Tag: traders mindset

Forex Trading, Basketball & the Mindset of Winners

~ Vera J.

What separates a winning trader from a losing trader is their psychological mindset.

“JUST TRYING TO GET BETTER EVERY DAY…”

That was the late Kobe Bryant’s daily mantra. Bryant was hyper-focused in his pursuit of greatness. While it’s easy for people to point at masters like Bryant and remark that their talent is simply God-given, the reality is that even though some might have natural attributes or abilities, what distinguishes the ordinary from the extraordinary is the amount of work and dedication put into perfecting a craft. “If you want to be great in a particular area, you have to obsess over it and just try to get better every day,” said Bryant. And that’s exactly what he did and what you should follow in your trading journey.

TRADING MINDSET TRAINING. Just like in the game of basketball and in perfecting any craft, it takes lots of training, but mostly it takes “mindset training”.

 

Definition Of Mindset: The established set of attitudes and beliefs held by an individual.

 

There are 8 essential attitudes and beliefs that are essential in the development of a good Forex trading mindset.

COMMITMENT: You must be committed to the task set before you deciding that you will not quit and have the fortitude to do anything that is necessary to accomplish your goal. That includes working and developing your mindset, not just your trading skills.


PERSISTENCE: Becoming a profitable trader and maintaining a winning trading mindset is not going to be easy. Be ready for ups and downs; just keep moving forward and improving despite difficult times.


SELF-AWARENESS: Self examination is critical to developing a successful winning mindset. The best way is to not be judgmental, critical, or emotional when things go wrong but rather acknowledge it, then create an action plan to improve on weaknesses.


PERFORMANCE METRICS: Build a list of performance metrics with goals to show whether you are growing or not. Analyze the results of your goal on a regular basis. Keep yourself accountable to analyze the results. Keep a trading journal. Sign up for a myfxbook account. Have an accountability partner. This is where persistence comes in. Be persistent in analyzing your performance metrics and implementing ways to improve.

POSITIVE ATTITUDE: A positive attitude does not deny the truth by saying everything is great no matter what. A positive attitude is where if something is wrong, you remain positive and try to fix it. You say, “Yes, I had a losing week,” or, “Yes, I didn’t follow my rules, but I am confident I will do better next time.” The opposite of this is having a negative attitude where people will find and attach blame for their problems and if they attach blame then they will not do the necessary steps required for self-growth.


HUNGER: Not hunger for achievement, but hunger for growth. A growth-mindset will keep you on the path to continual improvement like what we offer at Global Trading Army; a way to learn, earn and grow. As a trader, if you continue along this path, financial improvement will follow.


HUMILITY: Someone who has a winning trading mindset isn’t better than anyone else or smarter than anyone else. But they understand that growing is challenging and we need to stay humble and keep learning or we will start to decline.


OPENNESS: It is so hard to share our faults, especially those of us that are leading other people. If you are willing to share struggles and reach out for help then it keeps you growing. Some of our most greatest times of growth comes through some of the most painful circumstances. Everyone goes through those so we must be ready for them and share them. And luckily here at Global Trading Army, we have developed a supportive community to help you and be there when you are ready to share.

 

Being a Trader is not just about formulating better strategies and performing more extensive analysis, but is also about developing a winning mindset and be on a relentless pursuit of “just getting better every day.”

If you’d like to join others on this pursuit of being the Kobe Bryant of trading, join us in our community. Learn from our educational packages and be a part of our live trading sessions.

Trading is a difficult skill to master. Very few people become highly successful at it. However, it is possible for virtually anyone to become a master trader as long as they are willing to make the necessary effort.

Source: Sorena Maes

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Stop Waiting For That Perfect Forex Trade Setup!

~ Vera J.

When you’re risking your own money, do you feel the need to find that secret information that nobody yet knows or to find the perfect Forex trade setup?

Forex Trading

Some traders are so obsessed with trying to find the “perfect trade” that they end up not trading enough to get experience and develop the trader mindset, which in turn decreases the odds of long-term profitability.

Forex trading is not the line of work you want to be in if you’re a perfectionist!!!

You can plan a trade systematically only to end up losing money because an unforeseen event invalidates the trade setup that you thought was sooo perfect, slapping you in the face and forcing you to question your trading skills. That’s just the way the cookie crumbles!

While you don’t want to become a careless and impulsive Forex trader, you don’t want to be an extreme perfectionist either. Remember that there’s no such a thing as a “perfect setup” or a guaranteed profit.

Rather than looking for the “perfect” setup, just find a setup with a good probability of success. Yes, you might make less profit per trade (or even lose that trade), but you’ll actually take the risk and give yourself a chance to develop your skills, learn, and make a profit.

You may find that you prefer a “less-than-perfect” trade since you’re more relaxed, which tends to be more supportive of high performance than being stressed (which a perfectionist mindset tends to bring).

