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I have been trading not for long just my 4th week on a live account. I have started thinking about my psychology. Each time there is a losing trade I feel kinda satisfied because I sticked to my system and it is ok for me to have a loser. Strange thing is when I have a winning trade I never feel satisfied because I could have done better and do not really why.
It would be great if someone has some advise for me. Thanks
Well, you've already got an enormous advantage if you are mentally able to accept your losers as long as you adhered to your rules.
On the other hand, getting away with a winning trade is always fine and some kind of 'helpful' to your psychology, but in many (if not most) cases you're analyzing your trade after the fact and ask yourself if you've could done better.
But to be honest, WHO can say / predict in advance whether or not any given trade will go way farther in your direction than your original target is?
The answer is quite simple - NO ONE can...so there's nothing wrong with analyzing your trade after you closed it in order to optimize your stops and / or targets, but why you should NOT be satisfied with a winning trade if you followed your rules, just like feeling ok with a losing trade, like you stated...?
"If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much." - Jim Rohn
Guess the thing is that I try to manage my trades based on how the market evolves in order to adjust stop and target once I entered the market.
I.e., right today I went long in the ES at 3066,00 at 13:24hrs CDT as the break came. At the time I was of the opinion the market will go up at least until 3080,00. However, as the market went up I noticed a divergence in the cumulative Delta. It went down, the market up. So I sold half of my position (target was almost reached) and I went also short in the anticipation that the market follow the delta at some point. Market bounced back from 3073 and I gathered some ticks and put the stop on BE of my long position. Market came further down caught my stop and moved up sharply a second after.
My head says now if I hadn't put the stop breakeven I would have made some good amount of ticks (market went up to 3100). So I guess I have to set myself tighter rules and accept the winning trades as they come. Like as you said, no one can ever predict where the market goes.
Exactly, and there's nothing wrong with this trading style as long as it fits to your personality and psychology.
If you're comfortable with scaling in / out and having a runner in play, that's just fine. Depending on market volatility, you'll have some great winners as well as missing out on some profits, depending on the wiggle room you're allowing the trade.
As from my experience AND my stats, I'm almost always better off by going all-in and all-out of a trade, since I like to have a more 'fast and easy' trade with a fixed target. Will I miss out on some big moves ? Sure, definitely I will, and I'm totally fine with that. But I'm much more comfortable with this trading style, and it fits best to my psychology.
So, it always comes down to a person's personality and psychology, and everyone needs to find out what fits best and where the 'comfort zone' ends...
"If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much." - Jim Rohn
Almost everyone, in any situation in life can experience emotions such as excitement, hope, fear and greed. Unfortunately, while trading on the market, these emotions can hurt the trader at the most important moment. Since emotions have the property to influence the human subconscious, they also become a kind of basis for making decisions. Often, decisions made under the influence of emotions don't bring the expected result. It's very important to be aware of your positive and negative aspects, to recognize the emotions you experience and to understand how they affect your productivity. If a trader learns to understand his psychological state - he can hope for guaranteed success. So try to understand your emotions, and perhaps the problem will go away.
ou just have to reboot yourself. Maybe you should take a mini pause and take your mind off the trade. Of course, we all hate to lose our capital, and many people take their losses too seriously, which makes them depressed and worse only for themselves. My advice is that you need to trade smaller amounts for a while, and this will help you to take your losses more calmly.
