Are you losing money every month in one or two trades?
Do you have a habit of turning a profitable month into losing one in one or two trades?
Do you have this tremendous urges now and then about a profitable trade ?.. which turns into your losing trade!
Here are few signs that needs your attention:
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Every month you lose money in one or two trades even though you have 4 or 5 wins.
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Suddenly out of blue you trade more that usual lot and lose money and you wonder what happened.
- You get this sudden hunches that one trade is definitely going to be profitable one and you bet more than you normally do… only to end up losing.
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For no reason you are so happy today that you decided to trade on a tip which you usually avoid. And you end up losing.
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You get up with a bad mood and your day just gets progressively worst by losing money on trading
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You fought with your wife or broker or you are generally pissed off and you are trading. You lose.
- You get up and suddenly things are not working., computer down, Internet problems, broker problems and you are not able to enter a trade at right time but you still go ahead and trade and you lose.
- You pray in the middle of trade to go your way. God becomes suddenly important to you.
- Finally you take out on your loss on family members and friends by shouting at them.you carry anger to sleep.
- You tend to trade heavily on Friday(before long weekend) or on F&O expiry or just month end or during month start.
Like it or not , almost every trader from amateur to professional goes thru these periods every month. For all those people who think that traders job is easy… Helllloooooooo…take a walk …we work hard as anyone else.
Now coming to main theme, if you can overcome above mentioned trader blocks then chances are that you are on your way to become better trader.
Here are few ways to overcome trader periods:
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Check you trading records, check for dates or days of week over last six months for losing trades. Let me give you example. I used to lose regularly quite a bit of money on last days of the month and and on F&O expiry day. I attribute this loss to my eagerness to make some extra money before the end of month and before expiry. My absence from trading on these days automatically reduced my losses.
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Whenever you fight with someone or your morning starts with bad mood, like you are irritated, do not trade. If you are a home trader and had fight with wife or broker or problems with comp, trading is absolute NO NO, unless you have open positions to close.
- Don’t get into prayer while trading. God is market. If you respect trading rules then you are already in prayer. The only spiritual quality you need to cultivate is to take a minimum loss and exit .
- If you have strong urge to trade more than usual quantity then slap yourself before you take a trade. I solved this problem by keeping only limited money in my trading allocation so that i can never take more than usual lots even if i want to.
- Look for sleepy afternoons. Institution traders come in around 11:30 noon, usually trend changes or accelerates around this time. If you are sleepy or energy dissipates around noon, Do something about it to keep yourself alert. I take deep breaths attentively for few minutes to bring back focus.
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Watch out for strong intuition and hunches. Yes they do work sometime really well but if you want make money you need to be consistent. Remember market is nothing but a monstrous mind consisting of millions of traders. You are not just trading but also fighting mind of the market. Remember how your emotions are influenced when you watch a movie, or a sports match. Similarly markets tend to influence you and usually traders lose big on hunches. That’s why you need trading rules.
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Watch out for a day when you keep coming across same stock again and again. For example you getup and think about Reliance Industries and then suddenly you hear recommendation on TV on RIL, suddenly you notice RIL tip on ET paper. Your friend calls you up to tell you that he has position on RIL and your broker gives call on RIL. This is the time check your rules nothing else.
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Watch out of tricks of the mind, you play stocks on results day, you play banks on RBI announcement. You play IT stocks on Dollar volatility days. Traders tend to get attracted to these stocks on these D days. If you have rules you will stay away from these poker games.
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You tend to take revenge for your loss by playing same stock again and again. You trade more with loss to make up. and you lose more.
At the end of the day. It is not enough to have a good strategy…IT is more important to be disciplined Mentally, emotionally and in your trades. Discipline of risk management and Sticking to your rules goes a long way to keep your P&L healthy.
Take care…Have a great week ahead!
All the Best
SureshG
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In case you have missed this earlier post…
…hope you never get to use it!