Break Time! (and... the continuing saga of mental games...)

Without regrets, I have decided to take a break from trading. Not sure for how long, but at least several months.

2 reasons:

1) I need to get my dissertation done this year. If all goes well I plan on defending next fall.

2) I need to concentrate on the mental aspects of trading.

I won't bore anyone with the dissertation details. Next year you can read it if you like. =)

I have been reading Mind Gym : An Athlete's Guide to Inner Excellence (some of you may remember Don M.' s plug in December). I haven't had time to finish it yet, but what I have read has helped to reinforce the mental aspects of everything and the importance of a proper mindset for success in all endeavors (assuming some level of player competence).

Last week was a great example of one set of bad habits: I refuse to take the credit for doing well and beat myself up when I don't. After an amazing day on 1-4 I wrote: 'I wish I could that I was in the zone, but the trades felt more like a fluke.' I didn't post several days last week because I had several trades that didn't work out well first thing in the morning and I had this sense of the markets being in control rather than me, so I quit for the day.

There is a mindset that has been lingering for as long as I have been trying to trade. The best way to describe it is   that I feel like I am knowingly walking off the edge of a cliff and expecting everything to be all right. It is almost a compulsive reaction or fear of thinking or analyzing too much, accompanied by thoughts of 'Gotta play to win' and 'No one knows what will happen'. Yet in the back of my head there is an over-riding sense of dread and the expectation that the trade will fail.

Heh. That is the mess that is my head. Not a healthy mindset.

Why all this? Again - I am not real sure. But I intend to work thru it and wrestle it to the ground. I am guessing part of the problem is an intense focus on myself rather than on price action. Of course, when I am doing anything well I am fully conscious of myself and how far I am able to push myself, but I am even more aware of and responding to what is going on around me. Take any activity and think about what happens. For example (because skiing is still on the brain) - I consider myself a competent skier. When I am skiing well I am aware of my body - but I am not questioning my body's response or ability to respond. I am not looking for outside confirmation or affirmation of my response. My body senses ice - I don't check the temperature, the position of the sun, or wind direction for confirmation. Nor do I push way beyond what I know I can handle or beat myself when an edge slips out from under me. I trust myself and respond. And have fun.

The analogy isn't perfect, but I think the principals hold.

As I mentioned a few post ago, the last year has also seen some great 'in the zone' moments. Enough so that I these will provide the healthy mental trading backdrop for visualization. The Mind Gym : An Athlete's Guide to Inner  Excellence has several exercises and I plan on blogging about these as I work thru them. This will be a 100% effort over the next several months. Making that backdrop real and readily adoptable is the goal.

Trade well.   

End of Day Journal (1-5-11)

Summary:

Paper trading on 100 shares:

Up and down.

I realized today that my approach has been pessimistic (today and yesterday). The thought process is... camouflaged... it goes something like: "Ok - I can do this. Expect to lose a bit - but it's all right I can make it up later. Don't let it faze you."

Then a price moves - and I think - where there is movement there is potential for profit. Hop on. I am not quite sure how to explain this. It is almost as if I leave my sense of focus somewhere and simply try a trade out. Some of this is done in the name of 'probability' - "You never know what will happen, and you can't win if you don't play." At the same time there is an over-riding sense of doom: "Watch, my entry will be at the worst possible time." And immediately comes another thought "I have to be prepared to lose - it is the cost of doing business, so go for it."

My EOD reaction to this thought process is "Just don't be stupid." What makes this extremely hard is that my thought process in the moment justifies my entry with some good solid trading philosophy (probability and cost of doing business). I want/need to believe/acknowledge the good stuff, and I need to do this more and more (because it isn't second nature yet). Part of making the good stuff real means implementing it - so I decide to believe and act on that belief by making the trade (thinking this will reinforce the good stuff). And - I make a bad trade.

Funky.

Anyhoo - I have been reading a sports pyschology book (can't recall the name just yet) and mean to work on the excercises. Part of my problem is focusing on what I don't want to happen - because I don't want it to happen. And sure enough, I make it happen. A good analogy - water on a golf course. Some golfers will take out an old ball as soon as they see water. Guess where the ball goes? I can see more and more that I need to focus on the positive outcome.

