The influence of the mind is only as powerful or weak depending on its state of well being when taking on tough decisions in trade.
According to a famous artist who quoted “Let’s not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realising it” those powerful words are the sole guiding principle of traders. Basically the important thing traders should always put into consideration is to understand the importance of controlling one’s emotions in order to avoid ill traded sentiments.
Setting free feral emotions especially ego can greatly disrupt critical decision making which could possibly result to bad calls and failure to sustain profits. Keeping cool albeit the emotionally fuelled environment is one of the most important skill traders should master when trading.
One very common dreaded emotion is “living” your last trade which actually means a trader is bias depending on whether his final trade was a winner or not. It actually has two effects that significantly affect the mindset and behaviour of traders. When a trader is on a winning streak they often start to feel invincible and arrogant leading to more irrational calls and less careful decision making. Consequently if traders are having a bad day of successive losing trades they will often take twice the risk again on their next trade as an act of desperation of taking back all the money they have lost. Both extremes can be utterly devastating and that the simple answer is carefully studying every trade opportunity with past success and failures to be set aside from the ongoing trade progress.
Successful traders should understand the effects of emotions (both negative and positive) of trading and should examine their own reactions when faced with the pressures of trading and should have specific trading disciplines so as to better facilitate decision making and rehearsed plan of action so that they are better equipped to face all the perils of the trading environment.
Spread betting tools can be utilised to help control and managed emotions of trading. For instance one reliable tool traders should have is the “stop loss” for keeping the stress level at manageable levels. Moreover, having a put option against a long position will better the chances of protecting oneself against any downside.
Instead of losing simply because you got thrown away by your emotions, you could profit from the combined emotions of other traders. The unpredictable nature of the market actually can be predicted in a figurative way. Markets swing from excitement to submission and back again and by using this predictable nature carefully studying the factors can lead to a successful trade.
Finally don’t be disappointed after you made all the necessary steps to keep ahead of the pack and occasionally still stumble in your emotions. The process is rather gradual and the more you can better control your emotions the easier it is to trade no matter how tough and stressful conditions may be.