trading psychology Archives | Bulls on Wall Street https://bullsonwallstreet.com/tag/trading-psychology/ Stop Guessing. Start Trading. Thu, 24 Jun 2021 16:39:51 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.1 https://bullsonwallstreet.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/cropped-Untitled-design-14-1-32x32.png trading psychology Archives | Bulls on Wall Street https://bullsonwallstreet.com/tag/trading-psychology/ 32 32 5 Trading Psychology Lessons Every Trader Needs to Learn https://bullsonwallstreet.com/trading-psychology/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=trading-psychology Sat, 23 Jan 2021 22:38:29 +0000 https://bullsonwallstreet.com/?p=61488 In trading, you are your own worst enemy. Fear of missing out and chasing. Fear of taking losses because you’re scared. Not taking profits because of greed. Revenge trading because you want to make back what you lost. No matter what stage in your trading journey you are in, trading psychology is the biggest obstacle ...

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In trading, you are your own worst enemy. Fear of missing out and chasing. Fear of taking losses because you’re scared. Not taking profits because of greed. Revenge trading because you want to make back what you lost. No matter what stage in your trading journey you are in, trading psychology is the biggest obstacle for traders to overcome.

Today’s article will show you some of our favorite strategies to overcome some of the most common psychological issues all stock traders and investors face:

Combating FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)

FOMO is the most common reason why we buy stocks to high, or short to low. One of the worst feelings in trading is watching a stock make a big move without you. For some traders, it’s even worse than taking a loss! The stock market is so big, and there are so many stocks moving every day, you will always be missing an opportunity. You have to learn to combat FOMO to become a consistently profitable trader.  This video lesson will help you learn how to overcome FOMO:

Sizing Positions Correctly to Avoid Fear 

Position sizing plays a major role in trade management. One of the most common mistakes traders make is sizing their positions too large. It puts them at a bigger risk of taking a massive trading loss and also makes their trade management much worse.

When you are trading huge size, you will take profits at the wrong places, stop out either too early or too late, and generally be a lot more emotional in your trading. Reducing your size will actually make you MORE money, because of how it reduces emotions and improves your trade management. This video lesson will show you the importance of sizing positions correctly, and how to break the bad habit of over-sizing:

 No Emotional Attachment

One of my favorite trading quotes: “Trade the ticker, not the company.” One of the biggest issues traders have is an emotional attachment to the stocks they trade. Their attachment causes them to mismanage their positions.

These traders will usually either fail to take profits when they have them or fail to stop out of their positions when the loss was small and manageable. Here is how you can combat emotional attachment in your trading:

How to Scale-Out of Positions to Reduce Greed

Timing exits is one of the trickiest parts about trading stocks. Selling too soon and missing the big move. Selling too late and watching a nice unrealized gain come all the way back to breakeven or a loss. I’ve found the best exit strategy to manage these two problems is to scale out of your positions, which means taking partial profits (½, ⅓, ¼). This video lesson will show you how to scale out of your positions correctly, and manage greed while you’re in a trade:

Revenge Trading: How to Stop Forcing Trades

Every trader’s reaction after taking a trading loss: “How can I make this back”? Most traders jump on the first stock that moves, take another loss, and then end up further in the red. Next things they know, a small manageable red day turns into a day that undoes weeks and months of green. The best traders don’t let trading losses affect their trade selection, and don’t get emotional. Here are some of the best strategies to combat revenge trading:

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5 Ways to Become a More Decisive Stock Trader https://bullsonwallstreet.com/decisive-stock-trader/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=decisive-stock-trader Sat, 05 Dec 2020 15:56:49 +0000 https://bullsonwallstreet.com/?p=61064 Your decision-making abilities are tested in trading more than in any other profession. Every decision you make will either move closer or further to making or losing money. Many of you reading this have moments where you get struck with indecision: Should I be trading this stock? Should I enter now? Should I take some ...

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Your decision-making abilities are tested in trading more than in any other profession.

Every decision you make will either move closer or further to making or losing money.

Many of you reading this have moments where you get struck with indecision:

Should I be trading this stock? Should I enter now? Should I take some profits here? Should I stop out here?

Indecision is costly. Why I'm writing this blog. Read this carefully. These 5 habits will significantly improve your decision making in your trading:

Tracking Trading Performance Metrics

You cannot be decisive unless you know where your edge is in the markets, and stick to it. Why would a professional poker player play slots at a casino?

