The Importance of a Well-Thought-Out Trade Plan

John LockeGuest Blog, Options Education, SMB Options, Trader Development, Trading Lesson, Trading Psychology1 Comment

Have you watched “Star Trek: The Next Generation”? One of my favorite episodes is when the Enterprise gets into a battle with The Borg. The USS Enterprise is getting hammered. Fires are breaking out, sparks are flying everywhere and people are running around screaming. Then there’s the Captain Picard, sitting in the Captains chair, confidently doing the tasks that will … Read More

Risk Tolerance VS Risk Capacity

John LockeGuest Blog, Options Education, SMB Options, Trader Development, Trading Lesson, Trading PsychologyLeave a Comment

To be successful at trading, long term, it’s extremely important that our risk tolerance is in line with our risk capacity. Risk “tolerance” has to do with the amount of draw down we can withstand prior to the loss psychologically effecting our trading. Risk “capacity” has to do with the amount of draw down we can withstand prior to the … Read More

Trading with Fear and Anxiety

John LockeGeneral Comments, Guest Blog, Health and Trading, Options Education, SMB Options, Trader Development, Trading Lesson, Trading PsychologyLeave a Comment

It’s important to understand the difference between fear and anxiety when we’re trading. Legitimate fear is our friend. Legitimate fear serves a warning to tell us something’s wrong. It’s the signal to be alert , to review our positions and plans. If we find something wrong, we can fix it. If not we let go of it and move on. … Read More

Six Reasons Traders Fail That Most Traders Don’t Think About

John LockeGeneral Comments, Guest Blog, Options Education, SMB Options, Trader Development, Trading Lesson, Trading Psychology2 Comments

1. Lack of direction. Traders often fail to establish clear goals and create plans to achieve those goals. When traders fail to develop complete business and trading plans before entering the market they are setting themselves up for failure. 2. Impatience. This occurs when traders try to accomplish too much too soon, or expect to get results far faster than is truly possible. … Read More

Why set goals? Not just in trading but in any part of life?

John LockeGeneral Comments, Guest Blog, SMB Options, Trader Development, Trading Lesson, Trading PsychologyLeave a Comment

“Top scientists estimate that we’re bombarded with over 400 billion bits of information every second. There is no way we could possibly pay attention to this much information. It would literally drive us insane. In fact, we are only capable of consciously processing approximately 2,000 bits of information. That’s only 0.0000005% (5 ten-millionths of 1 percent) of the world around us. This means that we … Read More