Patience and Discipline in Trading

The value of patience and discipline in Forex trading cannot be overstated.  In order to be a successful trader, you must possess these two traits with unwavering consistency.  As I have gone through various phases of learning, failure, and success over the past 17 months, I have had moments and weeks where I have been extremely patient and disciplined.  However, maintaining that unwavering consistency has been one of the biggest challenges in my trading.

Lately, for a little over a month now, I have finally started to exhibit some reasonable level of self control.  I realize I have not yet absolutely mastered these essential survival skills.  Even during the past month, I experienced back to back days where I allowed myself to over-trade (the only two truly bad trading days I have experienced since mid-May).  As such,  I am constantly seeking new thoughts and inspirations for how and why to maintain steadfast patience and discipline.  I believe I am starting to turn the corner.  I find that I am no longer easy prey for the market.  I now lie in wait and take quick small bites out of the market.

So, what has been working?  What is helping me maintain my patience and discipline?  I go through a routine before each trading session.  The first thing I do is look at the lot ladder.  I must warn you, without the right mindset, this can be a double-edged sword.  The lot ladder allows you enter the number of pips you expect to average per day (along with some other variables) and then see how much money you will be making each week if you climb the lot ladder one rung at a time.  The reason this is so dangerous is that you can make the mistake of raising your daily pip goal so that you can make huge money so much faster.  This is completely counter-productive as it leads to over-trading, not covering profits, etc.

However, I have set my daily pip goal at the Fx365 Institute's long-time suggestion of just 7 pips a day.  Once you have been trading on the Smart Money Profile platform for some time, you know this is truly a modest goal.  Before any trading session, I look at where this highly obtainable goal can take me.  Here is a screen shot of what one part of my lot ladder looks like:

I take a few moments to really focus on the truth that averaging just 7 pips day turns a $1,000 account into a $20,000 a month income in a ridiculously short time frame.  I mean, this is incredibly powerful stuff.  It helps me cover smaller trades rather than trying to swing for the fences.  I still need to get better at not caring if the trade runs another 30, 50, 100+ pips.  It's tough knowing that I could have made my whole week on one trade, or hearing that someone else pulled a 40 when I had better entry and only pulled a 10 or 20.  However, I come back and look at the lot ladder again and realize I only need 2-4 of my modest winners a week.  I have to always remember, trading is a long-term race.  By taking those smaller positives, I avoid taking negatives that make it harder to reach my goal.  Then, at the end of the week when I have made my goal and am moving up the lot ladder again, I am one week closer to the financial freedom that $20,000 a month brings.  Isn't that the whole idea?

My other monumental struggle has been to avoid over-trading after taking a negative.  Now, although I am making significant progress towards trading at indifference, there are still times when I take a negative trade and literally feel the stress prickling through my body (what a horrible feeling).  When this happens, I absolutely must exhibit tremendous discipline and STOP TRADING until I have calmed down.  If I look at where I want to be by the end of 2015, I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT ALLOW MYSELF TO DAMAGE MY ACCOUNT.  

At those crucial moments, I lean on something Fx365i's Head Trader Wade Guth once told me.  He asked if I was planning to trade tomorrow.  I said yes.  He asked if I was planning to trade next week.  I said yes.  Next month, next year, etc?  Yes, yes, and yes.  So he asked me, "Why on earth would you get worked up about one trade or one negative day?"  I also reflect on Shane Guth recently telling me that the biggest thing he NEVER wants to do is let one bad day cause him to lose his buying power.  Live to fight another day!

Over this past month, I have also started telling my wife how my trading went each and every day.  She has believed in me and allowed me to stay on this journey despite several months without positive results.  Believe me, it is not easy to tell her when I am down for the day.  However, when I have taken a couple of wrong trades and walked away with relatively small losses, I can proudly tell her I kept my discipline and didn't throw money out the window like an idiot.  Knowing I will have to report to my wife on a daily basis helps me maintain steadfast discipline and patience in my trading.