Know your A+ setups. You only need to master one strategy to be profitable. But in order to find out what your A+ setup is, you need to be journaling and tracking your trades. This is what allows you to assign probabilities in any given market scenario. This is how you create your edge.

What you should be tracking in your trade journal (the bare minimum):

  • Trade outcome
  • Entry price
  • Exit price
  • Trade setup/strategy used
  • Trade thesis
  • Reward to risk ratio

We recommend using software like TraderSync to journal your trades. Knowing your trading metrics is what gives you conviction in your trading. When you know the probabilities, the correct decision becomes much more obvious at any given moment.

Pre-Planning Trades

Every trade you take needs to be calculated. No “let me buy some here and see what happens.”

Don’t let FOMO cause you to jump in a trade without carefully planning it. That is the most common reason why traders get stuck in trades where they have no idea what to do.

This is what your trading process should look like:

No plan, no trade. Define everything above for putting on a position.

Repetition of Charts 

Lebron takes hundreds, sometimes thousands of shots every day. In trading, looking at charts is your practice. The more familiar you are with reading charts, the quicker you can filter bad setups, good setups, and A+ setups. You need to get repetitions in to achieve mastery.

Dedicate 30-minutes to an hour every day to looking at stock charts.

When you run through charts, look for the following:

  • Trend (Bullish, Bearish, Sideways)
  • Key resistance and support areas
  • Volume pattern
  • Sector
  • Catalyst
  • Weekly/Daily & intraday time frames. Big and small picture

The more charts you study, the more adept you will become at trading them. Correct decision-making will become habitual.

Automate Decision Making 

Hard stops. Limit orders for entries. Limit orders at targets. All of these can take a lot of your trigger shyness away in your trading. When these key price levels are determined in a trade, everything becomes so much simpler. Your trade either works, or it doesn’t.

Create scans for the type of stocks you trade. This will allow you to know what stocks you should, and should not be trading.

Prioritize Your Watch List

Don’t just make a watch list of 20 tickers. Rank them. Setups are not created equal.

Within 30 minutes of the market open, you should have a list of your top 5 stocks you will be watching. Make sure to follow the flow chart above to make sure you have a thorough trading plan for all the stocks on your watch list.

Summary

5 Ways to Improve Your Decision-Making in Your Trading:

  1. Track Performance Metrics
  2. Pre-Plan Trades
  3. Study Charts Religiously
  4. Automate Decision Making
  5. Prioritize Your Watch List

Get Early-Bird Pricing For Our Next Live Trading Boot Camp

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Ego: 7 Deadly Trading Sins Day 7 https://bullsonwallstreet.com/ego-7-deadly-trading-sins-day-7/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ego-7-deadly-trading-sins-day-7 Mon, 17 Dec 2018 23:00:14 +0000 https://bullsonwallstreet.com/?p=53102 Big egos are the #1 cause of account blow ups. No one likes to admit they are wrong. But unlike in life, the consequences of stubbornness are much more severe in trading. Getting attached to your opinions is the worst possible thing for your trading career. Trading education everywhere talks about the importance of keeping ...

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Big egos are the #1 cause of account blow ups. No one likes to admit they are wrong. But unlike in life, the consequences of stubbornness are much more severe in trading. Getting attached to your opinions is the worst possible thing for your trading career.

Trading education everywhere talks about the importance of keeping your losers small, but people rarely talk about why this is so much easier said than done. Here is exactly how your ego will hurt your trading, and what you can do to master it to find trading success.

In Love With Being Right

A big reason why the ego can be such a problem for traders is because we are programmed to think being right is a good thing. In trading, timing is everything. You can be right about the company in the long run, but if you blew up your trading account trying to short it on the frontside of the move does it really matter that you were right?

You don’t become a trader for moral superiority and to get the feeling of being right all the time. We are here to make money. As we have talked about before, losing trades are unavoidable in trading. This means you have to get used to admitting that you are wrong all the time. If the market is showing signs that your thesis is invalid, it’s time to put your ego aside and get out.

Hard stops are a must for stubborn traders. If you don’t have the discipline to take yourself out of the market when it hits your stop loss price, you have to automate that process. Hard stops will take the decision out of your hands, and do it for you.

