Monthly Archives: March 2013

Creating the Conditions for Success

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Performance psychology plays a VITAL part in my daily trading routines and processes, as I've outlined in the image below.

mindmap of my performance psychology plan

Have you established your own tools, methods and strategies to ensure peak performance?

If not, why not?

Your trading strategy may contain a tested and proven edge, and yet all too often we see traders poorly implement a strategy leading to underperformance or complete failure. This is because the edge within your strategy is really only a POTENTIAL EDGE.

The reality is that… YOU ARE THE REAL EDGE.

It's the implementation of your plan which determines success or failure.

Trading is a performance activity. Success requires effective operation under pressure. Effective operation requires simple, practical tools and strategies designed to manage your state and optimise your performance.

If you do not yet have effective tools and strategies in place, then you need to take action. Use the headings within the Performance Psychology mindmap (above) to (a) guide your study on the topic of performance psychology, and to (b) guide you in developing routines to maintain focus on process and to establish and maintain a peak performance mindset.

Regards,

Lance Beggs

Focus on the Right Timeframe

Posted in: Trading Process and Strategy | , by
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I operate with three timeframes:

  • Higher Timeframe – Defines the S/R structure within which the trading timeframe moves.

  • Trading Timeframe – This is used to define the trend, market bias and to identify setup locations.

  • Lower Timeframe – This is used to fine-tune my trading timeframe analysis and to time entry and exit decisions.

I trade the middle of these three – the Trading Timeframe.

One danger that I see in reader emails, when traders attempt to manage multiple timeframes in this same way, is allowing their focus to be caught up in the detail of the lower timeframe.

I get it. The lower timeframe is where all the action is happening. It's fast. It's exciting.

If the market is flowing smoothly, it may work out great to take all the lower timeframe triggers. But more often than not, focusing too much on the lower timeframe is simply a recipe for overtrading. You'll catch the good trades. But you'll also take quite a few mediocre trades that just weren't in good setup locations on the trading timeframe chart.

If you find this occurring, try minimising your lower timeframe chart. Keep it hidden to ensure focus on the trading timeframe. Open the lower timeframe chart when required to fine-tune your analysis. And again when price has moved into a trading timeframe setup area. At all other times, keep it hidden.

 

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Trading – A Dynamic and Ever-Evolving Process of Growth and Development

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The business of trading is a dynamic and ever-evolving process of growth and development.

You don't ever reach the finished state. Instead, you're always in the process of "becoming" a better trader.

Novices make the assumption that when they find the right system, then the job is complete. Nothing is further from the truth!

As an example, here is a small sample of the tasks on my "to do" planner, as at the time of writing this article (5th March 2013).

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When Fighting the Trend… (Part Two)

Posted in: Trading Process and Strategy | , by
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We finished up last weeks article (which you'll find here if you missed it) with the following image…

fighting the trend

Well, my post-session review did consider this question.

In fact, the answer was obvious to me even as I traded the session. I knew I was fighting an obvious uptrend from maybe the second or third trade, and yet I still didn't flip my bias and operate LONG.

Why?

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The Reality of the Market

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Recent Facebook Comments

From here: http://www.facebook.com/yourtradingcoach/

Post:

The reality of the market is traders making trading decisions.

It's all about people, not price.

Individual traders make trading decisions based on their perception of the market.

The net effect of all traders operating within the market will result in net bullish, bearish or neutral sentiment, which leads to bullish, bearish or neutral orderflow and its corresponding price movement.

Learn to view all price movement from the perspective of other traders, and how the price movement influences their decision making.

Comment:

Can you expand on this further? Like, how?

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When Fighting the Trend

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(Continuing our occasional theme of "We all learn more when Lance screws up!" 🙂

There are two important considerations when trading against a clear trend…

  1. Are my entries in a wholesale price region?
  2. Is my trade management defensive?

 

These two considerations should be in the forefront of your mind, if you wish to preserve your account balance in the event that the trend fails to reverse.

Let's look at a couple of counter-trend trades from today's Hang Seng session.

fighting the trend

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Does Trading Add Value to Society?

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If you're not on facebook (http://www.facebook.com/yourtradingcoach) then you would have missed this recent Q&A:

Question:  (in response to a repost of this old article: https://www.yourtradingcoach.com/trader/trading-psychology-from-a-9-year-old/)

I saw this in your recent article, "And I certainly believe that the career of a trader does provide significant benefits for society (a subject for another future article perhaps)".

May I know where to find your article that talks about whether "the career of a trader does provide significant benefits for society"?

Thanks!

Response:

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Caution – Lazy Preparation of Education Material

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Let me give an example of a point made in the Trends & Channels video, in which I stated the following:

With hindsight it’s always easy! So when you see educators marking up charts saying, "See how the trendline defines the trend… and see how you could have entered here and here and here". Don’t blindly accept this. But instead look at the chart and confirm whether that is actually how it would have appeared at the right hand edge of the chart. Or have they just marked it up with the benefit of hindsight.

Hindsight is easy! Live… is never as simple!

Here's an example. Let's assume you were shown the following chart, demonstrating the potential for channels to provide exceptional trade entry locations.

hindsight charting

What's the problem with this chart?

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