Psychological assistance to traders. Trader, help yourself! Self-psychology tools. Thomas Oberlechner “Forex Market Psychology”

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Trading on the stock exchange is not a game, much less luck. First of all, this is the hard and sometimes very nervous work of a trader. Emotions, fears, excitement, greed - all this is familiar to any novice trader.

In this article we will analyze the psychology of trading “piece by piece”. You will learn how to create an atmosphere of psychological comfort for trading and how to stop making emotional mistakes. A lot of books have been written about the psychology of trading. Moreover, most often they are written about by mature professionals who have been through thick and thin on financial exchanges. Below we will look at a list of useful literature.

1. Why trading psychology is so important

Every person is prone to emotions. Even if he carefully disguises his feelings. Traders work directly with money. Money fascinates the minds of any person (especially when it comes to decent amounts). Emotional components actively interfere with trading, which lead to thoughtless actions and ultimately to losses.

Fear of big money

It's hard to believe, but many traders are simply afraid or not ready to earn a lot. For example, the current deposit is $10,000. The subconscious mind is afraid to increase it to $30,000 in a short period of time (for example, 3 months), because in this case it will trade a larger amount and it will not be comfortable. In this case, the absolute amount of risk per trade increases.

Trading psychology allows you to follow your system regardless of small current losses. A trader should focus on the result as a whole, and not on a specific transaction.

Let's give a couple of practical examples from the life of novice traders. Perhaps you will recognize your actions in some of these examples.

1.1. The desire to urgently win back a loss

For example, you opened a position, but the market went against it. A loss was recorded. There are already the first unpleasant feelings, and the day is just beginning. Then we entered the deal again and again suffered a loss. After this, a feeling of “anger”, “resentment” towards the market awakens. There is a desire to return your loss as soon as possible. Such feelings are probably familiar to many who are just starting to get acquainted with trading.

Most likely, a trader in such a situation will make more small transactions (thus earning a little bit at a time). As you know, the intraday trading approach leads to losses. For example, the next 3 positive trades allowed us to win back the first minus. However, the next deal could lead to an even greater loss.

Most often, young people succumb to emotions. Apparently this is why there are few professional traders among them.

1.2. Early profit taking

Another interesting example from frequently encountered situations is the example of early profit taking. For example, you bought an asset and it began to grow. You have a specific take profit (position closing price) that you have set in advance. Previous trades were not closed at the take profit, since the price approached it, but never touched it.

These memories are still fresh in your memory and therefore, in order not to lose the profit you have already accumulated, you decide to close the position halfway to the take profit. After a couple of hours or days, the price goes further and touches the level that the trader was waiting for, but he no longer has a position.

If a trader had self-discipline, he would wait for the goal in each trade, as required by the trading system, and would not perform actions to analyze the previous pair of trades.

1.3. Uncontrolled capital management

For example, a trader's day begins with a series of losses. By lunchtime he realizes that he has already lost 3% of his funds. It is difficult for him to live on knowing that he was defeated. Therefore, he increases his leverage (fortunately, brokers allow this) and begins to open transactions with greater risk in order to win back.

And then luck takes over, he wins back 2%. But his final result is still minus 1%. He understands that he made a very simple 2% and decides that now things will definitely go better and continues to trade with the same leverage. The next trade takes away 5 percent of the loss. Total, already 6% in the red. And the day is not over yet.

If our trader continues to increase his leverage, then there is every chance of losing even more money. The most reasonable option would be not to trade on days when there is no rush. After all, there are days when all trades are unprofitable. And these days, it’s especially not worth taking increased risks.

The desire to win back only leads to even greater losses. At the same time, you also get nervous and waste your time when you could be doing what you love.

1.4. FOMO

FOMO (FOMO, "Fear Of Missing Out") - syndrome of lost profits. Arises from greed. A trader wants to catch and profit from every market movement. Therefore he is always in position.

The state of FOMO negatively affects trading. We need to acknowledge once and for all the fact that you can’t make all the money. Especially on the stock exchange against players who have insider information. You need to make money in those movements that correspond to your trading system.