Forex trading is just like dating because it’s all about probabilities. You must make many trades (or kiss many frogs) to get the law of averages to work in your favor or to eventually score that big win.

As long as the setups are legitimate and you’re using sound money management and risk control to max out profits and cut losses, you’ll make enough trades to come out ahead. You’ll be able to get the losing trades “off your back” and focus on winning trades.

If you’re an unyielding perfectionist, you’ll always be on edge and will hardly be able to execute any trades. This will be your downfall  because you won’t be able to pull the trigger on Forex trades that were “less than perfect” but had a good chance of profitability.

Dare to be average and see what happens. A student who makes straight “A’s” may be smarter but the “C” student sitting behind him may be richer.

Source: BabyPips

 

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Mindset – Distractions and Identifying Your Top 3 Priorities

~ Vera J.

Do you find yourself being distracted and not accomplishing as much as you want to?

Today, Terri shares how determining your top three priorities is one of the greatest ways to overcome the destructive power of distractions.

Enjoy!

 

 

Don’t Let Regret Keep You From Forex Trading

~ Vera J.

No matter what, whether a five dollar roll of toilet paper or a new car, we always feel buyer’s regret when making a purchase.

Forex trading can be very similar. We put our money (real or demo) on the line in the pursuits of financial gain and happiness.

Our trades are placed plentiful when the potential for profit is there, and we scurry away with lightning speed when the crowd starts selling off in great numbers. “Hurry, everybody out!”

This fear (and greed for some) becomes a controlling emotion, dictating their currency trading decisions and behavior. Just as powerful an emotion as fear and greed, is regret too.

Regret is similarly controlling, it can keep us from placing a trade because we don’t want make a mistake. We want to feel good about our decisions and strategies.

In our attempt to do feel this way, we find it more painless to steer clear of making a trade all together, avoiding any risk of failure. Taking this mindset of avoidance, however, will definitely not lead us to the potential for profits that we seek.

Regret comes about after we make a decision and we then start picturing the things that could have gone differently.

When trading, regret is an easy feeling to have because it can occur both when making a move or when doing absolutely nothing.
Forex TradingFor instance, you open a trade with the best intentions, only to have it stop out for a loss of your entire account balance. You automatically feel regret for ever taking the position and now being poor.

On the other side, you don’t take a position because you’re allergic to risk. Your missed opportunity turns out to be the trade of the century, and it would have made you a gazillionaire! Arrrgghh! You seep into a state of utter regret.

For both examples, it’s easy to imagine the could-have-beens. We envision ourselves in those “winning” realities and how everything is so heavenly. But then we come back to Earth where things are definitely not paradise.

Sometimes regret can give us that extra kick in the ribs to get off the floor and back on our feet. It compels us to get right what we initially did wrong.

When the going gets tough and you lose yet another Forex trade, the right response to your mistake is too re-evaluate your strategy and the market. You do more testing and try your skills on another new trade. You want that losing trade back!

In the last example, we used the regret we felt for our errors to motivate and encourage ourselves to try again.

Taking this new perspective when things don’t go as planned will have a positive impact on your mental attitude and your trading as a whole. Don’t get hung up on the loss. Forget about it and move on!

Some Forex traders have an issue with feeling regret even before a trade is made. No action has been taken, but the worry starts to consume the mind. All they can think about is making a mistake. In this instance, the possibility of a regrettable outcome is stopping them from acting.

To help, we must remind ourselves that it isn’t the end of the world and that there’s still time to fix what’s not working. We can’t change our past trades but we can definitely make new ones to take those profits back.

Again, the key here is action; the point is to make the trade. Don’t let regret hold you back from progressing by means of action.

And remember, not all risk is bad. Taking risks that are minimal and calculated are integral to growing into a successful Forex trader.

Source: Baby Pips

 

Main Trading Feeling – Greed or Fear

~ Vera J.

To my mind, greed is a bad thing. Greed may make trader to hold the position without any reason just because he wants it to make him money. Such trader would hold even loosing positions thinking that it “must” get him those money back. This is the most common problem of the greedy traders that would be better to avoid.
Forex TradingAt the other side, if your main trading feeling is fear, it would just make you to close your positions with the small profits or to avoid new trades at all. Anyway, you would no loose huge amount of money. For sure, too much fear could also cause under-performance.

Even experienced trader influenced by the fear could miss great trading opportunities one by one. Another point is that closing positions too early could influence the risk-reward ratio that requires profits to be larger than losses.

Both of these feelings, greed AND fear, are negative. Trader need to be able to change his behavior from aggressive to conservative, depending on current market conditions.

Source: Baby Pips

 

 

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Forex Trading – More About Revenge Trading

~ Vera J.

Revenge trading is mainly driven by the fear of being wrong. It’s usually when a trader, coming from a particularly frustrating loss, decides to make up for it by being more aggressive in his/her next trades.