I have decided that I will not trade when I feel like I did today and yesterday. Capture that. Remember what it feels like.

Tired and a late post - I generally post with FF and for some reason the population script was not working correctly and I couldn't bring my post up to edit or start a new post. After about 4 hours I tried Chrome.

Trade well.

Details:

Posting 5 minute charts today.

End of Day Journal (1-4-11)

Summary:

Sim trading on 100 shares:

I only did two trades today and both came out well, so I opted to neglect the usual chart summary.

I wish that I could say that I was in the zone  - but the trades felt more like a fluke. Heh.


Trade well.

Details:

CMG

NFLX

Start of a New Year

December 31st marked the one-year anniversary of this blog.

I thought for sure I would be trading profitably by now. Not to be.

But - I have learned a lot. Last year started with TDA, holy grails, backtesting, and swing trades and some $14k more in assets.

The Christmas break was good. Cold, snowy, skiing, firewood, extended family and good friends... and closed road delays on the way home. A good, clear-the-air break from trading.

But... I didn't manage to stay completely away from trading. I actually spent quite a bit of time thinking about the last year, what I had learned, and how my understanding of trading has changed. I have been exposed to a lot of information, tried plenty of experiments, had some very good trading days and some ridiculously bad trading days (unfortunately more of the latter), and run thru the associated emotional gamuts.

The question of course is,  what distinguished the winning days from the losing days last year?

Let's think about this.

To state the obvious, there are only two things that can happen with price: the price can go up or the price can go down.

Ok.

The price goes up. A trade is registered on the exchange. DTN IQ's servers relay the data to my CPU and my CPU sends it to a pretty chart on my screen. The photons pass thru the monitor's glass, race thru the air and into my retina. 

That is all that can happen.

Now - I respond... and either my response is meaningless and trading is a right-place-at-the-right-time dumb luck activity - or - simple up and down becomes either ripe or convoluted with meaning and intention: the product of the market's fear and hope... or the catalyst for my own.

I still think the second scenario is the valid one.

We spent some time as a family skiing. It has been two years for me and I spent most of the time with son #3 on the bunny slope teaching/reminding him of the basics (everyone else snowboards). It was a rewarding time. After a bit my wife and I swapped and I got a few good runs in. I stuck to the groomed, and as I tried out my (out of shape) legs, I began to remember how incredible and fun skiing is. The human body is quite amazing. As I am skiing, my body is accepting and responding to an incredible amount of information: varying snow conditions, varying slope, varying  physical aptitude;  all across a broad spectrum of sensory input: vision, hearing, and touch (within the classic '5'). Say the skiis hit a patch of ice. Somehow this is sensed and my body responds and adjusts. Say packed snow becomes powder, my body senses, responds and adjusts.

(Imagine what it would take to get a computer/robot to respond to a ski slope...)

I think that for trading to be 'good', it should be something like 'skiing'.

Take any type of activity: driving, sports, video games - even relationships. A person's ability to respond to his/her environment - even without being able to quantify exactly what it is that is happening - is amazing.

I think that when I am at my best in trading, I am simply in the moment and responding to what is happening. When I am at my worst, I am thinking too much; trying to be too technical; trying to make something happen. I think that good trading is as organic as feeling the snow thru my skiis, boots, socks, and tired legs;  as organic as feeling how a 3 and a half ton Sequoia is responding to snowy, curvy road conditions; as organic as me sensing and knowing what kind of a mood my wife is in. When I try to figure these things out, I focus on the quantifiable, the 'art'  - and the beauty and fun - is lost; I also tend to choke.

This is what I want to bring to my trading for the new year. I am going to mentally adopt and practice putting on the focused/fun/feel-y mode of thinking; starting by trying to be in the moment and letting my body/mind respond to what it is sensing. Putting on my 'skis' and letting my body do what it wants to do. What is happening? Am I being reckless? Am I safe? Am I ready?

As I finish this post, I can't help but notice the simplicity inherent in trading and my attempts to control the uncontrollable. I see the need to let the market be what it is and to work on adapting my response to what is. I am not quite sure how to come to grips with all this, but I tend to think the most important aspect of all this is to make my success at trading less important/critical, and giving myself the permission to learn (i.e., make mistakes).

Trade well.

All the best.