2. Fundamentals and principles of trader psychology

Security charts are a direct reflection of trading psychology. All Japanese candles with shadows and spikes on the charts are emotional outbursts of the crowd. Also, the inflation of soap bubbles in the stock markets and their further collapses are also directly related to psychology.

We list the main tips for a professional approach to trading.

1 Follow your trading system or principles. Over the long term, you will be in the black.

Remember that: emotions are the enemy of logic.

2 Reduce stress. Think about what specifically upsets you. Fear of losing money? Missed opportunity? The cause of anxiety and stress lies in them. All these questions should be answered in writing. When you write down a thought on paper, it will become easier for your subconscious. This is a psychological trick.

3 Never count money that has not yet been withdrawn from the exchange. While they are there, many unpleasant surprises can happen. The same applies to transactions. For example, if a stock is currently worth 100 and you have it in your portfolio, then don't think of it as money. The price is volatile. Tomorrow they may open with a downward gap and then it will be even more painful to think that you have lost something that you have not recorded yet.

4 Use the rules of money management. Simply put, don't take too many risks. Each person has his own concept of risk. You can trade in comfort only if you know that you are managing your risk correctly. Any transaction is a risk: either win or lose. Keep this ratio at a level that is psychologically comfortable.

Roughly speaking, if the ratio of risk and profit is 1 to 3. Then in fact it can be 1% to 3% or 10% to 30% (depending on how much the trader risks).

5 Set yourself up to believe that most trades in trading are unprofitable. But the profitable ones cover all losses in full. One comes to this opinion over time. It is difficult for beginners to adjust their psychological state to the fact that most often their trading day will end in the red zone.

6 Trade with the money on which your life does not depend. If they are afraid of losing them, then it will be impossible to take risks, and if you don’t take risks, then there is no chance of earning money. There is a saying: “until you take risks, you won’t make money.”

7 If you feel out of control, take a couple of deep breaths. Step away from the screen for ten minutes. Physical activity can reduce stress levels.

Sports are very important for traders. Until you relieve psychological stress, trading is unlikely to be easy.

8 Let your profits grow. Do not take profits ahead of time. This is the mistake of all beginners. They are ready to hold a losing trade for months, and they will throw away a profitable one in 1-2 days.

3. The best books on trading psychology

Stock Market Psychology - Fear, Greed and Panic (David Cohen)
The Disciplined Trader (Mark Douglas)
Psychology of Finance (Lars Tweed)
Zone trading (Lars Tweed)
Mean Markets and Lizard Brain (Terry Burnham)
Trading psychology and advice. 10 steps of a trader (E. Lanchev)
Indecision and paralysis of the trader (Alexander Bryuzgin)
Behavioral finance or between fear and greed (N. Rudyk)
Psychology of electronic trading - power for trading (B. Sito)
Psychology of the Forex market (T. Oberlechner)

Let’s be clear right away: I am not a professional in the field of psychology, not a psychologist, and not a psychotherapist. I am a professional trader. Therefore, I will write about what I experienced myself, as well as about what my students felt, what they overcame, what and how they fought, both I and, subsequently, them. Maybe then professionals from psychology, as a science, will give all this scientific definitions, terms, write articles for their highly specialized magazines and collections, after all, the topic is interesting, if only because any trader, working on Forex, is constantly in a state of stress, as between life and death, between wealth and that which is opposite to it.

Let's skip the training stage at the basic level, when new traders master levels of resistance, support, indicators, orders... Let's start with the next stage, which in many courses is designated as training for the pros.

In previous chapters I gave my interpretation of this training. In the method that I am sending out, the trader receives a clear answer where and when he can bet on “sell” or “buy”, within a trading session, within a day, within a week, etc., then the criteria for changing the direction of the trend, the levels from which to what extent the currency will follow the trend necessarily, as well as necessarily - to the extent it will make a correction in the opposite direction, even indicating the time of day and a description of how the correction will take place, add to this “airbags” according to the method, in case of force majeure (September 11 taught many), etc.

With all this, the risk on Forex is very close to zero. I ask the student: So what is your possible percentage of loss with the technique that you have mastered?

Answer: zero.

Question: then why did you earn only 20 points the whole day?

