教学

Keep Calm and Carry On

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Keep an eye on the chart above.
Again, the planned thread of ed posts are interrupted by an idea that is more pressing. See it as a bit of relevant escapism if you will. Not that Money Man is a guru, but he has been asked many times by fellow traders how to get out of a tight spot they were finding themselves in. Now we all know that giving financial advice, especially for a character without official identification, is not encouraged. There is a reason for this that we will touch on later.

Reading his previous ed posts should give a fairly comprehensive idea as to how traders end up in these situations. But ‘bringing it back here’, the first time Money Man was asked such a question was, I think in 2017 (he did not exist then in this form, but I am having him earn his keep). It was something like a listing on Coinbase of some cryptos that caused a serious rally in price. Followed by a steep correction. The trader frantically wanted to know if s/he should bail or stick in it. Once a trader starts asking, “what should I do?” or desperately looking for somebody to tell them where the price is definitely going next, the trader has lost control as price has gone outside of his tolerance. Money Man foolishly advised the trader that the price would go to the level the exuberance started from. He was ridiculed straight away as trying to be a guru. Price luckily did return to that level and he was hailed as a guru. What was foolish about that advice then? The problem with it was that it was one trader, publicly on an exchange chat, telling another exactly how to trade.

Money Man has evolved since those days and hopefully grown wiser. He came to realize that his answer then could have been much better. For one, he offered his take as a solution to somebody else’s problem. It was done in arrogance, thinking he knew the unknown with inevitability. Putting himself at risk of causing harm to somebody else through maybe understanding the problem but not knowing the person having the problem and what their goals were, or what their tolerances were. Also, why did the trader ask the question? Because they were outside of their comfort zone / tolerance and could not get to clear thinking. It was not good for anybody to offer such a specific answer, even though it worked out. By doing that he chipped away at that trader’s sense of competence and confidence. Getting to know how valuable your sense of self is, should get you to realize how important it is to stay humble, for your own sake and the sake of others.
People are vulnerable when their emotions take over and prevent them from thinking clearly – why there is a legal attempt to prevent possible charlatans from getting control of the mind of others when vulnerable (more on vulnerability and emotions in the PS). They start to look outside themselves for answers and neglect what they already have. Here lies the kicker: you have to plan and trade yourself out of the situation. You are capable. Your emotions incapacitate you, so get rid of them.

How? Money Man advises that you take the chart and look at decision levels, patterns, trends, or whatever your trading is based on (if it is simply based on hunches – you are in serious trouble). Take your calculator, work out what all the eventualities would mean and decide what is within your tolerance. Put your orders in (not market, but limit orders and conditional orders. How many times have you already felt negative emotions about market orders?). Now you have built your acceptance into the eventualities. Put alerts on (Trading View has great alerts), to reassure yourself that the sky will not fall without you knowing and then walk away for a set amount of time. Go do what will get your mind away and quill your emotions and make you feel good about yourself. Indulge in a little escapism. When you get back to the screen again, do the same as above until you feel back in control. Accept whatever happens. Accept that you will never be 100% right, but you steadied the ship yourself. Through this you will retain your confidence, not be vulnerable, and learn things which are worth the money (possibly lost) paid to learn.

Conclusion: Prevent yourself from losing control in the first place – have a read of previous ed posts to see Money Man’s ideas on this. Make sure that you know your tolerance and build it into your trades. Be kind to yourself, you are human. All traders end up finding themselves trading in discomfort every so often, so figure out what makes it more comfortable for yourself. Very important to me: Please leave a like if you appreciate the effort, please leave a comment to develop this further and Please follow if you think this thread is leading somewhere that you would like to know about.

PS We all know advertising is built on playing on your emotions. What a successful industry that is? It targets your vulnerabilities – your emotions. Fear, greed, lust, etc, etc are well known negative emotions and mindsets, but there are positive emotions too: empathy, respect, humility, etc. These are what make humanity collectively stronger. They are not self-centred but build community. They build you up when you build others up. Help me here, but I think they all could be described as wisdom (a hard word to use when talking about trading as it requires a rewiring of the mind and sounds ‘guru-ish’). Trading is not a zero-sum game, nor is life a competition. Doing it well is the goal.

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