Inability to Cut Losses

Traders who have an issue with admitting they are wrong and controlling their ego will have a huge issue keeping their losers small. Stubbornness can wipe months of great trading in just a few hours. This is most common with short sellers of small cap companies that run up 200%. Everyone knows that company is overvalued. But that does not mean this is the right time to short it.

These traders get attached to their opinion about how bad of a company that is, and don’t cut their short even though the stock is still up-trending. They know they are right about the company, and cannot put their ego aside and take the loss. They end up blowing up their account and ending their trading career instead of admitting that they are wrong.

Timing in the markets is more important than the fundamentals of a company. So many new and inexperienced traders don’t understand that the market has to agree with your opinion/thesis in order to be a profitable trader. It is one thing to have an opinion about a company. It is another thing to be able to make money from the opinion.

Inability to Learn

The market is always right, and will continue to humble you regularly throughout your trading career. With an ever-evolving market, you will always need to be learning and studying to stay consistent and profitable in your trading. But unfortunately, your ego will often get in the way of your ability and desire to learn information.

No matter where you are in your trading career, you have to become a learning machine in order to find consistency in the markets. Don’t let your ego make you think that you ever know enough.  

Get Started With Our Free Trading Kit

Our trading kit is the best free resource out there for new and struggling traders. It includes:

  • Intro to Trading Course
  • Comprehensive Trading Handbook
  • Trading Consultation

Download your free trading kit here.

 

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Trading Fear: 7 Deadly Trading Sins Day 6 https://bullsonwallstreet.com/fear-7-deadly-trading-sins-day-6/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=fear-7-deadly-trading-sins-day-6 Mon, 17 Dec 2018 17:00:36 +0000 https://bullsonwallstreet.com/?p=53090 Scared money does not make money in the stock market. Traders who trade with fear will never be able to consistently extract income from the markets. Fear manifests itself in many different forms in trading. We discussed one of the forms yesterday in our article about FOMO. Today we will talk about the other ways ...

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Scared money does not make money in the stock market. Traders who trade with fear will never be able to consistently extract income from the markets. Fear manifests itself in many different forms in trading. We discussed one of the forms yesterday in our article about FOMO. Today we will talk about the other ways fear will appear in your trading, and what you can do to overcome them:

Fear of Losing Money

You cannot make money from trading without risking money. A common reason why traders bring fear into their trading is by risking too much money. They are risking a large enough proportion of their capital that they are emotionally attached to it. Traders also get afraid of losing money because they are attached to their money.

They don’t understand that trading is a game where you have to risk money to make money. What you risk per trade is the price you have to be willing to pay in order to see if you are correct on your trade thesis.   

You cannot let the fear of losing money deter you from making a trade. In order to eliminate this fear, risk proportionately to your account size, and really accept the money you are risking. Accept that losing money is inevitable in trading.

It is like when you play Texas Hold’em: You cannot win the pot at the end without putting your chips in and riding out the round. You will not win all the rounds, but if you’re skilled you know you will make money by the end of the night.

Fear of Winners Turning to Losers

One of the biggest misnomers in trading is the saying “you cannot go broke taking profits.” You actually can. Not letting your winners run has disastrous consequences in the long run for your trading results. Traders who are on a cold streak will often make this mistake. They have had a lot of losers lately, and they want to take profits as soon as they have them.

You cannot let the fear of a winner turning into a loser cause you to take profits too soon. A huge component of a successful trading system is your risk vs reward ratio. To have a good risk vs reward ratio, you need to have big winners and small losers.

If you are taking profits too soon, you will never be able to have big enough winners to cancel out your losing trades. Focus on the market trend, not your PNL when you’re in a trade.

Fear of the Unknown

There is a lot of uncertainty in trading. Before going into a trade, you have no idea if it will be a winner or loser. Winning traders know what SHOULD happen, but even they have to deal with the same uncertainty as everyone else. If you cannot handle uncertainty, trading is not the right profession for you.

In order to accept the unknown, you need to accept all of the possible outcomes once you enter a trade. There really is only three scenarios you have to prepare for:

1. What you do if you’re wrong, aka where do you put your stop. 2. Where is your 1st profit target, and how much will you sell. 3. How will you trial after taking profits: Will you move your stop to breakeven? Where will you sell the rest of your shares?

Everything else that goes on is just noise. Focus on what you can control in a trade, and accept that there many things that go in the markets that are out of your control.