Let's be objective: take only 20 points from a movement of 100 points, this is not a victory, but a defeat. The technique is designed to take from the daily currency movement MORE than 100% of the movement of the main currency pair and from 20 to 50% of the movement of auxiliary pairs (see Chapter 6. Allies and opponents). On a demo account, the same student freely took 150-200% of the movement of a currency pair within a day, and on a real account - 10 times less.

And here we come to the 2 most important factors for the success of any trader

Knowledge of the correct methodology for working on Forex;
Psychological readiness enter and exit the market on time.

Read carefully this quote from Lewis J. Borsellino's book, "The Trading Guide": “Successful trading is 90% emotion and psychology and 10% technique.”

A novice trader will probably smile, thinking that someone from Moska decided to make an elephant. Here we would learn to understand where and how much the currency will go, and psychological problems will somehow be resolved by themselves during this time. A professional trader, remembering himself as a beginner, will also smile and say to himself that Lewis J. Borsellino wrote the absolute truth.

Another quote from the lips of successful trader and Forex analyst Moishe from the preface to the book by Van Tharp, Brian June. "Intraday trading: secrets of mastery": "So, the first part of the book is devoted to the psychology of trading. Does this disappoint you? But in vain. I have long been convinced that psychology plays the most important role in a trader’s success - perhaps even more important than technical analysis and position sizing management. This is not So obviously, there is no decent trading algorithm in hand yet, but after such an algorithm is developed, it often becomes clear that its implementation is perhaps even more difficult than development. And the whole point is in the compliance of trading algorithms with the psychology of the trader. In fact, when we trade, our opponent in the market is not the trader at the next table or at the other end globe, and our psyche, its weaknesses are greed, passion and fear characteristic of every person.”

This is how to defeat this enemy is what we are talking about in the first part. By the way, Van Tharp has a PhD in psychiatry, so the conversation is on a professional level.

And I’ll add more fuel to the fire: millionaire traders Elder, Williams, Borsellino, Van Tharp, B. June and others are all psychiatrists by training. It's no coincidence that this is the case. It was not economists who became the leaders and most successful traders, but professional psychiatrists and psychotherapists. Think about it. You will become a successful trader when you understand why this happens in Forex. You will then realize and understand the nature of your mistakes, and by correcting these mistakes, you will become a trader who will not be hindered by any psychological barriers or obstacles on the way to his successful earnings in the stock market.

So why are psychiatrists more successful in working in the market than economists, who, it would seem, understand the stock market more clearly and closer than anyone else? Economists are hampered by:

There is not always a direct link between the exchange rate and the fundamental data of the state economy. Well, what economist can bet on a currency fall if the economic indicators for a given country are getting better and better? Or admit that technical analysis of currency pairs is more important for Forex than fundamental analysis? This, from the point of view of economic dogmas, cannot happen, because it can never happen. But this is exactly what happens in Forex, because if currencies moved up or down according to the rules and economic laws, who would lose then on Forex? The currency will reverse, of course, when the vector of the country’s economic indicators changes to the opposite, but the question is when and from what point. A little hint: this is why the 5th Elliott wave exists - to teach a lesson to those who consider fundamental data to be self-sufficient (the currency, before a trend reversal, sometimes makes an absolutely absurd final push along the old trend), to confuse and draw newcomers into the game where professionals cannot wait the beginning of a trend reversal in the opposite direction.
economists’ weaker knowledge of the laws of crowd psychology, in contrast to professional psychiatrists. Let us accept this thesis as an axiom, without proof.

I conducted an analysis among my students. Among them, about 70% become successful traders (I rate this as the highest result, since on average up to 10% of beginners remain in Forex after starting real work).

Only here I want to talk not about those 70%, but about the remaining 30%, why they leave the foreign exchange market, perfectly understanding the opening prospects. Let's compare those who were in the first group of winners and those in the second group who were among the 30% of losers.

I tell them about the technique of work in the same way. And both of them answered me in the same way that they understood Forex ALL and no questions asked. I have no secrets from those who work in my group on real accounts (Forex is not a market where there is the concept of “competition” among traders within one state, and it is advisable to keep professional secrets to yourself). In the same way, every evening they can call me after work and exchange opinions or ask something about today's auction. Note: We have an agreement that during the auction you can call only in the most urgent cases. Professional traders will understand what I am writing about. While working INSIDE the day, the concentration of any trader is maximum. Even my family members are in another room at this time so as not to distract or disturb me.

