I dig my hole, then I'm an expert at climbing out...

[sawtooth500 33]

So I notice a pattern I tend to have with trading...

I tend to go negative fairly consistently when I first start my day, then it's like my brain kicks into overdrive and I go "I can't fuck around anymore..." and I land some good trades and almost always end the day positive. 

It works, but it's sloppy. There is overtrading, FOMO, and poor trade management. 

How much better would I be doing if I didn't consistently did myself into a hole at the start of my trading!

Has anyone else experienced this? Any tips/advice for getting over it?

[OTC 27]

Taras,

I dealt with this for several weeks, noticed that my days would be 8R - 10R+ if I could eliminate this.

The first thing I did was go back and review the time of day that this happened, sure enough it was within the first 5-mins so I decided to use a stop-watch and not trade the 1st 5 minutes, then I noticed that after 5 minutes I entered any call-out I heard on FOMO and the pattern continued but not as bad, still going red and clawing out to end either even or green. I also noticed that trades between 10 - 12 noon had more red trades than green trades so I set up a rule of not to trade that time period - I break the rule on occasion but I stopped over trading thanks to it. My strongest ability to claw my way out of red happened from 12:30 to closing bell.

Secondly, I started to train my mind to only trade 1 pattern per day and although I often break this I noticed that I would not trade more than 2-3 patterns per day. I think just tightening up the rules was all it took to stop, and start adhering to the discipline. Also I re-read chapter 16 of The Disciplined Trader which is IMO one of the major game changers for my mindset, almost like morning meditation for others - I just needed the hard reminders.

I am a quite disciplined person but trading causes so much FOMO.

Lastly, recently I reached out to some others in the chatroom to become accountability partners and we private chat throughout the day. I noticed that by calling out my rules to others that I am less likely to break them in fear of having to explain why I did so later. I have also stopped trading with P/L in mind and that has made a world of a difference - it has removed the notion of trading under the influence of fear and greed. I now have 11 green days in a row. 

I know we have spoken before and your trade amounts are significantly higher than mine but my risk tolerance is capable of trading 2K-5K shares per trade, I am just not experienced enough to do so yet....yet.

Hope this helps.

[sawtooth500 33]

Thank you and yes, everything that makes sense. The last two days, the places where I've dug myself into a hole is trading in the premarket. I totally get not trading during certain time periods because you lose money, but I also ask myself if I never practice trading during that time how will I ever get good at it? It's definitely an internal struggle. Like my trades today that got me into a hole, it really had nothing to do with the fact that it was in the premarket, but rather due to the fact that I took FOMO entries instead of waiting for a nice pullback. The FOMO webinar that Dr. Katz put on tonight was great, and from that I learned that I need to turn my FOMO into JOMO - The JOY of Missing Out!

[Brendon 146]

That's interesting @sawtooth500I tend to do the exact opposite with my typical day. I catch a couple of big moves early within the first 15 minutes then more often give some back and make less as the day goes on. The market is like Middle Earth (magic decreases with time), volatility is a function of time, as time goes on the volatility decreases and so are your chances of making money. So I am able to close my day with 2-3 nice trades before 10AM, after that time the market slows and I have to double time it to make more or make it back if I'm red. I find it easier to ride the momo right near the open (typical trades lasts perhaps 10 seconds to a minute or two. Just from my experience I trade worse during the day, it could be that moves are harder for me to judge. It also could be that I like fast trades and late slow movers (that can become fast movers) don't fit my trading personality generally. It also could be that I am just tired. It's like playing basketball, I sink more shots before I get tired, your accuracy goes down during the game. 

Edited July 8, 2020 by Brendon