{"id":47714,"date":"2018-11-15T12:49:45","date_gmt":"2018-11-15T17:49:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/?p=47714"},"modified":"2018-11-18T12:49:03","modified_gmt":"2018-11-18T17:49:03","slug":"how-to-improve-your-trading-confidence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/how-to-improve-your-trading-confidence","title":{"rendered":"How to improve your trading confidence"},"content":{"rendered":"

You prepare for the trading day and honestly you are not confident that you will make money.<\/p>\n

With each trade you are not sure you will make money. With your longs you are not sure you will make money. With your shorts you are not sure you will make money. You are not sure if you should be holding your winners longer. You are not sure if you should allow your losing trades more room.\u00a0 You are not sure if you should not be making some trades that you are. You are not sure if you should be cutting your losing trades quicker.<\/p>\n

You get the point. You are not sure.\u00a0 You are not confident as a trader. You feel that if you were just confident, then you would break out as a trader.\u00a0 You would then be able to experience what being one of the Consistently Profitable Traders is like.\u00a0 How great would that be!<\/p>\n

Let me tell you a story of a very confident, or so he said, trader and how he became truly confident.\u00a0 And how you can become truly confident as a trader.<\/p>\n

Trader was floundering with our firm.\u00a0 Overall he was consistently l<\/span>osing money.\u00a0<\/span>But he had some really big wins, some really big trades in his work, as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trader was a confident person overall.\u00a0 He kept<\/span>\u00a0saying he was confident his results would improve if he just took his trades with his niche.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But should he have been confident?\u00a0 And remember I am talking about a very talented person.\u00a0 Someone who has real ability to become an elite trader.\u00a0 Honestly, someone who I expect to be a seven-figure trader at the firm next year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

No!\u00a0 No he should not have been confident.\u00a0 Not at that point.\u00a0<\/span>He was consistently losing money overall.\u00a0<\/span>Thinking confidently was not going to help him win.\u00a0 Trader needed to find a solution and change to start winning.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I suggested he start keeping really good trading stats.\u00a0 We import all of our trades into Tradervue.\u00a0 We tag our trades and then are provided stats on the efficacy of each trade and much more.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I suggested Trader meet with Dr. Steenbarger to go over his stats.\u00a0 Hey it helps to have the best trading coach in the country working with your traders.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Steenbarger found the solution to his trading from his trading stats. And then\u00a0<\/span>Trader stopped doing that which was causing overall negative PnL.<\/span><\/p>\n

I spoke with Trader today after he met and worked with Dr. Steenbarger.\u00a0<\/span>He was *very* confident. Specifically, h<\/span>is win rate in his trades was 89 percent, up from 70 percent. Specifically, h<\/span>is losing trades were held for shorter duration. Specifically, Trader<\/span>\u00a0saw that his best trades were not scalps, but Trades2Hold.\u00a0 Trader has made over 100k in PnL in less than a month.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Trader will continue to keep detailed trading stats and meet with Dr. Steenbarger to ensure his edge is still present and improve from here.\u00a0 But what an amazing place from which to improve as a trader!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From here, we discussed 3 options. <\/span><\/p>\n

1) Do n<\/span>ot change anything.\u00a0 \u00a0Keep doing exactly what you are doing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

2) Scale up by 20-30 percent.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

3) Open a new account for new trades to experiment with and measure.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Did I mention Trader was *very* confident? \u00a0<\/span>He should be.\u00a0<\/span>He earned the right to be.\u00a0<\/span>The stats verify that his trading has edge.\u00a0<\/span>The stats do not lie.\u00a0<\/span>The data is crystal clear.\u00a0<\/span>He is a trader with edge. No, h<\/span>e is a confident trader with edge.<\/span><\/p>\n

So let’s say you are a new trader and do not have edge yet.\u00a0 And you would not have trades to measure that would show profitability.\u00a0 How would we go about solving that on our trading desk with new hires?\u00a0 How can you solve that as a new trader?<\/p>\n

Experiment with trading setups with edge.\u00a0 Find traders who have edge, learn, experiment with, and measure your results with those strategies.\u00a0 On our desk we teach new hires strategies being used by our successful traders on our desk.\u00a0 We teach some of that in SMB DNA, at SMB Training, our education arm.\u00a0 You can learn more about it in this free webinar<\/a>, that also teaches 3 setups from our prop desk. Traders then experiment and measure their success with these trades.\u00a0 The ones they trade with edge they build upon.\u00a0 The ones they do not trade with edge, they discard.<\/p>\n

True confidence for your trading is trading and trades proven through well-kept trading stats to have edge for you.<\/p>\n

If\u00a0 you are not yet trading with edge.\u00a0 Think of the trader above.\u00a0 Think of the solutions that you can make to your trading.\u00a0 Because in time, you can be trading with edge.\u00a0 You can be a trader who trades with confidence.<\/p>\n

Summary\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n