Is there a technique for overcoming this fear?

When I began to analyze the existing literature, the prefaces to which colorfully describe what effective and effective methods the authors developed for traders to overcome psychological problems - I was simply horrified by reading these works.

NONE OF THE SPECIALIZED BOOKS OR ARTICLES HAVE EFFECTIVE METHODS FOR OVERCOMING FEAR BY A TRADER WHEN WORKING IN FOREX.

What's there instead?
And now we will read all this together.

The structure of almost every similar work consists, as a rule, of two absolutely unequal parts:

most of them explain to traders their problems that hinder efficient work on foreign exchange market(nervousness, doubts, worries, fear, poor sleep, etc.). It’s as if traders themselves don’t know what’s stopping them in real work.
a much smaller part is the conclusions themselves and recommendations to traders, which should help them overcome all this and radically facilitate their work on Forex.

This is where we will dwell in great detail.

www.fxmag.ru/material/material/29/39/Brett N. Steenberger and his book “Psychology of Trading” 2003. Doctor of Philosophy and Professor of Psychiatry in Medical University in Syracuse, pc. New York and ALLEGEDLY even an “active trader”, author of more than 50 articles on the psychology of changing the behavior of traders (!).

Focus on process goals when thinking about trading rather than profit and loss - Traders love to set goals for themselves - more often yes than no - monetary goals lead to creating unnecessary pressure. More effective goals are those that focus on the trading process, such as limiting losses to two ticks if you scalp the market or hold positions until a trailing stop order is activated. A good psychological attitude is “if I trade correctly, then profit will come by itself.” This will take a lot of the pressure off of performance.
Increase your risk gradually. Risk leads to psychological aggravation of the situation and significantly increases the likelihood of pressure during performance. A bad basketball shot in the opening minutes of a game is no different from a bad shot in the closing seconds of a tied game, but there is a huge psychological difference. Traders who try to quickly radically increase their account size find that a trade that works with 1 lot may not work with 10 lots, due to pressure to limit losses or take profits too quickly. Gradually increasing the size of your positions is much more effective than an impulsive leap for which you find yourself emotionally unprepared.
Step away from the screen. Talking to yourself during periods of execution anxiety actually interferes with accurate processing of market data because the part of the brain responsible for perceiving and acting on market patterns is not activated. It is much better to step away from the screen and refocus on what the market is giving you, rather than acting blindly out of fear and making the situation even more difficult.
Use mental rehearsals to make dangerous situations familiar. This is perhaps the single most effective technique I have found for reducing and eliminating performance anxiety. By using guided models to repeatedly encounter dangerous situations and mentally rehearsing how best to respond, much of the stress can be eliminated when such situations actually occur.
Link mental rehearsals to specific psychological states. This is one of the best strategies covered in my book. By learning to place himself in a state of unusual calm and concentration, and then repeatedly repeating strategies for dangerous situations, a trader can create a connection between the psychological state and the copied response. When a stressful execution situation arises, all the trader has to do is call upon the rehearsed psychological state and repeat the behavior that has been extensively learned.
Perform a mental check before trading. Removing inflated expectations early in the trading day can reduce execution pressure. Every time the word “should” enters your trading thoughts, it’s time to step away. The word "must" includes internal requirements to make a certain amount of money, trade with a certain frequency, get money back after a loss, not leave money in the market, etc.
Separate trading from life. When something becomes too significant, the pressure that accompanies performance increases exponentially. Traders who trade for a living are especially vulnerable to execution anxiety. If trading is your whole world and it doesn't work, then you will feel as if your world is falling apart. Place your self-esteem eggs in several baskets to ensure that the inevitable downturns and dark patches don't erode your self-confidence.