Once you map out these scenarios, you don’t need to do anything else once you’re in the trade besides let it play out. This will prevent you from getting fearful when you’re in a trade, and allow you to let your trade to play out without micromanaging.

Get Started With Our Free Trading Kit

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  • Intro to Trading Course
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  • Trading Consultation

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FOMO: 7 Deadly Trading Sins Day 5 https://bullsonwallstreet.com/fomo-7-deadly-trading-sins-day-5/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=fomo-7-deadly-trading-sins-day-5 Mon, 17 Dec 2018 02:00:11 +0000 https://bullsonwallstreet.com/?p=53062 FOMO haunts traders of all experience levels. Fear of missing out on a big market move causes traders to make rash decisions, and costs them big money. It was one of my biggest obstacles on my path to becoming a successful trader. For some people, missing out on a big move is worse than taking ...

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FOMO haunts traders of all experience levels. Fear of missing out on a big market move causes traders to make rash decisions, and costs them big money. It was one of my biggest obstacles on my path to becoming a successful trader.

For some people, missing out on a big move is worse than taking a loser. You have to master this emotion if you are going to consistently extract profits from the market. Here are 3 destructive results of FOMO, and how you can combat it throughout the trading day:

Chasing

Have you ever bought the exact top of a move before? It was probably because you thought the stock wasn’t going to pullback, and you needed to be in before it went to the moon. Right as you bought the stock reversed, and you are left holding the bag. Right after you got stopped out, it started to base and then rally and continue its uptrend. But you missed because you blew all of your mental and physical capital on chasing the first push.  

I’ve been there more times than you can imagine. It is rare that a stock will ever just go straight up or straight down. There is almost always a pullback during every big move. Patience for the right entry is essential for capitalizing on big moves in the stock market. Never buy or short a stock because you are scared of missing out. Write this on a sticky note and put it on your monitor: “You chase, you die”.  

Forced Trades

Even if you restrained yourself from chasing, the battle with FOMO still isn’t over. It can affect the way you perceive market opportunities after you miss the big trade. After missing the big buy opportunity, you start to see another stock make a move. It isn’t a great setup, but you don’t want to be on the sidelines again and miss another big move.

The setup ends up failing because it wasn’t a high probability play. You forced a trade because you didn’t want to miss out on another big winner. You cannot let what the last stock did affect how you perceive other stocks. It is very tempting to trade a random stock after missing out on a big move because there are so many tickers moving everyday. But you have to restrain your FOMO, wait for the best opportunities, and not force trades.

Perceived Scarcity

A big issue traders with FOMO have is that they think there will never be another big opportunity in the market again. They get so focused on the one opportunity in front of them, they lose track of the bigger picture. They forget there will always be another big mover in the markets. The stock you are watching will not be the last stock in history to make a 20% move.

The reality is there will be another A+ opportunity in the stock market that week. The market never fails to deliver opportunities to the long and short side, no matter the market condition. There are hundreds of stocks gapping up and down every day. Usually you can find 1-5 opportunities every day to get paid. Keeping a journal of the A+ setups that you take will help you combat FOMO. It will remind you that there is not a scarcity of opportunities in the market. There will always be another setup, and you just need to have the patience to wait for it.   

If you missed Day 4 where we discussed slothfulness attachment in trading, check out the article here.

Free Webinar 

We are doing a free web-class on December 17th where we will go over my strategies for combating FOMO. We will go over all of the 7 sins in even more detail, show exactly how to overcome these, and build a bulletproof mindset. Mark it on your calendar and join us live.

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Slothfulness: 7 Deadly Trading Sins Day 4 https://bullsonwallstreet.com/slothfulness-7-deadly-trading-sins-day-4/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=slothfulness-7-deadly-trading-sins-day-4 Fri, 14 Dec 2018 01:00:54 +0000 https://bullsonwallstreet.com/?p=53040 Everyone wants to say they’ve completed a marathon and check it off their bucket list. But few actually will train and have the perseverance to finish it. Everyone wants to be able to consistently make money from the stock market. But few are willing to put in the effort and dedication that is required. If ...

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Everyone wants to say they’ve completed a marathon and check it off their bucket list. But few actually will train and have the perseverance to finish it. Everyone wants to be able to consistently make money from the stock market. But few are willing to put in the effort and dedication that is required. If it was easy, everyone would be a trader.

