What are Your Trading Strengths and Weaknesses?

[KHarp83 8]

Hi BBT,
I wanted to share with you all what I think are some of my strengths and weaknesses as a trader. For quite a while, I really only focused on my weaknesses and when I finally realized that focusing on your strengths is just as important, I discovered that I didn't really know what my strengths were (or if I really even had any). But after reviewing my trading over the past year and a half I was able to identify areas where I was clearly improving, and areas that were still problematic. I think this is a great exercise that can really help to develop one's identity a trader. Feel free to list your own strengths/weaknesses.

My strengths are:

• I almost always follow my profit-taking strategy
• I rarely let losing trades go past my stop-loss (I always use hard stops, no exceptions)
• I rarely go past my daily max loss (have to give credit to DAS risk controls here...)
• I rarely overtrade

My weaknesses are:

• I often make impulsive decisions to enter and/or exit a trade based on emotional reactions to bad trades/missed trades that cause me to feel either frustration or FOMO.
• During trades taken at the open, I I often do not pay attention to the spread and as a result I get very bad fills, or worse, bad slippage on my stop-losses.
• I am often unwilling or unable to take breaks from trading after a bad loss or during compromised emotional states.
• I tend to have one HULK SMASH day per month that wipes out 30-40% of my monthly gains.

[Mike B 625]

On 3/3/2020 at 9:00 AM, Kharp83 said:

rarely let losing trades go past my stop-loss (I always use hard stops, no exceptions)

The key to surviving the learning curve. 

[pptom 1]

Strengths: confident in my ability to analyze the charts and establish clear support and resistance zones , never averaging down, being thorough in determining my setups

Weaknesses: impulsive trading/chasing to catch an opportunity, failing to adhere to my own rules, ignoring stop loss, revenge trading after a loss, failing to take a step back when needed

I have recently posted the following note on my screen: "Do not trade impulsively. Random trades lead to disasters." Seems to be helping so far.