Comments. So how is it? Did it help? Did your fear of Forex immediately go away or did it still linger a little? I don’t know about you, but I liked the professor. He convinced everyone that he was a trader and was now collecting money from traders for advice that actually gave the trader nothing. That's why I wrote at the top that he ALLEGEDLY trader, because :

With the workload that each of the professors has (educational, scientific, methodological, administrative, representative, plus graduate students, diploma students, course students, etc.), not a single serious professor simply can have time for Forex (even if The workload of American professors is several times less than that of domestic ones).
in the first part of the book, in examples of psychological problems, he talks about anyone (doctors, students, lecturers), but not about traders, about whose specific work he is as far as most readers are from the problems of American students.
Read the tips for traders again. Would a trader tell this to a trader? Not ever. If you yourself managed to overcome the fear of real Forex, in 5 minutes you will simply and clearly explain to someone else WHAT and HOW to do, and not retell to traders a part of your lecture to medical students in the USA.
his advice is in no way linked to the specifics of a trader’s work. What does it mean to "get away from the screen"? During a trend or flat, when did you open a trade or are you just about to do it? Or is it better to leave altogether if you are scared and so afraid? And the money will remain intact.

The Forex club on the White Collar website has collected as many as 96(!) articles, each of which, written by a professional psychiatrist (a new industry has been born: a psychoanalyst for a trader), should logically help you.

Let's quote.

"The Remedy for Fear of Failure. The best way to neutralize fear of failure is to identify the underlying assumptions underlying it and challenge them. You don't have to be perfect. As any seasoned trader will tell you, everyone is bound to make mistakes from time to time, and if you have problems Once you overcome them, you will become so anxious and afraid that you will make even more mistakes. So challenge the inner belief that underlies your fear of failure: Remind yourself that it is not helpful to believe that you must be completely competent, adequate and successful. "
Comments: That’s how it is, you lose the score without understanding the logic of currency movement, it’s not scary, convince yourself that others have it even worse. And open another account. And further...
Stress management techniques. First, inhale slowly through your nose. Inhaling, fill the lower sections of the lungs with air. Your diaphragm will cause your belly to bulge out to make room for air, and the arm on your belly will rise. Now hold your breath for a few seconds.
Comments: and then it is proposed to keep a detailed diary (“sheet”) of “accounting for exercises with deep breathing.” Probably instead of a trading plan.
When you think your plan is foolproof, it helps to look at it from the outside and question it. Ask yourself: "Am I being overconfident? What could go wrong? Perhaps it would be better to be a little more skeptical and self-critical before taking action." In other words, sometimes it pays to think that maybe "Pessimists are actually realists."
Comments: This is his way of trying to save the trader from the fear of opening during a transaction.
When people are asked to take an aptitude test, such as logical thinking or grammatical errors(?!), they tend to rate their work too highly: they think that their result is much above average (60% and above), although in fact it is not more than 25%. In his experiments, Dr. Dunning showed that when poor performers are shown how poorly they are performing and given instructions on how to improve their skills, their performance improves and they evaluate their performance more accurately.
Comments: In order for a trader to work better in Forex, he needs to write dictation more often and devote his free time to studying grammar (I wonder what language, given that Forex is international?).
It is vitally important to hone your trading skills so that you can make trades freely and intuitively. This form of automatic operation allows you to trade effectively. But what happens when trading on autopilot no longer works? Market conditions are constantly changing and the strategy that worked last week may not work today. When this happens, you must learn to use a new strategy.
Comments: Do you want to hear HOW you need to learn a new technique when you realize that the old one doesn’t work in Forex? I quote: " In many ways, it's like relearning how to drive. You need to press the clutch pedal without taking your foot off the brake pedal, engage first gear and carefully release the clutch as you move. But there is a big difference from when you first learned to drive: Years have passed, and there is a strong urge to forget about focusing on a new skill and do it the same way. That is, you may forget to depress the clutch when braking, or you may change gears without using the clutch."
Comments further: The psychiatrist knows nothing about Forex, so he decided to re-teach the losing trader to drive a car differently. Psychiatrists are paid by the hour. Here he is with a trader and spends time driving a car.
"Here is a real-life example of a successful trader using it. There is a fountain at the entrance to the building where my office is located. One morning I arrived too early, so I sat on a bench and stared at the fountain. I imagined myself at my desk. I I saw myself calmly executing each trade according to my well-thought-out plan. When my stop loss hit, I exited the trade without emotion. When the profit target was reached, I quickly assessed the situation and decided whether to continue the trade or exit. I spent in my dreams. just a few minutes, he soon got up from the bench and went to his office. “Wonderful things happened that day,” he continued with a smile. “I made some of the best deals of my entire career. In fact, the day went just as I had imagined it. Now every morning I sit in front of the fountain.
Comments: So did his stop loss or take profit work or nothing worked? I understand that for a psychiatrist this makes no difference. Judging by how, after the stop loss is triggered, his fictitious trader argues whether to continue to stand in this trade or not to stand.

