Trade as per your trading strategy not MOOD

You want to be trading opportunity, not your mood of the moment. – Brett Steenbarger

Many traders I have interacted during my training session, one of the basic reason for loss is trading on mood, Somehow trader gets a feel and he does some aggressive trade which ultimately lead to “BIG LOSSES”. So lets discuss how can we control the aggression.

Is it time to be aggressive?

Are you sleeping today thinking how much money you’ll make tomorrow?  Are you counting your profits before you’ve even sold it?  Are you imagining tomorrow’s going to be another strongly trending up day?  Believe me… you are not alone.  Upward strong momentum following upside strong surprises releases euphoria in every person.  In fact, it is these types of strong markets that fuels even stronger performances in the weeks ahead.  Or is it?

So before we rely solely on our human instincts to be greedy and hold all our positions, the first thing we should do is to analyze the charts with a keener eye on volumes other than prices and perhaps check up on what our history teachers have to say. Take away all our biases, and hopefully be mentally flexible to adopt with the perception of the markets, employ sound management practices while profiting with the trend.

Basically, you and I are both thinking the same thing.  We both have the same dilemma:

1.) We both don’t want to lose our hefty short term gains.

2.) We both don’t want to sell too early either (i.e. we want to maximize our gains even further).

 Great traders always tell me that too many traders have lost too much money trying to “tell the market” what to do. “Patience pays”. I personally think that’s the hallmark of a great trader.  Holding the good trade and letting profits run WILD.  Just have your trailing stops.  That’s all. But all said an done this is the most difficult job to be done !!