Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
Finally Turning the Corner, tha "its 80% Psychology" thing...
Hi Mike, Terry and all, I've been thinking about the webinar. In the spirit of expanding the ideas
in this thread and accelerating growth for traders, here's what I came up with..
An Afternoon with Tropical Trader:
*Trading Journey/Timeline
*Pitfalls and Lessons Learned
*On Strengths and Kryptonite
*What I Wish I'd known About Psychology
*Some Trading Lessons from Real Masters
*Ways to Improve as a Trader
*Bonus: A Few Technology Hacks
I listened to Trading in the Zone for around the 10th time over the weekend. It's such an e p i c book.. So densely packed with knowledge. If I could only have one psychology book, that would be the one..
A few passages I highlighted in my notebook:
"Consistency is a state of mind"
"The best traders aren't afraid, preventing them from getting reckless"
"What separates the best traders from everyone else is not what they do or how they do it - but rather how they think about what they do and how they are thinking when they do it".
"Fear is the source of 95% of trading errors"
"Your state of mind is a byproduct of your beliefs and attitudes. Winning is a state of mind just like happiness, having fun and satisfaction are states of mind."
"One habit many losing traders have is blaming the market. They shift the responsibility onto the market". (victim mentality)
"Taking responsibility is the cornerstone of a winning attitude"
"When you are winning, you are more susceptible to making a mistake. Euphoria makes you believe that nothing can go wrong".
The 4 Trading Fears:
Fear of losing money
Fear of missing out
Fear of being wrong
Fear of leaving money on the table
Remember that this is a process and usually requires a lot of time, consistent effort, mental toughness and constant repetition to re-train your minds (rational, limbic, reptilian) to be effective for trading. Since I started putting in full time hours 6 months ago and doubled-down on my psychology+workload, I've made huge improvements.. I've also beaten one of my nemesis', having "emotional blowup days".
Something else that's very useful I received from Dr. Steenbarger - make a list of what sets you off ("makes you" angry, frustrated, filled with regret, etc).. For me it was being "wrong" and too much stress (from putting on too big size, making mistakes, impulsive trading, taking a few losses in a row and losing confidence in my ability).
My charts have gone though some evolution since the first posts...
I'm really enjoying how I perceive market data through my 4 screens.
Two 27" Portrait, + 1 32" Landscape + 15" Laptop screen for order entry and journaling
(In this photo there's 3 27's but I only use the far left one when I hook up my other laptop)
My goal was to keep it as simple as possible with all the data I need to make decisions
The left screen shows my profile charts. Top left is 24 hour profile, top right is whichever session I'm trading only (trading during europe hours this week) and the bottom chart compares the US sesh with EU sesh. Those charts show me important levels and help determine my biases.
You'll notice I'm using both the futures data and the spot data. I like to compare them..
The center screen is my trigger chart and shows rotation data (zigzag), momentum (trix) and "bull/bear" bias (cci) plus there is a hma on the very bottom that I use to evaluate certain setups. Notice how the renko bricks color is unusual, its helpful for not going on autopilot, also they're very close in color so I'm more aware of the patterns. White dotted line is the Initial Balance (that's the first hour of trading with high volume, so first hour of Europe or US)
The right screen has my footprint/s (left is spot, right is futures) and my "intraday map" chart. White line is vwap, turquoise line is the mid and a trix below.
