Successful traders may differ in their trading strategy, but they do have one thing in common. Pro traders have learned to manage key emotions that affect their results. Here’s how you can do the same.
Finding and properly following a proven trading strategy is one of the most important steps to becoming a successful stock or crypto trader.
But becoming a consistently profitable trader requires more than just having a winning trading system.
It also requires you to understand yourself as an investor and how you react to stress, greed, and the virtue of patience.
As an investor, you must understand your own emotional reactions to market volatility before putting your money on the line.
Your ability to properly manage stress, greed, and patience plays a huge role in your long-term trading success.
Continue reading to discover how these three powerful emotions directly affect your results, and what you can do about it.
1. Stress and Trading
We all experience stress from time to time, but it can destroy your health and relationships when it becomes a way of life.
You are also far more likely to make bad decisions with your money if you’re in a constant state of stress.
Stress may cause you to make rash decisions, such as exiting a trade too soon or staying too long and losing money.
If you want to trade profitably, you must remove as much stress from your trading as you can.
Having a rule-based trading system that works is a great way to reduce stress because it eliminates trading decisions based on emotion.
Also, if you find yourself becoming extremely stressed out when the market is going through a correction, it’s a fantastic time to take a break!
Spend some time to determine what causes stress in your trading and take immediate steps to remove it.
2. Greed and Trading
Greed is one of the most dangerous emotions that any trader or investor can experience.
Greed will lead you to take outsized risks with your money that you really shouldn’t take.
When you are greedy, it’s nearly impossible to walk away from a bad trade when you should.
Greed makes you believe that you deserve to make more money from a trade than you actually do.
Greed also makes it easy for you to take on too much risk with your money.
You might decide to aggressively invest in a trade that is outside your risk tolerance level.
You may also buy a larger position of a stock or crypto than you can afford to lose.
Greed is a feeling that is challenging to get rid of, but it can be managed.
The best way to keep greed from ruining your success as a trader is to set strict rules for yourself.
That’s why we always suggest a fixed position size to members for each new trade in The Wagner Daily stock portfolio or Morpheus Crypto portfolio.
Don’t let greed make you break your own rules.
3. The Virtue of Patience
Even short-term swing trading is a long-term game, so don’t try to rush the process.
Nearly everyone who properly follows an effective trading technique can eventually become a successful trader—but it requires patience to get there.
When you first start trading, don’t rush to buy every stock or crypto that catches your eye.
Take time to research and determine if the potential trade entry falls within the parameters of your trading system.
If you miss the trade entry, another profitable opportunity is just around the corner.
When the market becomes too challenging, don’t be afraid to shift your portfolio to cash until conditions improve.
Cash is always a valid position.
In fact, the most successful traders we know are out of the market more than they are in it!
At Morpheus, we step on the gas pedal in ideal market conditions, but quickly press the brakes when the bear strikes.
Summary
Becoming a winning trader or investor requires more than just about having a successful trading strategy.
You must truly understand yourself as an investor, and how you react to stress and greed.
If you’re naturally an impatient person, make it your mission to change.
Consistently finding winning stock picks is an obvious element of success, but you must also understand your own reactions to emotions that can affect your trading decisions.
The best way to deal with these emotions is to prepare yourself for them.
Read your emotions and understand how they might affect you.
Doing so arms you with the ability to combat them before they have a chance to affect your trading results.
What is YOUR most challenging emotion to master as a trader? Drop us a comment below.
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My most challenging emotion to master as a trader is always wanting to be in a trade
regardless for fear of missing out. i cannot control this emotion no matter how hard i try. its
i always want to be in a trade no matter what. lately i just cannot seem to get anything right no matter how hard i try or what i do. thanks for the great article.