Master Trading Psychology Instantly

Unless you have a completely automated trading system, there is going to be a human involved in your trading decisions (most likely yourself), and whenever a human is making trading decisions, their emotions are going to play a part in the decision making process. This cannot be said enough, so I will say it again. As a human trader, your emotions will negatively affect your trading, whether you think so or not. If you don't believe me, you should stop reading and close your trading account, before you give all of your money to a trader that does believe me. If you do believe me, there is a way that you can master trading psychology very quickly if not instantly, without any psychology courses or self help books.

Visible Trading

Explaining your trading system to another trader, and then letting that trader keep track of your profit / loss with you, will make you a better trader quicker than anything else. The reason is that you won't want to make any mistakes in front of another trader, and the potential embarrassment of making a visible mistake will make you ignore your emotions and trade correctly. This works best with an experienced trader because you will not be able to fudge your numbers or sneak anything past them (i.e. an inexperienced trader might not notice that you have made a mistake, but an experienced trader will notice). The reason that this works so well, is that being publically humiliated (for making silly mistakes) is much worse than private anxiety, so it is therefore a stronger emotion, and this time it is an emotion that will positively affect your trading :-).

Blog Comments

If anyone is brave enough to do this publically, let me know (leave a comment, or send me an email), and I will create a forum thread that you can use to explain your trading system and keep your trading log. With both myself and the day trading site's visitors watching you, you will have great incentive to trade correctly, and your profit / loss should reflect this.