what you did right, and ideas you might test. - Spend time in the Lab: Backtest, run simulations, work on models. Look for the next edge.
- Join the fam: Join trading communities and groups where you can share ideas, ask questions, and learn from other traders.
Take everything in chat servers with a grain of salt - especially when people share their winning P/L (eyeroll). They have losses too, and probably more of them.
Effective Trading Habits
To level up your trading game, you must have effective habits in place. These will keep you focused, disciplined, and on top of your game. Here's what to do:
- Plan your research time: Set aside some dedicated time each day for market research and analysis.
- Set your pre-session routine: Before the market opens for you, go through the steps and prepare for the session. Know the upcoming economic events, relevant price ranges, etc.
- Keep a journal: Track your successes and failures in a trading journal, so you can learn from your experiences and improve. Use screenshots, replays, and recordings. You can use a free trading journal template or something like tradervue
- Take breaks: Don't burn out, take regular breaks to stay focused and avoid getting overwhelmed. 10 minutes every 50 minutes is a good start.
- Risk management: Stick to your risk management techniques to avoid big losses and stay on track. If you break a rule, have a process for getting back on track before you trade again.
- Stay informed: Stay on top of market news and events to make informed decisions and avoid nasty surprises.
- Keep learning: Always be learning new things and seeking advice from seasoned professional traders.
Confidence and Overconfidence
When it comes to trading, confidence is essential, but overconfidence can bite you in the arse.
Seriously. Overconfidence can hit you like a blindside tackle before the endzone. You'll fumble the ball, and the market will run it back against you for a touchdown.
Here are some tips to help you strike the right balance:
- Know your strengths: Identify your strengths and leverage them to your advantage. This will help you build your confidence and make smarter trades.
- Keep it real: Don't let your ego get the best of you. Stay grounded and realistic about your abilities and the risks involved in trading.
- Beware of confirmation bias: The fact you were "right" does not mean you can expect more from a trade.
Never expect the next trade to work just 'cause you're "on a roll". - Learn from your failures: Don't beat yourself up when you make a bad trade. Instead, learn from your mistakes and use them as an opportunity to improve your skills.
- Use positive self-talk: Talk to yourself in a positive and affirming way. This will help you stay motivated and confident, even when things get tough.
- Manage your emotions: Emotions are normal, but you need to monitor and manage them. Be aware of when they become elevated, and center yourself.
Remind yourself of what success looks like - Process, progress, discipline. Not today's P/L.
Understand that your emotions can still hurt you even when they're positive. Stay conscious of this as you trade. You're most dangerous to your own P/L after a big win.
Good trading psychology requires a good process.
Having a Trading Process
To succeed in trading, you need to stick to your trading process like rice on sushi. Here are some tips for developing a solid trading process:
- Define your goals: Set clear and realistic goals for your trading. This will help you stay focused and motivated.
- Identify your edge: Determine what sets you apart from other traders and how you can leverage that edge to your advantage.
- Develop a trading plan: Create a detailed plan that outlines your strategies, risk management techniques, and trading rules. Stick to your plan and avoid impulsive moves.
- Focus on good decisions: Identify all the decisions that get made in each of your trades, and know the if-then for each setup.
Know the proper decision in a situation before it happens so you can act with confidence. - Monitor your progress: Keep track of your progress and make adjustments to your process as needed.
- Stay flexible: Be willing to adapt and adjust your process as the market changes. Don't be afraid to try new things and experiment with different strategies.
- Review your journal often: Don't just put stuff in there. Go back and use the data and the observations. Mine your trading journal for patterns, and learn from past successes and failures.
See, that wasn't so bad, was it? Trading psychology can be big and scary, but when you break it down you realize it's pretty simple. If you can build the habit of making your bed or doing the dishes, you can handle this too.
Use these tips to piece together your mental trading arsenal, and your trading will improve. And any time you stray, you can always come back to the basics to re-arm yourself for battle with the market.
Keep learning, stay disciplined, and be willing to adapt and adjust your approach as needed.