The stock market is mechanism of moving money from the lazy and unprepared to the patient and hard working. It is a zero-sum game. If you are slothful, you will always lose money in the markets in the long run. You will give all of your money to traders who have work ethic and a proven process. Here are the 3 most common reasons for slothfulness in the market, and what you need to do to avoid them:

Random Market

A big reason why a lot of traders become slothful is because it is possible to make money from the markets without doing any work. If you chase a penny stock that’s up 500% without doing any research or technical analysis you could make money that one time.

This is the trap most new traders fall in. They make money without doing any work, and think that they can consistently achieve the same result. The reality is that they will lose money in the long run. The stock market is random. Theoretically a baby who knew how to use a computer could come into the market and make money on a trade.

One winning trade does not mean you are successful trader, or that you have a winning trading system. One losing trade doesn’t mean the opposite. Winning traders focus on their process, not on the outcomes of individual trades. They worry about developing a winning trading system that delivers them profits in the long run.  

Pre-Planning Trades

Slothful traders don’t do any work before the market opens. They wake up 15 minutes before the opening bell and look to a chatroom to tell them what to trade. They don’t have any process, but still wonder why they always lose money from the market.

The secret to successful trading is not what you do during market hours. It’s the time you put in after hours and pre-market. Winning traders plan out their trades before the market opens. When the market opens, they are just executing what they have already planned out, as opposed to trying to figure out what they are doing on the fly.

Trading Journal

In addition to planning out your trades before the market opens, you need to be recording and reviewing your past trades as well. What is not measured cannot be improved. Slothful traders never review their past trades. They have an account at Tradingview, but they’ve only uploaded their trades once, and never looked at them. They don’t know where their edge lies, because they don’t take time to study which setups bring them success and which setups cost them money.

Reviewing your trades shows you what to do more of, and what to completely eliminate from your trading. Study your best trades and figure what you can do to replicate them in the future. Study your losing trades, and figure out what you can do to prevent them from reoccurring.

If you missed Day 3 where we discussed emotional attachment in trading, check out the article here.

Free Webinar 

We are doing a free web-class on December 17th where we will go over my after hours routine for preparing for the market open. We will go over all of the 7 sins in even more detail, show exactly how to overcome these, and build a bulletproof mindset. Mark it on your calendar and join us live.

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Emotional Attachment: 7 Deadly Trading Sins Day 3 https://bullsonwallstreet.com/emotional-attachment-7-deadly-trading-sins-day-3/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=emotional-attachment-7-deadly-trading-sins-day-3 Thu, 13 Dec 2018 01:00:10 +0000 https://bullsonwallstreet.com/?p=53029 Emotional attachment in trading will prevent you from making the correct decisions to make money and preserve your capital. Emotions cloud your judgement, and do not allow you to view market information objectively. Emotional attachment to stocks causes you not to buy and sell at the right times. Traders who get emotionally attached to stocks ...

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Emotional attachment in trading will prevent you from making the correct decisions to make money and preserve your capital. Emotions cloud your judgement, and do not allow you to view market information objectively. Emotional attachment to stocks causes you not to buy and sell at the right times.

Traders who get emotionally attached to stocks they own often turn into bag holders, as their emotions prevent them from respecting price action. Here are three reasons why traders develop emotional attachment to their stocks, and how to avoid them:

Oversized

The most common cause of traders’ emotional attachment is trading with too much size. They are trading with money they cannot afford to lose. We talked about it in yesterday’s article. You will bring in a lot of emotions into your trading if you are trading with a significant portion of your net worth. You are going to be very emotional in a trade where you are risking the money that you need to pay your rent. You should never risk money that causes you to change your lifestyle.  

Contrary to what new traders might think, decreasing size will actually end up making you money from your trading. When you decrease size, you worry less about the money, and as a result you trade with less emotional attachment to the capital you have in the market. When you have less emotional attachment to the money, you will be able to make trading decisions based on your plan.

Focused On Money, Not The Market

Even traders who are not risking huge suffer from emotional attachment because they don’t want to lose money. They are so attached to their money that they panic everytime the market goes a bit against them and they are down money temporarily. As a result, they can never hold a winning position long enough because they panic sell or cover every time the market makes an inevitable move against their position. They are worried about the money they have in the market instead of the signals the market is telling you.

