Tag: Psychology

Focus on the challenging tasks.  There is only so much time in a day and while completing small easy tasks is great short term reward focusing on the more difficult tasks while you have the most energy will yield an even better reward.

Today’s trading goal is: Don’t Sweat The Small stuff.  If you let the small stuff go (getting filled a few cents below or above your limit. Let it go.  The energy spent on being frustrated can be focused on creativity and development as a trader.

Ken Wilber is the famous, possibly infamous, creator of integral theory.  The theory in brief (I can’t stress that enough) posits 5 major tenants:  Lines, Levels, Types, States, and Quadrants.  We’ll be looking at quadrants in this post.

Each quadrant represents an internal (psychological) or external (behavioral) on an individual or collective (societal) level.  As I trader I use these quadrants as a tool to check my perspective.

Upper Left: What am I thinking feeling, expecting from this stock?

Bottom Left: What are other people thinking, feeling, expecting from this stock?

Upper Right: How is the stock moving? What are the patterns and trend?

Bottom Right: What is the sector doing, the collective?

As complicated as integral theory can get. One can typically break it down for practical everyday use.  Metatheories are often good for that. 🙂

It happens to all traders.  9:30 you hear that bell ring, with your plan in hand, you are ready to trade.  9:45 you put on your first trade: Stopped out. 9:51 you put on the second trade: Stopped out. You know where this is going…

All the statistics in the world wouldn’t prove to your feelings that the next trade is going to be different.  Two things are happening here 1) Unconcious negative priming 2) Fixated mindset.

These thoughts can range from “This next trade just isn’t gonna work I can feel it.” To “f@&k this! I’m a horrible trader, nothing I ever do is right.”  How do you break this mind set?  Move the body, but why?

“How do you break a negative mindset? Move the body!

In John Coates book The Hour between dog & wolf, he cites numerous studies supporting the idea that the endocrine system as a whole is meant to prepare the body for movement.  You are sitting there trading though!  Move the body! As the chemical cocktail permeates your system you are prepared to escape that tiger, fight that local villager, or keep your rank as Alpha Male.  But you’re still sitting there.  Get up!  There is support that exercise does more than just burn calories (more on this in a later blog & how it may effect trading)

Use the endorphins that flood this biomechanical machine to move. Go for a walk, go hit the heavy bag, do short sprints, squats, burpees, or push ups!  Anything that will let those chemicals be used in the way they were supposed to.

Have you ever seen a gorgeous goddess?  A woman so magnificent you just are beeming energy inside to go talk to her?  But as you walk over you start to notice how you’re walking, what facial gestures you’re making, where your hands are, confidence fading… You’re becoming self-conscious and that wonderful feeling of excitement has now turned into fear.  Do you remember the last time you talked to a woman in this energy? In this self-conscious / fear mentality?  Didn’t go so well did it?  Why is a stock any different?

It’s all about the approach and mental confidence prior to the trade.  When you approach an event with fear that energy gets transferred into it.  I’ve talked about how The Energy of Fear is Consumption in this prior post.  So if you’re feeling nervous before a trade take note of this.  Where is this fear coming from? Is it related to money? Lack of confidence in yourself? Lack of self worth? It could be a million different things but you need to find and focus on the one that resonates with you.  I’m currently working on a meditation that will assist you through the process of finding this fear and making it your ally.

Remember the emotion will come during the “approach.” Keep track of how you feel, as this will set the course of how the rest of your interaction with the trade will go.  Keep in mind that magnificent woman: Do you approach her as nervous, not confident, and fearful of reject or strong, confident and full of love?

Related articles

• How to Break Through Fear and Self-Doubt
• Being Confident – My learning from Toastmasters.

Have you ever witnessed or read about a family who repeats mistakes generation after generation? The unfortunate daughter whose father is an unemployed alcoholic who consequently finds herself in the same position later in life. The “great” buy & never EVER sell strategy that your grandfather used, then your father, now you? This is what I have defined as Micro-Evolution.

define: Micro-Evolution – Short term survival strategies that are learned unconsciously from childhood.

In typical evolution a mutation in the organism (psychological or physical) creates an attribute that will allow the organism to proliferate or suffer because of that mutation.  If this mutated characteristic is more advantageous than his predecessor’s attributes, this new breed will pro-create in larger numbers rendering it the dominate one.  This is different from micro-evolution in that it is not a mutation, but an unconsciously learned survival method.  Regardless of how successful one can be with a different strategy, your predecessor used it and it worked.  Your unconscious learned that it worked and instilled mechanisms to assure it would be used.

How do change your Micro-Evolutionary destiny in Trading?

By learning new habits through practice.

ThinkorSwim just integrated a new “on demand” feature.  This feature replays the market live from a certain date forward.  This would allow you to try new and different strategies.  You can watch a video on it here.

Furthermore,  (since my idea is now in a major platform, which I had nothing to do with) you can write a simple AutoIt Script to click the chart along allowing you to practice 24/7.  I discuss this in my youtube video here: Expertise in Day Trading.

Hello!  I want to welcome you to my new blog.  Here I will post information regarding psychology, statistics, the stock market & their ever interchanging relation to one another.  You can visit my old blog here for older posts from Andrew Ilardi.  In addition, there are additional pages to peak into the other areas of my work.  At the top you’ll notice 5 tabs:

• Home: The Main Blogging Area.
• About: Information regarding my background.
• Research: Current research I’m working on at the academic level.
• Services: Information on what I provide and contact.
• Capital Markets: Posts regarding daily research I do into the markets.