Today is Tuesday February 16th and we saw what I wrote about on Sunday nights posts a nice rally +169 Dow and +19 S&P 500 cash.

Well, Tuesday was the on time day. I put a chart at the bottom of yesterdays post and showed the target area. The minimum target area was 2 points shy at +21 points. We got 19 of them all today and suspect that we will get the rest tomorrow. That was the minimum move I see, but there could be more. I also wrote about it last week and called out the numbers a couple of times.

I was not able to trade today, first time since the holidays. I was just to caught up doing other things. Last Friday, I almost missed the trading session but came in after 12 noon West Coast and still picked up my goal. I have been working on updating my website and it is coming along as well as putting together a newer version of my trading method. It’s all still the same, but with some new things added. I am doing it in Power Point which is easier to move things around. Any current members will get the new material for free once I am done with it. Also working on updating my back office with new content, video’s and training. It is all a lot of work and I am just recovering from being sick and a hard drive crash, one after the other. WOW. That was a lot to handle.

Next week I will schedule time with students to go over their performance and stay in touch.  So feel free to call and schedule a time. This venture is more than about me. Helping others is the best way I know how to help myself. So far so good.

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One Key to success, staying in control while trading: There is nothing worst than losing control. You feel helpless and hopeless when you find yourself there. What can we do to maintain control while trading? This is similar to what I have been talking about lately.

When you lose control, of your trading plans and take non method trades, you only hurt yourself in the long run, even if the trade works out. We always want to establish exactly why we do what it is we do and when to do it, so that the pattern of maintaining control can be repeated. In order to do that, we need to have power in our will and over our emotions. As mentioned in earlier posts, there are many good traders out there that know how to trade, but their inability to maintain control when a trigger point sends everything spinning out of control, seems to happen all to often.

If these traders were able to replace the 3 or 4 really bad days out of the month that keeps their equity at zero or less, they would replace doubt and fear, with hope and victory. So how is it that we are able to reverse those very bad days with gains and come out with positive equity for the month. The battle is won and fought in your mind. Exercising self-control over your action is key, but it first starts in your mind. The thoughts you think are so important to you as a trader. Don’t underestimate it but embrace it, by going on the offensive. Battles are not won in retreat, but on the offensive. So, don’t hold back and take charge.

Everyone does not have the luxury of having a trading coach and many times we need to be our own coach, but make no mistake about it, we all need a coach. So, if you are your own trading coach, what would you tell yourself to do right now. The first thing any coach would do, is find out where you currently stand. How are your trading funds. Are you capitalized well enough to continue the journey. Once that is established and checks out, you should find out what is holding you back from going forward. Identifying the reason why you took those 3 or 4 large losing days is imperative to your future success.

If you are in battle and you are shot, the first thing a medic will do is access the damage and stop the bleeding. He knows if you lose too much blood, you die. Then, he will get you to base where he can perform possibly surgery. That process is going to be painful, but it is painful lying on the field with little hope. So the point is don’t expect fixing your trading problems as a pleasant thing. You may go kicking and screaming, but you know if you don’t, you stand to lose much more.

We need to be ”Men” and cowboy up. No one likes change, but do you want to meet your trading goals and be financially independent or would you rather let that dream pass you by as only a distant memory. I think most people would choose the first one. So what are you going to do about it. If you don’t have outside help, you will have to perform the surgery yourself. In other words it is going to be hard to force yourself to do what you have to, in order to  meet your trading goals.

These are only a few of the reasons why most traders don’t make it. Traders never thing that it is them, its always the other guy. I know this may seem a bit brutal, but, this is exactly what I am talking about. Face your trading problems with an action plan. Get motivated to do the things that are going to produce change. If you identify something that is holding you back, but you find yourself saying to the solution, ”I don’t want to do that”, then you know exactly what it is that you MUST DO to slay that dragon.

Let me end it this way; Behavior is patterned, how we think, feel and act have a pattern to them and that patterning is what make us who we are. The sum total of our patterns is our personality.

The same is true as a trader. Our trading has patterns, some good and some not so good. What we think, feel and act while trading makes up our trading personality and some of us need a make-over. Find solutions to the things that hold you back and force yourself to change. I will have more specific solutions in the posts to come, until then,

GOOD TRADING !

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Tags: method trades, self control, trading coach, trading goals, trading pattern