Too Much Screen Time is Killing Your Trading
|People often ask me –
How can you get up from your screens, grab a workout or run errands or worse yet….go to bed?!
It is simple – but let me ask you a question first.
Why can’t you get up from your screens?
The answer I most often hear is as follows:
- I need to make sure I protect my profits
- I was looking at some trading blogs and I saw another viewpoint
- My trading style demands me to watch the price action very closely
Allow me to respectfully dispel these ideas:
- Protect your profits – this is nothing more than I was up 50 ticks on this trade, now I am only up 23 – I need to get out. Who says the trend has changed – rarely does a trade go linear, it ebbs and flows.
- Trading blogs – why do you need to get an opinion on your trade AFTER it has been placed – do you not trust your thesis?
- Unless you are scalping 1-minute charts, staring at your screens adds no value – each tick against you actually triggers your brain to start thinking about what can go wrong – it plays on you and gets you to abandon your reason for getting into the trade.
- These answers relegate the trader to be a prisoner of their screens, as it clearly indicates that the trader is not operating from a robust trading plan or as I call it – a framework.
If you do not have a framework you are compelled to manage and watch every change in prices thinking that that somehow puts you in control.
Nobody can control the market – you are kidding yourself!
Having a framework accomplishes the following:
- Increases your confidence in placing and staying with trades
- Provides an objective rule based approach
- Allows for freedom – get away from the screens – do other activities that actually get your brain ready to come back later refreshed and recharged
- Enhances your ability to stick with trends and capture the big dollars.
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