So, the fear of Forex has not gone away again?

Then there was the council of foreign psychologists. Pass PSYCHOLOGICAL TEST according to D. Keirsey. As it is written in the annotation: “After you answer all the questions (there are 70 of them), you will get a detailed picture of your psychological type and find out how suitable your psychological type is for trading.”

While preparing materials for the site, I decided to conscientiously take this test, killing 15-20 minutes, answering 70 of its questions honestly. Do you know what result he gave me? That the site has moved and if I am very interested in the answer to the question of what psychological type I have, I need to take the same test again, but on a different site.

DISAPPOINTING CONCLUSIONS: many psychiatrists realized that a completely new niche was opening up for them - to become psychoanalysts of traders, whose number around the world already amounts to millions, is constantly growing, and because Most traders dream of the laurels of J. Soros and others, then amounts can be taken, and taken, and taken from traders.

One thing is bad: the vast majority of these newly minted experts in solving the “psychological problems of trading” did not even bother to understand the basics of the craft that traders do. But who would refuse to treat? Here’s the treatment: “breathe deeply,” “breathe through your nose,” “open a deal where you want it,” “when the stop loss is triggered, calmly think about whether to close this deal or not,” etc.

Is there a technique for overcoming this fear? What I advised the students worked. Professional psychiatrists might frown at what students would do to overcome this fear, but the fear goes away in almost everyone who goes through it. And forever. And the number of points that a trader begins to earn after this on real accounts is several times greater than before such “treatment”.

What is this “treatment”? Write, order the newsletter, in it I give a detailed answer to this question. Although I will warn you about one condition: if you do not live in the capital or regional center, you will have to visit it.

First, about the useful things you can read. Are there psychologists whose literature can help a trader?

Undoubtedly. And “Trading chaos” by B. Williams and A. Elder “How to play and win on the stock market.” Both are professional psychotherapists and traders. They talk about the psychological problems of traders with knowledge and to the point.

The only thing is that you should not forget that it is not psychology, but your knowledge of Forex that is primary in the way you get a profit, so you should treat with a huge amount of skepticism the statement of another pseudo-trader, psychotherapist V. Tharp, that “90% of a trader’s success is It's psychology."

Put a beginner on a demo without knowledge of the basics and patterns of Forex, and you yourself will answer this question. His unsystematic play can give profit in individual transactions, but losing the account in any case will be natural. This is not why the Organizer of the largest financial game in the world invested huge amounts of money in the Forex organization system in all corners of the world, employed a whole army of people serving this market, so that even individual beginners could live comfortably at its expense, instead of enriching those who serve this market. game (see chapter Anti-trading chaos).

Therefore, the trader’s professional knowledge and skills in opening and closing transactions are primary. And resolving (or not resolving) your psychological problems either improves your results or interferes with the profit that your trading system can potentially bring.

Read chapters 11 and 12 of "Trading Chaos" Level four: skilled trader and Level five: expert trader. Williams, as a trader and psychotherapist, clearly identifies what is primary and what is secondary. "Now you are approaching the pinnacle of mastery, where almost everything you do contributes to your growth, satisfaction, profit and pleasure. You have traveled a path that, as experience shows, very few people can achieve." ordinary people, as well as less than 1% of all traders. You have researched and now understand the basic structure of the market.

And further: “When you understand the patterns of market movement - and you need to resolve psychological problems, without the resolution of which you will not get any normal results in Forex. In trading, as in sports, your brain is not always your friend” and further, absolutely true premise - "we must get inside our unconscious belief systems or - our subconscious thinking"

Williams correctly pointed out the problem that it is necessary to achieve success in Forex from working with the left hemisphere of the brain to the level of the subconscious - the central part of the cerebral cortex.