This is dangerous for your account for two main reasons. First, it forces you to throw your trading discipline out the window. It shifts your focus from your trading process and good risk management to trying to make enough money to recover your losses with less thought out trades.

Trading based on emotions and luck is not trading. It’s gambling. Without any risk management plan, it can bleed your account one trade at a time.
Revenge tradingIt’s also a lose-lose situation. If you lose a revenge trade, you deepen your drawdown with a trade that you had barely planned for.

Revenge trades come in many forms but the most common one is when traders take impulsive (and usually bigger) trades after a particularly frustrating loss in the hopes of making back the money they’ve lost.

Luckily, there are ways to recover from a bout of revenge trading.

Step Out and Clear Your Head After a Frustrating Loss
Do non-trading related activities and come back only once you’ve acknowledged that losing is part of the game.

Document the Reasons Why You Lost Your Trade
Identifying what went wrong with your trade and focusing on improving your trading process helps lessen the feeling that the market is against you.

Take Note of Your Triggers and Tells on Your Trading Journal
Do you do it when you’re trading big positions or when you got taken out by unexpected catalysts? Do you do usually bite your fingernails or scream at your cat before doing it? Knowing your triggers helps you prevent yourself from taking on more revenge trades.

Trust in Your System!
If you’ve tested your system and follow your trading plan 100%, then you won’t mind the losses much because you know that the end numbers will add up in your favor in the end.

Practice Risk Management
If you make risk management a habit, then you’ll have better trading discipline and are less likely to take impulsive trades. If you’re not used to it yet though, then you can start with following strict rules on position sizes and trade duration.

Remember that even the most consistently profitable traders have bad trading days. It’s all part of the game after all. Don’t take losses to mean that the market is against you. It doesn’t care about your feelings or how sound your trade ideas are. It’s not you, it’s just Forex trading.

By Dr. Pipslow

Source: Baby Pips

 

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Forex Trading Newbie Tip

~ Vera J.

When you met your goal for the day… stop and smell the roses.
trading ForexRelax, take in your win. Demo trade if you must. Remember: this is a mental game. The market takes advantage of the greedy and feeds the patient. Also don’t forget to celebrate your victory.

Source: Scharlette Donald

 

 

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What Forex Traders Do To Guarantee Their Own Failure

~ Vera J.

Did you know that the five deadliest factors that cause traders to fail are self-inflicted? Many traders self-sabotage their own trading and may not even be aware they’re doing it. When their account goes to zero, they have nobody to blame but themselves.

While it might be too late for these traders, fortunately, it’s not too late for you. We want to make sure that you don’t suffer from the same blind spots and can, hopefully, avoid sharing the same fate of a blown account.

To make it easier to remember, we call these negative factors, the “O’s of Trading“, and there are five of them.

What are the 5 “O’s”?
Forex traders
Overconfidence
Overconfidence isn’t simply the feeling that you can handle anything. Overconfidence is characterized by an inflated belief in one’s own trading skills.

Confidence is critical in becoming a successful trader. When you’re confident, you’re more likely to take risks or look for opportunities.

However, it’s one thing to believe that your trades can potentially be profitable, but it’s another thing to think that you know everything about the markets and that there’s no way for you to ever lose because all you do is win.

While confidence is necessary, too much confidence can have negative consequences.

To minimize the effects of the overconfidence effect, you must take time to truly understand yourself and what you are capable of achieving. Most importantly, you must ALWAYS consider the possibility that you are WRONG, to listen to new evidence, and to know when to change your mind!

Overtrading (Including Revenge Trading)
Overtading is when you are trading too frequently, taking extremely large trades, and/or taking uncalculated risks.

Successful traders are extremely patient. Quality setups take time to materialize, so they remain patient and wait for confirmation.

It doesn’t matter if the setup takes two hours or two weeks to take shape. What matters is protecting their capital so they will wait until the odds are more in their favor before entering.

You will know if you are overtrading. If you close a trade for a loss and deep down, you feel like you shouldn’t have taken the trade, then you’re GUILTY of overtrading.

For example, when you’re supposed to trade from the daily chart, do you find yourself still looking at the lower time frames like the 5-minute chart and “discovering” better trades there?

Do you find yourself spending hours staring at charts and trying to “force” a trade with a “good enough” setup?

Revenge Trading
Letting your emotions get to you regarding your trading performances is dangerous. When it comes to trading, the head, not the heart, should be in charge.

When you suffer a large loss, or a series of losses, within a short span of time, you might be tempted to “revenge trade”. You want to “get back at the market”.

Revenge trading is when you jump back into a new trade right after taking a loss because you believe that you can quickly flip the loss back into a profit.

When you start thinking like this, your state of mind is not objective anymore. You become more prone to making even more trading mistakes, which results in you losing even more money.