One last thing I think about is basically a lesson from Rhonda Byrne's famous book, The Secret."  The Secret teaches that if we want something, we have to hold it in our mind's eye, believe we have already obtained it, and be fully grateful for having received it from the universe.  So yes, I am thankful for my huge trading account.  More importantly, I am thankful for being a highly successful trader with tremendous patience and discipline.  I know I did not get to this point by getting emotional and overreacting at every unexpected twist and turn in the market.  I am thankful for the self control and confidence that made me the trader I am today.

I realize the lot ladder may not help everyone.  Of course everybody is not married or willing to discuss their daily results with their significant other.  I also know that not everyone has the same view of The Secret as I do.  That is not the point.  What is important is that I have found ways (and will continue to seek and find new ways) to exhibit patience and discipline in my trading.  If you are struggling with patience and/or discipline in your trading, maybe you can use one of my tools.  Some of you will have to come up with something totally new that works for you.  The key is to find something that truly resonates with you - something powerful enough to give you the internal fortitude to do the right thing in the face of strong negative emotion.  Once you find ways to be patient and disciplined, you will be much more likely to survive in the unforgiving Forex jungle.

Two quick notes:
1) One other thing that has helped is writing this blog.  Thank you so much to everyone who reads it and especially to those of you who reach out to discuss your own trading experiences with me.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!
2) In regards to the 7 pips, you may be saying, "Well what about the commission?"  On my personal spreadsheet, I subtract 1.5 pips from each trade to come up with what I call "net pips."  This number will vary depending on the pair you trade and whether you are in a micro account.  I can help you figure out the exact number if you need help with this.

As always, please feel free to reach out to me at pipaddict73@gmail.com.  I LOVE hearing from fellow traders!

-Cyrus Sidhwa
Smart Money Profile Trader

Fighting #FOMO

#FOMO = Fear Of Missing Out.  Fomo is a serious killer for an SMP Trader.  

When you succumb to fomo, bad things happen.  The number one issue caused by fomo is massive over-trading.  Over-trading is deadly, so always remember: TRADES ARE GOING TO GO BY WITHOUT YOU AND IT'S OK!  THERE WILL BE MANY MANY MANY MANY MANY MORE TRADES.  When you overcome fomo, you can now wait for clear market conditions with a well defined directional bias.  Once direction has been established, wait for an opportunity like a good pullback, focus on getting great low-risk entry, and just let the directional bias take the trade in your direction.

By overcoming fomo, you end up taking far fewer trades because you are not jumping at every little whiffle and tick in the market.  When you become more selective about your trading, you only enter the trades you feel most strongly about.  Winning trades happen when a trader first gains a strong understanding of the current market conditions and then develops a strong belief about what is about to happen next. 

You do NOT want to tangle with
the dreaded Fomomonster

The #fomomonster can also cause a trader to start foolishly trying to call the turn.  The reason fomo starts causing you to call the turn is that you're afraid that this one little area of resistance might be the place that the market suddenly turns around.  You start thinking, "What if this is the new low?  It could be a huge trade.  I don't want to miss out on that...."   Calling the turn against a clear directional bias is one of the most frustrating and fruitless endeavors on earth (ask me how I know). If you want to steer clear of the monster, ONLY TRADE WHEN YOU HAVE STRONG EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT A MOVE IN FAVOR OF YOUR DIRECTIONAL BIAS.

If we focus on getting great entry, we can keep our negatives quite small.  If we avoid the fomo and only enter trades when we have a strong belief about the upcoming move, we will combine smaller and less frequent losses together with larger, more frequent wins.  Now that sounds like the winning recipe for trading success to me!

I love hearing back from fellow traders!  Please email me at pipaddict73@gmail.com.

