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Going Beyond Psychology to make Winning Trades and Nice Profits
Shivaya - thanks for that link - I look forward to watching it. I have been following Denise Shull for a while and her stuff is great (too bad she keeps pushing back the publication of her book!).
I'm still stuck in the mechanical stage of trading - I'm not quite "good enough" to enter the subjective or intuitive stages just yet. I have flashes of what the subjective or intuitive stages can look like but my mechanical abilities are still in their infancy. That said, all of the points discussed in this thread still apply to the mechanical stage because (as denise argues), like it or not, we are always involving our emotions in our decision making.
surly
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
Thank you for the unique thread/conversation here.
I agree with much of what you have said here, and it relates in many ways to a number of books I have read, as well as my own personal experience. I am most recently reading a book titled the Power of the Subconscious by Joseph Murphy.
I am a big believer in the power of the subconscious, and learning to use it as a tool to help you get to that place you call the 'Sweet State' to help when trading, among other things. I saw what I would call huge leaps in becoming consistent in my trading once I was able to recognize that becoming more self-aware, taking full responsibility, and other psychological aspects were much more important than any set of indicators/trading system. But, for me, in order to build the confidence I needed I had to start with a system which I felt good about, one which spoke to me, and then stick with it for an extended period of time. This experience helped plant the 'good seeds' in my subconscious, which over time, made trading less emotional, and more about focusing on now, which is, focus on what I can control, the ability to execute now, and not think about what just happened and what will happen. I am interested in learning more about Denise Shull and what she has to say.
Thank you again for sharing your experience, and the link on Denise.
Gary
As consistently profitable traders.. "We get paid to wait, and we wait to get paid."
Namaste Shivaya, good to see you posting again. I listened to the webinar but I didn't get the reason why...The Best Traders do the Most Instant Messaging...can you explain why this is?
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." --- "Therefore, I Believe it and I will see it. And every day and in every way, I am healthier, wealthier, and wiser."
That is a very Powerful Book, you must Truly Believe in the Source of the Power or your Subconscious will know.
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." --- "Therefore, I Believe it and I will see it. And every day and in every way, I am healthier, wealthier, and wiser."
"To whom are you directing your requests for help? Now, because
you do not know yourself you do not realize that every single
second of your day, of your life, you're asking for help and
the reason you do that is because there's a certain agitating
part of you that is dissatisfied, that's unhappy, and you want
relief from its persistent torment.
As a matter of a fact, you are always, and listen to the way I
put this now, you are always, even right now as your hearing
this talk, you're in the state of prayer, of request, of asking,
of seeking, of desperately wanting to go somewhere to take yourself
away from where you presently are.
Now I started the talk with asking you to whom are you directing
your prayer, your request.This question must be so clearly answered
by you that you are jolted, so shocked by the answer to
that question that you begin to turn in the right direction."
Go for it ALL!!! Not just Gold and Glory...
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." --- "Therefore, I Believe it and I will see it. And every day and in every way, I am healthier, wealthier, and wiser."
In my experience the simple answer is attentiveness. Having a group of likeminded traders to text, tweet keeps your attention on the market and the players in the market. The Truth of the market is created by other traders placing orders, not charts. People make trades, people program strategies.
Attention flowers into awareness. Awareness lets go of fear. Awareness dissolves uncertainty, yet as a trader our task is to love uncertainty. (We can all trade yesterdays chart.) This is simple ( now, not easy, but simple) to do with awareness. The key is to get the brain out of the trade. Let the awareness feeling run your trading book.
The reason many top traders tweet is because a tweet is their awareness of the market right now. Try tweeting your own awareness just to yourself (no followers) and at the end of the day you can see how you read the market.
Consistency exists in attentiveness because in those sweet moments I am free from the activity of the brain. Attention flowers into awareness. Awareness lets go of survival, fear, uncertainty and accumulation. Awareness dissolves uncertainty and connects me to the powerful Sweetness of Being. Just go beyond the ego brain and see.
This is the state to be maintained in trading. It is not that live trading is different from sim trading. Both activities are exactly the same. I have used brainwork to create a strategy and my powerful sweet inner being to trade it. It is the ego brain that wants to control the whole situation whereas in sim the powerful inner being does the trading.
Still the brain and trade from the sweet state and the beautiful awareness beyond the brain takes over. This is the task of a live trader. This state is never achieved through thought and brain. Always beyond thought. The ego brain wants to rule the world, wants to take over the trading. Wants to stress and worry. That is its nature.