Trading is a game of patience. Traders who wait for quality setups and sit on their hands in between are the ones who will end up profitable in the long run. Focus on the process. Not on the profits.

Overleveraging
In Forex trading, leverage means that with a small amount of capital in your account, you can open and control a much larger trading position.

For example, with a $1,000, your broker might allow you to open a $100,000 position. This is 100:1 leverage. The advantage of using leverage is you can magnify gains with a limited amount of capital. The disadvantage of leverage is that you can also magnify your losses and quickly blow your account!

Overexposure
When you have multiple positions open in your trading account and each position consist of a different currency pair, always make sure you’re aware of your RISK EXPOSURE.

For example, on most occasions, trading AUD/USD and NZD/USD is essentially like having two identical trades open because they usually move in a similar manner.

Even if there are two valid trade setups in both pairs, you may not want to take both. Instead, it might make more sense to pick ONE out of the two setups.

You might believe that you’re spreading or diversifying your risk by trading in different pairs, but many pairs tend to move in the same direction. So instead of reducing risk, you are magnifying your risk! Unknowingly, you are actually exposing yourself to MORE risk. This is known as overexposure.

Unless you plan on trading just one pair at a time, it’s crucial that you understand how different currency pairs move in relation to each other. You need to understand the concept of currency correlation.

Overriding Stops
Stop losses are pending orders you enter that effectively close out your trading position(s) when losses hit a predetermined price.

It might be psychologically difficult for you to acknowledge being wrong, but swallowing your pride can keep you in the game longer.

In the heat of battle, what often separates the long-term winners from the losers is whether or not they can objectively follow their predetermined plans.

Traders, especially the more inexperienced ones, often question themselves and lose that objectivity when the pain of losing kicks in. Negative thoughts appear such as, “I’m already down a lot. Might as well hold on. Maybe the market will turn right here.” Wrong!

If the market has reached your stop, your reason for the trade is no longer valid and it’s time to close it out. Do not widen your stop. Even worse, do not override or remove your stop and “Let it ride!”

Increasing your stop only increases your risk and the amount you will LOSE! If the market hits your planned stop then your trade is done. Take the hit and move on to the next opportunity.

Source: Baby Pips

 

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The Strangest Secret That Can Change Your Life – Mindset

~ Vera J.

Earl Nightingale was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1921. By 1933 his father had left him, his mother and two brothers. At the bottom of the Great Depression with millions unemployed, Earl’s mother worked at the WPA sewing factory to provide for her three boys.

They lived in a tent in Tent City, behind the Mariner Apartments on the waterfront in Long Beach, California. While being poor didn’t seem to bother most of the other kids, it bothered Earl.

He wanted to know why they were so poor, while others, he observed, appeared to be so rich. Why some people were so miserable, while others, so happy. Simply, what made people turn out the way they do.

Take the time and watch this video to discover the secret Earl Nightingale was searching for. It’s simple but powerful and it might help you to improve your Mindset.

 

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Trading Forex – Balance of Patience and Education

~ Vera J.

Wondering how to trade Forex successfully? Start with this: Set up a portfolio for yourself by choosing pairs to trade. Accumulate as much information based on those pairs, both historically and present.
Trading ForexYou will have more direction as to why your pairs behave the way they do and why it moves in that direction. You will understand what affects it, positively and negatively.

You will be in a more stronger position as you will know why you are placing a trade. Even if it goes negative for a while and then ends up positive, you are trading based on the reality of the trading world.

Any other way will be considered gambling for me personally. Everybody is different.

You will find people who do technical analysis only and they kill it very well, but they will all tell you how the news killed their trades.

So, when money is on the line, you need to know why you are departing with it until further notice or permanently if something goes wrong. Then have the discipline to make it back with a balance of patience and education.

 

 

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The 3 Key Elements of Trading Mindset

~ Vera J.

1) PATIENCE
You’ll very rarely ever put in a trade and it go your way right off the bat. It’s how the market works your psychology. You have to be patient and step away from the trade once it’s placed. It’s either gonna go your way in profit or hit your stop loss…that’s the reality. You watching it isn’t going to change where it’s going.

mindset

2) TOO MUCH EMOTION
You are getting emotionally involved with your trades. You’ll never last long term if you keep that up. You have to emotionally detach yourself  from each and every trade. Same emotion, win or lose.
mindset3) THIS IS A BUSINESS
You must treat trading like a business. You can’t just do things on a whim and expect success…you must truly dive into learning and education instead of relying on others signals and advice. When you just jump in a traders chat room and say “Buy or sell?” that tells us A) you didn’t take the time to read the chat B) you didn’t take the time to look at the charts and C) you aren’t serious about your trading.

Take these 3 key elements of trading with you from here out…and remember, the market doesn’t care how you feel…it’s going to move however it wants when it wants.

Happy Trading!

 

 

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