Category Archives: Trading Psychology

Work harder, trade fewer in a long and excruciating trading drawdown

By Paul | Published: January 13, 2010
I write this as I am in my first trading drawdown of 2010.  As I said previously, I find that I am still ill-trained to respond to big drawdowns.  I caught myself over trading again hoping to rake in a few quick paper bucks in my demo account to get myself out.  However, the ability [...]
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Early bird does not get the worm in forex trading

By Paul | Published: January 8, 2010
[This post was updated on January 13, see addendum below.] I have discussed my enthusiasm in shorting the Aussie a few times this week.  First trade was shorting AUD/JPY at 84.53.  After that got stopped out, I re-tried at the same level the next day.  My trade history in this currency pair is shown in [...]
Also posted in Self Assessment, Trading Strategy | Tagged bad trade, entry, exit | Leave a comment

10 questions to ask yourself if you are holding a ginormous losing position and don’t know what to do

By Paul | Published: January 8, 2010
In the unfortunate case that you are holding a massive losing position in your portfolio and don’t know what to do, the first step to fight back is to reassess the situation with a rational, unbiased mind. Easier said than done.  But that is what I learned the hard way a few years back when [...]
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Focusing on trading my timeframe to reduce over-trading

By Paul | Published: December 8, 2009
In my last month’s performance review, I said that one of my goals for this month is to think more and trade less.  But in my first week of December, I have racked up 53 trades already… Average for October (a normal month) was only 34, for the entire month.  Now that we’re in the [...]
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How to Draft Your Own 3 Rules of Trading

By Paul | Published: October 16, 2009
If you decide to write your own trading rules.  Here’s an explanation of how I came about my 3 trading rules and the reasoning behind them. So why only 3 trading rules?  There are several reasons for it.   Click here to continue reading... (542 words) Easy to remember. Easy to follow. Easy to learn.
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Passing Japan’s hardest test: If there is a certifying exam for trading, this would be like it

By Paul | Published: September 26, 2009
I started watching this video (attached below) merely out of curiosity.  Just to see what test in Japan is harder than becoming a lawyer or a surgeon.  But as I was watching it, the parallel of their recurring theme on the goal of Kendo, which is to defeat yourself, rather than your opponent, is strikingly [...]
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Self-Control: The key to trading and the key to success in life

By Paul | Published: May 15, 2009
I was just reading this article in The New Yorker and I am impressed by it so much so that I’d like to log this in my trading journal. The article is about a simple study done in the 60′s with hundreds of kids being asked to resist the temptation to a table-full of candies [...]
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