The Mind of a Day Trader

It's almost the end of 2016, and very much a "breakout" year for me. The second you stop looking for the fast track to success, put your nose to the grindstone and just unselfishly WORK toward your goals with pure intentions, things just start to happen. Good things. That was a lesson I very much felt this year, and one I'll always carry with me in everything I do, not just trading. That concept is difficult to grasp at first - "How do I approach my goals unselfishly and in the right manner?" - so I highly recommend you read the book Flow  by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - he goes into great detail on how to achieve that state of mind. It's applicable to many areas of life, but especially applicable to the mindset we need to have as traders. This book has helped me very much. _________________________________________________________________________________ I've began to develop a list of pigs who interest me in the coming months of 2017. These are nam

I get approached with this question so often. "How do I find direction in my trading? I don't have a niche. I feel like everybody has one and I don't. And I don't even know where to start. Help - I don't know what to do." So, here is what I say to you. For starters, you aren't alone. NOBODY knew what to do at the start of their journey. Nobody. And thats completely normal, you're not supposed to. Like I said in a tweet the other day: 'Trading is not going from Point A to Point B. More like a drunken zig zag stumble from Point A to Point Z" ..........and making pit stops at the rest of the alphabet and entire numerical system as we know it on the way there. You find out what TO do through a process of trial & error and realizing what NOT to do. Thats what the journey is. Its very simple. Wake up - try something. See what happens. If it doesn't work? Thats fine. MOST things you try...will not work. Are they failures? Absolutely

Disclaimer: These are all just my personal thoughts on certain aspects of trading psyche and how to get from Point A to Point B. None of it is fact, nor am I claiming to be correct or incorrect, they're just some realizations I've come up with from my own experiences. If you're a fluffy optimist, you probably won't enjoy this post. If you're a realist, (the only approach to have as a trader in my opinion) then enjoy.  By far one of the most common beginner questions I constantly get asked, outside of "What are your favorite setups" or "What is the best trading strategy?" or "How much is enough to start trading with" or "YOOO how do I make money bro??" etc... is: "How can I stop revenge trading. I take 1 step forward and 2 steps back constantly, I hate it. And I can't stop."   Here is what you need to understand if you're throwing that question around to traders you respect and who you think will l

Routine. This is one of the most important tools in your trading arsenal and you don't even know it. What you do day in and day out in your personal life has a direct effect on your trading - I believe that 110% and have seen it unfold in my own trading. If you roll out of bed at 9:15am 15 mins before open, slug over to the PC and quickly scan your local chatroom or Twitter to give you some quick ideas for the open - I hope you didn't plan on making any money. The saddest part about that is I would venture to say that more people than not actually do this. It will NEVER work! For some reason, most of the traders I talk to just think of trading as this "thing," I guess is a good way to describe it. Meaning that almost everyone is not trading full time, they are aspiring traders, who either already have another job, are unemployed, or whatever the situation may be - but trading is not their main source of income. So I think that a lot of people treat trading as like