Coming back to the market has been a little more difficult than I expected. I'm still not trading live (with the exception of a few good setups I took today on the longer term charts), but I wanted to get myself back into the trading zone. It doesn't seem like it but many of us traders go about 50 weeks straight analyzing the market the same way, watching the same pairs, on the same timeframes, during the same time each day. Needless to say we develop a pretty good routine that gives us a unique comfort level as a trader which adds to our confidence, which in then leads us to seeing better results. Or at least that's how it should work.
Being away from live markets for the past two weeks had me very anxious to get back in and start adjusting my eyes so I'd be ready for the new trading year. I immediately started trying to analyze every little move the market made and the result were trades with targets to small and stops being short which lead to me being me getting stopped out on the majority of those trades. I then started over analyzing the market to the point where I wasn't able to get involved at all. At this point I began to get a little frustrated at the fact that I just felt out of my trading groove as I like to call it. That's when I shut my charts off and decided to re-read my trading plan and get my mental situation under control. After bringing myself back down to earth I realized two things. First, I realized that I was trying to do too much, and secondly I realized that I was trying to do too much at a time where the markets were not doing much either. It was a bad combination, and if this were a year ago I probably would have blown half an account trying to make it work instead of realizing what my issues were.
The lesson I'm trying to relay, is that once you have a plan or system that works for you, trading is very easy. Correction, trading CAN be very easy and your system or strategy is probably the easiest part to get mastered, because that is the one consistent factor. What changes is your day to day mental state and ability to deal with the wild ride the market will give you. My advice would be don't try and do too much, or do too little. Stick to what brought you success in the past and don't try to get fancy. The markets will do what they want to do, when they want to do it. As my friend over at Triple Threat Trading often says "our job is to wait until the money is sitting on the table for us to pick up."
Being away from live markets for the past two weeks had me very anxious to get back in and start adjusting my eyes so I'd be ready for the new trading year. I immediately started trying to analyze every little move the market made and the result were trades with targets to small and stops being short which lead to me being me getting stopped out on the majority of those trades. I then started over analyzing the market to the point where I wasn't able to get involved at all. At this point I began to get a little frustrated at the fact that I just felt out of my trading groove as I like to call it. That's when I shut my charts off and decided to re-read my trading plan and get my mental situation under control. After bringing myself back down to earth I realized two things. First, I realized that I was trying to do too much, and secondly I realized that I was trying to do too much at a time where the markets were not doing much either. It was a bad combination, and if this were a year ago I probably would have blown half an account trying to make it work instead of realizing what my issues were.
The lesson I'm trying to relay, is that once you have a plan or system that works for you, trading is very easy. Correction, trading CAN be very easy and your system or strategy is probably the easiest part to get mastered, because that is the one consistent factor. What changes is your day to day mental state and ability to deal with the wild ride the market will give you. My advice would be don't try and do too much, or do too little. Stick to what brought you success in the past and don't try to get fancy. The markets will do what they want to do, when they want to do it. As my friend over at Triple Threat Trading often says "our job is to wait until the money is sitting on the table for us to pick up."
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