No stock goes straight up or straight down. A stock moving against your position does not mean that you are wrong in your trade thesis. In trading, you have to risk it to get the biscuit. You rarely make $1000 in the stock market without risking at least $500 of the capital you invest. You cannot become a successful trader without risking money. Losing trades are inevitable.

Once you develop and execute a profitable trading strategy, you will make money in the long run. Losing trades are just the price you have to pay to make a living in the stock market. Remember this every time you are in a trade and you start to get scared of losing the money you have in the market. It will remind you to not get emotionally attached to the money you are risking, and let the trade play out.  

In Love With The Company

Successful traders trade the ticker, not the company. Losing traders fall in love with the CEO, the companies product, their team ect. As a result, they stop respecting price action, and hold on to a losing trade because they are attached to the company itself. They believe that the supposed “good fundamentals” are an excuse to hold onto a position that they are down 40% on.

Successful trading is the result of respecting price action, not because you buy companies you like. Just because you love Sears’ mattresses does not mean you should buy their stock. If you did, you would be losing a ton of money as they are going bankrupt.

The reverse scenario is shorting a company you don’t like.This is quite common with small cap stocks. Losing traders short just because a junk company is up 100% and they think it is going to 0. It then goes up 200% and the traders account is gone.

Never become emotionally attached to the companies you buy or short. They are all just charts on your screen. Do not let your emotional attachment to the company dictate when you hit the buy and sell button.  

If you missed Day 2 where we discussed gambling in trading, check out the article here.

Free Webinar 

We are doing a free web-class on December 17th where we will go over emotional attachemnt, and all of the 7 sins in even more detail, show exactly how to overcome these and, build a bulletproof mindset. Mark it on your calendar and join us live.

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Revenge Trading: 7 Deadly Trading Sins Day 1 https://bullsonwallstreet.com/revenge-trading-7-deadly-trading-sins-day-1/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=revenge-trading-7-deadly-trading-sins-day-1 Mon, 10 Dec 2018 22:50:25 +0000 https://bullsonwallstreet.com/?p=52916 Revenge trading is the easiest way to turn  a nice green day into a red one. It is one of the biggest issues we see for new traders. In order to become a profitable trader, you have to learn to combat revenge trading and eliminate it from your trading. In this article we will talk ...

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Revenge trading is the easiest way to turn  a nice green day into a red one. It is one of the biggest issues we see for new traders. In order to become a profitable trader, you have to learn to combat revenge trading and eliminate it from your trading. In this article we will talk about what it is, why it happens, and what you can do to combat these destructive tendencies.

What is Revenge Trading?

Revenge trading occurs after you have had one or several losing trades, and you start to get emotional. You want to make back the money you just lost, so you start forcing trades on sub-par trading setups. What happens after is that you end up losing even more money, you become even more emotional, and you start to spiral out of control.  

You jump on the next stock that moves and hope that it will rescue your day and restore the gains in your trading account you just lost. The setup is completely outside of your niche, and it ends up turning into another loss. You usually only trade the mornings, but you stick around in the afternoon to try to make your money back. Next thing you know, a small red day turned into you losing a whole week’s worth of profits in just half a day.  

Why Does It Happen?

It is human nature to want to get back what we just lost. Especially when it is something we are emotionally attached to like money. Traders are their most vulnerable after a loss, and the natural reaction is to try to make the money back. It is this mentality that makes casinos so profitable.

Every day there are thousands of stocks moving. There is a ton of temptation to trade one of these random stocks after a loss. Often your emotions will override the rational part of your brain, and you will end up viewing some of these random stocks as a legitimate trading opportunity. The reality is, these stocks are just moving randomly, and there is no edge trading them for you. But you cannot recognize that because you want to make back the money you just lost so badly. 

Solutions To This Issue

Revenge trading happens even to the most experienced of traders. The first step to preventing it from affecting your trading is developing high self-awareness. Turn your attention inward after you have had one or several losing trades. Recognize when you’re starting to get emotional.  

When trading opportunities present themselves in this state, maintain the ability to recognize which setups are a high probability, and which setups are low quality. Ask yourself: Is this a trade I would recommend to my mom with her life savings? 

If you are having difficulty controlling your revenge trading, taking a break and leaving your computer is the best thing for you to do. Getting away from charts will allow you to settle down and recollect yourself.

