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After many years waking up at 6:30AM during college and after graduating, I've developed my trading ability to a level that I'm pretty content with, although I will still look to develop more edges.
However the past few weeks, I've been taking too many marginal trades which I end up selling too quickly and they end up costing me quite a bit since I am overtrading. The setups that I've learned however, end up being quite a bit of a banger.
I guess my question is how do all of you other traders who normally only trade 1-3 high probability setups during the day, manage to keep your hands off from trading all the other marginal trades? Also, what do you do to keep focused for 8 hours on the screen a day??
I guess my weakness, as the day starts I am all setup to trade, and as the opening bell rings, it feels like watching a horse race. I want to get in on the action too, but in the end up it ends up costing me. Rather it's more like I need the discipline to not feel the need to trade and just WAIT like a Cheeath but for 8 hours, its quite a long time.
I do my prep in the morning, and identify the areas where I'm going to be looking for signs to enter. I already know what I'm looking for and I know what setups I'll take if some of my signs are there.
Then I set alarms on NinjaTrader. I do this by using a 'sim' account and placing fake orders so the 'order filled' becomes my alarm. I then walk away, checking on the market periodically every 15-60 minutes depending on the time of day
Once alarms set I come in knowing what to look for and all that's left for me to do is make a decision on whether or not I'm taking the setup
This way I don't miss the setups I'm looking for, but I'm not staring at the screen the whole day. I find that the longer I look at the screen, the more setups I create in my head and the more trades I take.
Check out a link to my journal to see in detail how I execute this:
Goals for the day
Do not look at P&L
Do not break any golden rules
Engage your deliberate thinking for all trades
0 FOMO trades
0 Emotional trades
Maximum of 2 trades today
The only setups I'll …
I've been doing this for a couple of weeks now and I've found it so much easier to keep disciplined. The # of trades I've taken has significantly decreased and I'm no longer taking 5-10 trades in 30 minutes on setups that I never intended to take in the first place. Of course, I still have a long way to go but this has helped me so far.
This isn't an easy beast to slay, but it's one that is purely under your control, so that's awesome!
Cheers.
Yesterday's excellence is today's standard and tomorrow's mediocrity
Trading: Futures, spot FX, Energy Spreads Prop Firm
Posts: 61 since Jun 2011
Thanks Given: 16
Thanks Received: 61
you problem is very common and personally I believe most people will not overcome it. It helped me to stop TRYING to be discplined and start BEING disciplined. You have to make it part of you and just tell yourself this is what I am now, this is my destiny. The more you try the more frustrated you will get when you break the rules.
When you are ready just make the decision to be discplined in your trading, that means only taking planned trades and managing each trade properly taking partial profits and reducing risk not continually swinging for the fence. good luck.