Stillness produces a feeling of no-mind. Sometimes called being in the zone, connected to Source, God Inspired, Holy Spirit, Emptiness, Divine Mind. It is in this sweet state feeling that all true trading takes place. This state is not reached through the brain but through a 'feeling' reached in stillness, attentiveness and awareness.
An attentive state of mind can never be deceived. Bad trades are always brought about by a state of casualness. The exact opposite of attentiveness. I need another $230 to give me a $2000 day, so we take a casual trade and lose $1200! Whereas being attentive we only take the good trades. I never ever take a bad trade when I am Being Attentive. Even a losing trade is a good one in attentiveness. Good because we cut the loss correctly.
Shivaya, correct me if I am wrong but in essence you are teaching a form of mindfulness here in your thread. Although yours has more flare than most teachings. I have been learning mindfulness over the past couple of years and have found to be truly useful in all aspects of my life. The ability to be aware of what you are thinking at the time you are thinking it is a unique and outstanding experience. In a lot of ways its like viewing your mind in third person.
For trading, mindfulness has allowed me to understand why I am taking the trade; ie Is it because the indicators are telling me too or is it because I just had 5 successful trades in a row and feel invincible? Obviously the latter is the one to avoid. Although I am still learning, I can not imagine trading without mindfulness.
Why do you need to understand why you are taking the trade? You spent 1500 hours figuring out that, when the market is in this state, and this bar does this and that candle does that, or when this indicator does this, and that indicator does that, and this other indicator does this, then this is a trade setup. And you spent another 1000 hours looking through historical charts to prove that those assumptions are correct most of the time. The reasoning for taking that trade is built in to the method you are trading. Understanding why you are taking the trade at this point should be irrelevant, you already know the reason, you spent 2500 hours figuring out the reason.
If you are not pulling that trigger every time your setup criteria is met, I will tell you the reason why. 2 reasons, greed and fear. Then, every trade you take or skip is rooted from a psychological cause. Every trade you skip is rooted from the fear of losing. Every trade you take is rooted from greed, because you think it has a better chance of making you money. That's why you feel invincible when you get 5 wining trades in a row, you get a compounding accumulation of greed. That's why you hesitate after the 3rd loss, you get a compounding accumulation of fear, because every trade starts from one of those emotions, whether you realize it or not.
The answer is, knowing the historical win percentage of your method, and trusting those stats. No need to predict the market, no need for transcendental meditation, or a mental state above and beyond the norm. The necessary criteria is built in the stats, the necessary analysis is built in the stats, the heard psychology is built in the stats, all you need is already built in the stats. Markets don't radically change overnight, the habits and psychology of market participants don't change overnight. The way they behaved during the 2500 hours of history you looked at, is the same they will behave again in general. Now, every win becomes part of the stats working themselves out, and every loss become part of the stats working themselves out. The result is the removal of the fear and greed, the removal of the bulk of the psychological entanglements with each and every single trade.
monpere, I think you misunderstood the latter part of my post because it sounds like we are saying the same thing: eliminate greed and fear and trade on what you see and what you know. I was merely sharing a example of why a trader might place a trade. One was right decision and the second was the wrong decision. Personally mindfulness has helped me deal with greed and fear when it arises. Your answer to overcome greed and fear is to focus on stats. Same end goal, different ways of getting there.
Its apparent you are a very organized and analytical thinker vs myself which is very analytical / holistic thinker. We are two different brain types. To try to apply your method to me is like fitting a round peg in a square hole. I could do it but I would not be very good at it.
You might be interested in this: I do a lot of team building in my day job, and one of things you have to consider is brain types. Not everybody thinks the same therefore everyone learns differently. We use a test to determine brain types; check out HBDI on google, it is brain dominance analysis. Based on your postings you appear to be a blue/green thinker (Analytical / Organized) where I am blue/yellow (analytical / holistic). See attached graph for the 4 brain types.
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." --- "Therefore, I Believe it and I will see it. And every day and in every way, I am healthier, wealthier, and wiser."
I have been learning mindfulness over the past couple of years and have found to be truly useful in all aspects of my life. The ability to be aware of what you are thinking at the time you are thinking it is a unique and outstanding experience. In a lot of ways its like viewing your mind in third person. 