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Thursday, February 12, 2015

Two Questions I Ask Myself When Trading


Thought on why I enter a trade and 2 questions I ask myself:
I see the price action, a chart, Time n Sales, indicating a possible move downwards. I am timing the entry and I click the short button fairly QUICKLY when I have the conviction the price will go in my expected direction, anticipating the momentum. Next thing is I see the prints are above my entry. What I expected to happen did not happen. It happen the opposite. I give it a few moments to see if price may drop , see the prints, and if it is not happening I ask myself 2 questions:
1) What is the worst that may happen if I close the position right now , right after I entered ,right after I thought the price will go my way, but it actually went few ticks up? Am I gonna lose money? The answer is : No , Im not gonna lose , except few pennies and commissions , which is dismissal comparing if price goes much further in the opposite direction. 

2) What can I do if I exit , and price starts going in the direction I expected? Can I reenter again?
Having in mind that the stocks I chose to trade are big movers, the choppiness in general is and should be minimal. Momentum stocks are those with 2 or 3 times higher volume then on average trading day. This is why I do not trade indexes like SPY QQQ DIA IWM e.c.t.
Knowing the first answer in the first question which is : No I will not lose money if i exit, and knowing the 2nd answer that Yes I can re-enter again, is a powerful mindset for cutting losses short. Thinking that your losing position may turn around in your favor is extremely dangerous though. Your mind will always find a reason to stay in losing trade such as : "ok it is up to the next resistance it may bounce here" , then the next thing you see it went up the next even higher esistance , and you say to yourself " ok here is the top , now will start dropping" and before you know your tiny losing trade that you could have exited right-away when it didnt do what you expected ( you entered and click the short button QUICKLY so you catch the momentum , so you wouldn't miss the momentum but it went opposite of your expectation ) becomes a big loser. Besides losing your money, now you have a unclear mind embedded with emotions that will make you do the next stupid thing , which is entering ASAP in the next trade trying to immediately recover your loss, and suffering another loss .

To recap:you have a good reason to enter a trade, which is your expectation for the momentum move. If the move is totally the opposite of what you expected , ask yourself the question No1 and No2 . Answer the questions. Taking the loss will be much easier then thinking and hoping the trade will turn around in you favor.
The second question when asked, engraves in your mind the fact that you can re-enter the same trade again if moves in expected direction. When  you don't ask yourself you will just remain focused on the stop loss that got hit , and you will forget the option of re-entering .
So when trading it might be a good idea to be interviewing yourself and to stay calm.

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