{"id":36993,"date":"2014-04-01T08:00:14","date_gmt":"2014-04-01T12:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/?p=36993"},"modified":"2014-04-01T10:10:15","modified_gmt":"2014-04-01T14:10:15","slug":"your-head-is-fine-your-stratedgy-stinks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/your-head-is-fine-your-stratedgy-stinks","title":{"rendered":"Your Head is Fine But Your Strategy Stinks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of our very bright new traders asked to chat about trade psychology. He feared his needed help and wanted to seek my advice on a trading psychology coach.<\/p>\n<p>Many of our traders work with psychology coaches. The results are often very positive.<\/p>\n<p>I asked the trader to stop by my office for a chat to see if his issues were one of psychology or strategy. It turned out they were issues of strategy.<\/p>\n<p>Bella: Why do you think your issues are psychological?<\/p>\n<p>Trader: I have trouble holding my conviction trades. I tell myself to hold them no matter what and then I end up cutting them.<\/p>\n<p>Bella: You will not sell your positions no matter what you see in the market? That is not a very good trading system. For conviction trades you should always have Reasons2Sell, even if they are few. I wonder if your issue is that you have not developed your strategy of Reasons2Sell for your Conviction Trades.<\/p>\n<p>Trader: Yeah that makes sense.<\/p>\n<p>We talked some more. I sent him off with instructions to start developing Reasons2Sell for his Conviction Trades. I recommended he re-read <em>The PlayBook<\/em> where Reasons2Sell are discussed in detail and check the blog for our posts on this technique.<\/p>\n<p>If you cut trades without a fully developed Reasons2Sell strategy you might very well be acting rationally mid-trade. There might very well be a good reason for you to exit that you are seeing in the market. And then at a later date that stock may trade higher. But this is not an issue of weak psychology. This is you not crafting a trade plan for Conviction Trades to guide your decision-making while in your best trades.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related Posts:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/from-the-playbook-reasons2sell\">Reasons2Sell<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/webinar-recording-the-playbook-reasons2sell\">Webinar: Reasons2Sell<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">Mike Bellafiore is the Co-Founder of SMB Capital and SMBU, which provides trading education in stocks, options, forex and futures. Bella is the author of <\/span><em style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/One-Good-Trade-Competitive-Proprietary-ebook\/dp\/B003VIWRJA\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1396299609&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=The+PlayBook+one+good+trade\">One Good Trade<\/a><\/em><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\"> and <\/span><em style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Playbook-Inside-Think-Professional-Trader\/dp\/0132937646\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1358899059&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=The+PlayBook+mike+bellafiore\">The PlayBook<\/a><\/em><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Learn the skills necessary to identify and manage trades like these in our 10 week mentoring program. Click on banner below for details on next session in May 2014.<\/strong><\/p>\n[useful_banner_manager banners=2 count=1]\n<p>No relevant positions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of our very bright new traders asked to chat about trade psychology. He feared his needed help and wanted to seek my advice on a trading psychology coach. Many of our traders work with psychology coaches. The results are often very positive. I asked the trader to stop by my office for a chat to see if his issues &#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/your-head-is-fine-your-stratedgy-stinks\" 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":[1],"tags":[3899,1453,1084,55],"class_list":["post-36993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-comments-2","tag-issue","tag-psychology","tag-strategy","tag-trade","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>Your Head is Fine But Your Strategy Stinks | 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\/your-head-is-fine-your-stratedgy-stinks\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Your Head is Fine But Your Strategy Stinks | SMB Training\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of our very bright new traders asked to chat about trade psychology. 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