A daily max loss on your trading account is another great way to prevent revenge trading. A daily max loss will cause your trading account to become locked once you are down a certain amount of money on the day. This will prevent you from spiraling out of control, and prevent you from revenge trading your trading account.

Get Started With Our Free Trading Kit

Our trading kit is the best free resource out there for new and struggling traders. It includes:

  • Intro to Trading Course
  • Comprehensive Trading Handbook
  • Trading Consultation

Download your free trading kit here.

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The 7 Deadly Trading Sins Series https://bullsonwallstreet.com/the-7-deadly-trading-sins-series/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-7-deadly-trading-sins-series Sun, 09 Dec 2018 23:50:21 +0000 https://bullsonwallstreet.com/?p=52940 Want to know the secret to becoming a great trader? It is NOT some get rich quick scheme or trying to find the next small cap stock that will go up 1000%. It is overcoming your psychology and mastering the mental aspect of it. These 7 deadly trading sins are the threats to all traders. ...

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Want to know the secret to becoming a great trader?

It is NOT some get rich quick scheme or trying to find the next small cap stock that will go up 1000%.

It is overcoming your psychology and mastering the mental aspect of it. These 7 deadly trading sins are the threats to all traders. Once you can overcome these consistently, you will be well on your way to successful stock trading.

Over the next 7 days, we will be breaking down all 7 of these sins in detail and teach you how to combat these destructive tendencies. Here are the 7 sins of trading:

  1. Revenge Trading

Revenge trading is the easiest way to turn a normal red day into an account blow up. Revenge trading occurs after you have had one or several losing trades, and you start to get emotional. You want to make back the money you just lost, so you start forcing trades on subpar setups. What happens after is that you end up losing even more money, you become even more emotional, and you start to spiral out of control.

  1. Gambling

It is very easy to treat trading like gambling. Gambling is addicting by nature, and many new and inexperienced traders fall victim to this addiction. Just like in a casino, it is possible to make money in the stock market without much effort. But you will not make money consistently, and will end up losing money in the long run. The only way you can make money in the stock market is by trading a proven system with an edge. Doing anything other than this is just pure gambling, and will result in you losing all of your money.

  1. Emotional Attachment

Emotional attachment in trading will prevent you from making rational decisions. Emotions cloud your judgement, and do not allow you to view market information objectively. Emotional attachment to stocks causes you not to buy and sell at the right times. Traders who get emotionally attached to stocks they own often turn into bag holders, as their emotions prevent them from respecting price action.

  1. Slothfulness

The stock market is mechanism of moving money from the lazy and unprepared to the patient and hard working. Since the stock market is random, it is possible to make money buying and selling randomly without doing any technical or fundamental analysis. However you will not keep the money you make, and will end up losing money in the long run like most people who try to trade for a living. You are going up against some of the smartest and richest people in the world when you trade.   

  1. FOMO

Fear of missing out haunts traders of all experience levels. There is nothing worse than missing a 20% move in a stock that was on the top of your watchlist. This often causes traders to chase and buy way too high. Traders will often hastily jump in the next stock that moves with the expectation that it will make a monster move. The stock ends up just being a subpar setup, they lose money, and they become even more emotional.  

  1. Fear

Scared money does not make money in the stock market. Fear manifests itself in many different forms in trading. You cannot let the fear of losing money deter you from making a trade. You cannot let the fear of a winner turning into a loser cause you to take profits too soon. In trading, you have to risk money to make money. If you’re afraid to lose the money you are risking, you are likely trading too much size.

  1. Ego

You cannot let your ego get in the way of taking a loss. Losing traders will believe so strongly in their trade thesis, they won’t obey their stop loss because they don’t want to admit they were wrong. Stubbornness is the number one cause of account blow ups. You have to put your ego aside when you participate in the stock market. No one wins 100% of the time, and losing trades are inevitable. Do not let your ego get in the way of your ability to make rational trading decisions. Care more about making and keeping your money than being right.

Free Webinar 

We are doing a free webclass on December 17th where we will go over all of the 7 sins in even more detail, show exactly how to overcome these and, build a bulletproof mindset. Mark it on your calendar and join us live.

trading psychology webclass

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The Three Phases of Successful Trading | Momo Trader Day 2 https://bullsonwallstreet.com/the-three-phases-of-successful-trading-momo-trader-day-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-three-phases-of-successful-trading-momo-trader-day-2 Thu, 23 Aug 2018 22:42:20 +0000 https://bullsonwallstreet.com/?p=51364 Successful trading is not an overnight process. Many people get into trading because they think it will be an easy way to make a lot of money without hard work. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Trading is no different from any other entrepreneurial adventure. You need an education, and you have to put ...

