{"id":23100,"date":"2013-01-13T21:01:52","date_gmt":"2013-01-14T02:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/?p=23100"},"modified":"2013-02-24T01:40:58","modified_gmt":"2013-02-24T06:40:58","slug":"this-trader-is-delusional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/this-trader-is-delusional","title":{"rendered":"This Trader Is Delusional!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Sundays some SMB Traders send me their weekly results. \u00a0Here is an example from one trader, who I like a lot and am rooting for, that p***** me off.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This week could have big a big week for me and one that has really set in on me bc I lost<br \/>\n$1,000 and I wanted to know what happened after all the preparation that I took. If I took<br \/>\ntrades that conformed to my edge, added to trades that were working, and let my winning<br \/>\ntrades play out: I would have had my best week to date and that is really interesting. Two<br \/>\ndays would have been over $1,000 and the rest around breakeven. going over my trades,<strong> it <\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>really is amazing how many trades I took that didn&#8217;t conform to my strategy<\/strong>. I think that I<br \/>\n<strong>went on tilt<\/strong> after losing Money on Monday when I had 3 trades that I put myself in a position<br \/>\nto make real money and <strong>I didn&#8217;t take the AAPL trade<\/strong> in premarket.<strong> I tried to compensate<\/strong> for<br \/>\nthis by getting in trades that were not My own and I will definitely be looking to improve on<br \/>\nthis this week. I now realize that I cannot try to make money, all I have to do is follow my<br \/>\nstrategy and the trades that work are the trades that I look at right away and say to myself &#8220;I<br \/>\nHAVE to be in this&#8221; not the trades that I think &#8220;might&#8221; work and I try to anticipate and ignore<br \/>\nmy signals<\/p>\n<p>\u25cf I will be a consistently profitable trader if:<\/p>\n<p>1) I only take trades that I have an edge in<\/p>\n<p>2) I let my winning trades play out and tell me when to exit<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>@mikebellafiore<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The trader above is delusional! \u00a0I write about this issue more extensively in my next book, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-Playbook-Inside-Professional-Trader\/dp\/0132937646\">The PlayBook<\/a><\/em>. \u00a0He is not anywhere near close to having a big week. \u00a0Traders do not go from underperforming to a big week, unless they are lucky. \u00a0Trading is a measurement of doing all the little things well. \u00a0This trader is making four big mistakes that he must correct just to get flat. \u00a0Flat should be his singular goal because he is underperforming.<\/p>\n<p>Here are his next steps:<\/p>\n<p>1. Not so drastically underperform<\/p>\n<p>2. Flat<\/p>\n<p>3. Make a little<\/p>\n<p>4. Expand his PlayBook<\/p>\n<p>5. Get big in his A+ setups<\/p>\n<p>There are five steps before he will have a big week, not only if he did a few things differently.<\/p>\n<p>To\u00a0achieve\u00a0Goal 1 he must address these problems:<\/p>\n<p><strong>it\u00a0<\/strong><strong>really is amazing how many trades I took that didn&#8217;t conform to my strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You do not just decide to solve this problem. \u00a0This is an issue of preparation, visualization and trade review. \u00a0All of these are lacking based on the statement above.<\/p>\n<p><strong>went on tilt<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You cannot just change going on tilt. \u00a0You have to work to lessen the frequency and damage of these periods. \u00a0Self-actualization, a psychological journal, and a walk to calm down in real-time when you sense you are on tilt are essential.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I didn&#8217;t take the AAPL trade<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Again you are not just going to take the next such trade. \u00a0Pulling the trigger is performance anxiety. \u00a0Generally it results from a lack of practice with your best set ups. \u00a0Think trading, talk trading, review, talk to your mentor, watch tape, create a PlayBook, etc are all ways to help you execute on your favorite setups in real-time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I tried to compensate<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This trader is going on the demo next week. \u00a0He can work on not doing this while not trading our money.<\/p>\n<p>Mike Bellafiore<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/One-Good-Trade-Competitive-Proprietary\/dp\/0470529407\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1357332711&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=one+good+trade+mike+bellafiore\">One Good Trade<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/mikebellafiore\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/twitter-badges.s3.amazonaws.com\/follow_me-c.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>no relevant positions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Sundays some SMB Traders send me their weekly results. \u00a0Here is an example from one trader, who I like a lot and am rooting for, that p***** me off. This week could have big a big week for me and one that has really set in on me bc I lost $1,000 and I wanted to know what happened &#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/this-trader-is-delusional\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mike-bellafiore-bellas-blogs","no-post-thumbnail"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>This Trader Is Delusional! | SMB Training<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/this-trader-is-delusional\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"This Trader Is Delusional! | SMB Training\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On Sundays some SMB Traders send me their weekly results. \u00a0Here is an example from one trader, who I like a lot and am rooting for, that p***** me off. 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