How do you feel like losses have influenced your trading?
What have some of your worst losses been and how did you get through the situation? Do you feel like you trade worse in these situations?
my losses represented high % of my capital invested (70%+) - perhaps twice this bad in my 40+ years of gambling and trading
I stopped trading and gambling for a while post event
I breached some basic rules - so yes i Traded/Gambled badly in those situations
How do you feel like gains have influenced your trading? Do you feel like you trade better when winning? Why?
gains influence your trading (while you are still learning the path)...they make you feel over confident and jeopardize the rational processes you have for risk and pattern recognition...as one becomes better at trading you realise winning and losing mean the same ...but it takes years to master this
How aware are you of profit/loss within your trading over 24 hours, a week, a month, a year?
I maintain awareness - but my P&L performance does not affect my processes as long as it remains within certain parameters ...any significant deviation requires investigation and correction if needed to my process
Do you find it hard to accept the variance in trading or do you enjoy it?
you must accept "variance" ....as long as it stays within acceptable standard sample deviations re targets ....otherwise it must be investigated and processes reviewed as stated in last answer
When have you taken on too little risk? Why did you do this?
depends on your definition of Risk ? .....I maintain fairly consistent trading "lot" sizes per trade and only focus on the best signals .....if you mean exposing your % capital to market then it depends ......i will rarely go above 5% exposure to market at any time....mainly less than that as that represents perhaps 5 trades and as i am a forex trader thats a lot of trades representing a significant bias in market and usually means i am becoming over correlated on the G8
When have you taken on too much risk? Why did you do this?
i have gone higher than 6% as i had to due to spreads ....this was the night that GBP dumped during the brexit vote ...i traded through the night and the rewards were worth the risks
What sort of state do you feel like you trade the best in? Do you feel like this is under your control?
i need to feel confident , fresh , mindful , alert , focused and "in the Zone" , no external distractions or worries.......anything less and your trading will suffer
If you feel like you struggle with any biases, how do you combat them? Or if you did, how have you removed them from your trading?
I will constantly battle with "biases" in a trading session .....thats what we are doing as traders .....we are seeing patterns and biases that are screaming at us to follow them! .....i handle this by maintaining an objective outlook and waiting for my systems/patterns to trigger.....sometimes stepping back for a brief period if needed or as long as it takes.....the advantage a trader has is they do not NEED to trade .....if the signals you are getting are not feeling right then step back .........you have all the time in the world to trade ...but not all the money !