-Cyrus

Risk Management Salvaged My Week

Quick Note: I have only posted my last couple of entries onto the Fx365i website's blog.  I will be adding those posts onto this blog soon.  I will be keeping both up to date.

Risk management really saved me from having a truly terrible week last week.  My win-loss record was only 3 wins vs 9 losses.  One of those wins was less than 3 pips.  Without solid risk management, I could have seen myself down a boatload of pips.  However, I managed to keep it together and was down a relatively modest 19 pips for the week.  Obviously I'm not proud of going 3 for 12 and being down for the week, but I sure am glad I kept my losses under control!

After trading for a year, I've heard some different theories on risk management.  Some people say you have to give a trade a fair amount of room.  Trying to decide just how much room is "fair" depends on where you "know you are wrong."  I believe this is a concept that takes screen time to fully understand.  In order to avoid taking large losses with this theory, it is critical to have sharp, well-placed entries.  If you chase a trade, it can be a long ride down to find out you were truly wrong.  We'll talk more about this in a minute.

Another theory I've heard is that as soon as a trade doesn't behave exactly as you expected it to, get out of the trade.  The problem is this isn't our business - it's the market makers' business.  If we knew exactly how trades were going to behave, we'd all be batting a thousand!  However, this concept certainly has a lot of merit.  As is so often the case, it's the subtle nuances that make all the difference.  For example, in an SMP trade, if you get a market maker dot, and you expect price to hold below that dot, if price gets above the dot, Dump The Trade!  The same idea holds true for Wealth Smart traders taking a trade up against trend break.  It's so tempting to just want to be right and let the it play out further... only to watch the trade go further against you.  To be successful, you must not only plan a trade, but you must then trade that plan.

I have also heard a theory that you should run a large stop, sometimes as large as 30 - 50 pips.  The thought behind this is that if you see that the trade is going against you, at some point it will take a breath coming back your way and allow you to get out without as big of a loss.  This is one theory that absolutely doesn't work for me on multiple levels.  First of all, if you run a huge stop, guess what?  PRICE CAN HIT IT!  Ask me how I know.  Nearly every time I have taken a large risk on a trade, I have hit my stop.   Additionally, when it does start breathing back in your favor, guess what?  You don't want to get out!  You feel like the trade is finally going your way and you decision to run such a large stop is paying off.  Until 10 seconds later when price snaps hard and stops you out.  To each their own, but that style of risk management is definitely not for me.

I truly believe you have to find your own style of trading and your own style of risk management.  I like to run a tight stop.  In fact, my stop is set at just 10 pips.  On most of my trades, I will almost immediately tighten my stop up even a couple more pips.  A huge part of the reason for this is that I am absolutely useless at clicking out of a trade when it is going against me.  Whether it is pride, ego, blind optimism, or just plain stupidity, I constantly find reasons to stay in the trade.  However, if I have moved my stop to  minus 6 or 8 pips, I no longer have to worry about it.

Now, I also believe setting my stop at a place where I know I was wrong about the trade.  In order to accomplish this, I truly have to focus on my entries.  For example, I frequently want to enter close to a market maker dot (if you are a Wealth Smart trader, think about trying to get in close to trend break).  Let's say we're trying to go long.  The further price moves above that dot, or above trend break, the larger the negative we would have to take before knowing we were wrong.  Why?  Because we would know we were wrong when price moved below the dot or snapped short through trend break.  If we entered the trade 10 pips above the dot or trend break, there is too much risk.  If we entered 2 or 3 pips above, we have managed our risk much more efficiently.

Well, I hope this is helpful to fellow traders.  Find your own style of risk management that makes sense to you.  As for me, I need to consistently stick with my risk management principles.  But to tell you the truth, I'm sick of talking about losing.  I need to be more patient and find better trades.  Hopefully over the upcoming weeks, we can discuss when to exit trades for profit!

I always love hearing from fellow traders.  Please reach out to me at pipaddict73@gmail.com.  

Happy Pip Hunting!