Lesson 13 – Trading Psychology

Trading psychology is one of the keys to investment success, specially in the forex market.

The fact is the majority of traders lose because they cannot control their emotions.

Why the majority of traders lose

There is one statistic that has remained constant since the beginning of investment records – the ratio of winners to losers has remained constant over time.

On reflection, this would seem a startling fact; despite the massive advance in communications and economic forecasting methods, the ratio remains the same. The thing is that if technology has not helped to decrease the 90% or 95% of traders that lose money every month, means that the successful trading is dependant on something else.

That something else is our trading psychology.

Yes it is true, only around 5% to 10% of traders achieve the ultimate goal: to be consistent in profits. What is interesting though is that there is just a tiny difference between this 5% of traders and the rest of them. The top 5% grow from mistakes; mistakes are a learning experience, they learn an invaluable lesson on every single mistake made. Deep in their minds, a mistake is one more chance to try it harder and do it better the next time, because they know they might not get a chance the next time. And at the end, this tiny difference becomes THE big difference.

How to deal with mistakes

There are many possible ways to properly manage mistakes. Mistakes in this term, refers to not following your rules in any way.  Here are some steps that will hhelp you avoid mistakes

Step one: Belief change.

Every mistake is a learning experience. They all have something valuable to offer. Try to counteract the natural tendency of feeling frustrated and approach mistakes in a positive manner. Instead of yelling to everyone around and feeling disappointed, say to yourself “ok, I did something wrong, what happened? What is it?

Step two: Identify the mistake made.

Define the mistake, find out what caused the mistake, and try as hard as you can to effectively see the nature of that mistake. Finding the mistake nature will prevent you from making the same mistake again. More than often you will find the answer where you less expected. Take for instance a trader that doesn’t follow the system. The reason behind this could be that the trader is afraid of loosing. But then, why is he or she afraid? It could be that the trader is using a system that does not fit him or her, and finds difficult to follow every signal. In this case, as you can see, the nature of the mistake is not in the surface. You need to try as hard as you can to find the real reason of the given mistake.

Step three: Measure the consequences of the mistake.

List the consequences of making that particular mistake, both good and bad. Good consequences are those that make us better traders after dealing with the mistake. Think on all possible reasons you can learn from what happened. For the same example above, what are the consequences of making that mistake? Well, if you don’t follow the system, you will gradually loose confidence in it, and this at the end will put you into trades you don’t really want to be, and out of trades you should be in.

Step four: Take action.

Taking proper action is the last and most important step. In order to learn, you need to change your behavior. Make sure that whatever you do, you become “this-mistake-proof”. By taking action we turn every single mistake into a small part of success in our trading career. Continuing with the same example, redefining the system would be the trader’s final step. The trader would put a system that perfectly fits him or her, so the trader doesn’t find any trouble following it in future signals.

Understanding the fact that the outcome of any trade has nothing to do with a mistake will open your mind to other possibilities, where you will be able to understand the nature of every mistake made. This at the same time will open the doors for your trading career as you work and take proper action on every mistake made.

So why is mindset so important?

The simple answer is forex trading is not just about method, it’s also about the discipline to trade your method.

If you don’t have the discipline to trade your system, you simply don’t have one.

So why is trading with discipline so hard?

The reason is simply, you will at some point face a string of losses and it happens to even the best traders.

Forget all the rubbish you read, about trading with little or no drawdown, you read from vendors – It’s not true. You are going to face periods of losses which may last many weeks and you have to keep going, despite taking losses and your emotions will be telling you to deviate from your plan.

Its here, that robust money management and discipline, will carry you through a losing period, until you hit profits again.

Discipline means you have to understand what you are doing and have confidence.