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The Three Phases of Successful Trading

Successful trading is not an overnight process. Many people get into trading because they think it will be an easy way to make a lot of money without hard work. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Trading is no different from any other entrepreneurial adventure. You need an education, and you have to put in a lot of lonely hours in front of the computer.

However, there is no other profession that has the same level of freedom. No boss, no salary cap, work from anywhere with wifi, and when you get good, you can scale your income. Today we’re going to identify the three phases we see our students go through on their path to successful trading. Note these don’t always occur in this exact order, every person is different and unique.  

1. Finding Your Niche

There a ton of different trading instruments, trading styles, and trading strategies out there. It can be quite overwhelming at first. To start out, you need to figure out on what time frame you will trade on. Are you a day trader, swing trader, or long term investor? Or some mix of the 3? What you chose will often depend on your personality and time commitment you have available.

When starting out it’s recommended you pick a very specific niche where you look for one trading setup that you know inside and out. For example, it’s good to be day trading opening range breakouts on stocks with earnings breakouts. Whatever it is, you have to master one trading setup before you can master more.

Traders often make the mistake and try to be the jack of all trades, and trade everything that they “feel” looks hot. You have to develop the discipline and patience to wait for your “go-to setup”. Otherwise you will never make it as a successful trader who can do this for a living.  

2. Follow Risk Management Rules Like A Robot

Over the course of the trading year, risk management is the difference between winning and losing traders. Losing traders are not losing traders because they cannot put on a winning trade. They are losing traders because they don’t follow proper risk management rules and let emotion take over.

The most common combination we see is students who actually have a decent win percentage, but their risk vs reward is poor so they end up not making any money in the long run. These traders will often go on a hot streak of 5-10 consecutive green days, and then give back all their gains and then some in one trading day where they got stubborn.

Another common mistake traders will make is that they will take profits too soon. They get in the green on a trade, and they immediately lock it in because they are afraid it will turn into a loser. This behavior not only makes you emotional because you sold too soon, but it also skews your risk vs reward on your trades in the long run. Your losers will consistently be bigger than your winners because you are taking profits too soon. Developing a solid risk management strategy and following it like a robot is crucial to your success.

3. Mastering Your Psychology

Psychology is one of the most complex topics in trading. Trading psychology is what allows you to execute your trading strategy effectively, without letting you get in your own way. In trading you are your own worst enemy. Even if you have a profitable trading strategy, psychological obstacles can prevent you from executing the strategy correctly. There are three common psychological issues traders have to overcome: Fear, stubbornness, and greed.

Being overly fearful will prevent you from becoming a profitable trader. “Scared money don’t make money.” Fear of missing out on a big move will cause you to get bad entries. Fear of losing will cause you to misperceive market information, and not give your trades space to breathe. Fear in your trading will often be the result of trading too much size, because you are emotionally attached to the money you’re risking.

Stubbornness is a big issue for many traders. They really believe their trade thesis is correct, and don’t want to cut their loss and admit they are wrong. The market doesn’t care about your opinion. The stock market is just a mechanism for displaying information. If the market is showing you that your opinion is wrong, you have to listen to it. Losing trades are inevitable in trading, therefore you always have to prepare a course of action for your trade if it turns out to be a loser. Stubbornness can cause your trading career to end in a single day if you do not cut your losses when you are supposed to.

Greed causes you to incorrectly manage a trade because you want a big winning trade. Every winning trade will not be a home run. Trading for a career is about making consistent gains, not just one, over-leveraged, winning trade. Greed will cause you to act irrationally in the markets because you want to make a lot of money fast. It will cause you to not take profits when you should because you want a big winner. You are not listening to what the market is saying. Instead you are being controlled by a certain $ amount in your head that you want to make.

Did you check out day 1 of our Momo Trader Series? Yesterday we talked about ‘Who We Are As Momentum Traders‘.

Free Webinar With A Successful Student

We will be hosting a free 2 day webclass on Aug 28th and 29th. We invited one of our students who has taken our bootcamp and has created some great success in trading for himself. His name is Brian and he will teach his method for trading on the 29th. Reserve your seat here. 

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