"Have you ever, while driving along a highway, suddenly discovered that you have absolutely no memory of how you drove through the last town? If you don't remember, then who was the driver? Of course, the central part of your brain! Or have you ever miraculously avoided a dangerous collision on a narrow road? After the panic was over, and you mentally replayed the situation and realized that you automatically took all the necessary actions that were required to prevent the accident. And again, this is the work of the central part of your brain. genius, compared to the left hemisphere"

But Williams does not provide a method for such a transition.

That's why this part was written Practical guide about hypnosis as a way for a trader to overcome fear and transition when trading on Forex not through the left hemisphere of the brain, but through its central part - “a genius, compared to the left hemisphere”

My methods for solving psychological problems

First, we will define the main psychological problems that both novice and experienced traders face on real trading accounts - then, in parallel, we will show ways and means of solving them.

1. Fear of losing money. Ways to overcome fear on real trading accounts.

Causes. Fear of Forex appears after the first failures in almost every novice trader. What previously seemed simple and understandable (in training courses from the lips of a teacher, on the history of quotes on a trading terminal, on a demo account), suddenly turns out to be completely different from what a beginner initially imagined. To his surprise, he discovers that:

The system of currency quotes itself is given in such a way that even with a strong trend movement, rollbacks, an imitation of a reversal, a mini-flat are required, and suddenly out of nowhere. Forex analysts and Forex teachers explain such things very clearly: a rollback is the first wave of traders closing transactions (after 5-20 points?) or that buy orders appeared during a downward movement (at the beginning of a strong trend there are a huge number of professionals in the form of banks, etc. large financial institutions placed orders in the opposite direction of a strong trend?).
His own dealer often works against the trader (an inscription suddenly appears on the order: the price has changed, and the opening and closing of the transaction is worse than the trader planned).
a huge army of fundamental and technical analysis analysts near Forex, with the intensive reading of which a beginner strenuously tries to unravel the riddle of his failures, only confuses him completely.

What is the result: fear and self-doubt appear even in those who have never had them.

Let us conclude: whether by chance or not (in my opinion, of course not by chance), the entire system of working on Forex is built in such a way as to instill fear, doubt, uncertainty in any of the traders at the very beginning of his work, even if he understood the basic laws movement of currencies in the foreign exchange market and could potentially make money.

If you are unable to overcome the fear of the Forex market yourself, there is a cardinal method that is not described in the literature on Forex, but, as a rule, forever drives this fear into those parts of the cerebral cortex where this fear will no longer interfere with your work.

This is hypnosis. I talked with a professional psychotherapist who cured not a single trader in my group from this fear, although some of them were not hypnotizable. It’s just that their fear passed very slowly. It's hard to believe, but after hypnosis, EVERYONE who underwent it began to work better.

The same result was confirmed on a closed forum, when a number of traders, having undergone hypnosis sessions, openly admitted (some openly on the forum, some in personal letters to me) that they “have gained confidence”, “stopped twitching with every rollback of currencies”, “ I calmly wait for the maximum peak,” etc.

When I read last chapter Williams in “Trading Chaos,” I came to the conclusion that he was writing about the same thing - how a person’s work efficiency increases hundreds of times when he knows how to use, instead of the left part of the cerebral hemisphere, its central and right parts. Only he did not indicate how this was done.

Naturally, none of the traders advertised that they had undergone a series of such sessions, as appropriate - and the doctor will leave it all a secret.

2. Uncertainty about your trading system.

Even if you are not new to the foreign exchange market, but feel that due to some psychological reasons, you do not receive additional profit, open a transaction later than the established rules, close it earlier, fully aware that the currency still has the potential to move, switch from a real account to a demo account for a few days. Your task will be to make at least 20 trades correctly in one trading session.

You must really make sure that the technique that I sent you, and you, through the MasterForex Trading Academy, managed to master it and consolidate it, is error-free, and that you have mastered it perfectly... that it has become not only mine, but also yours, incl. through optimizing it for your psychological type personalities...

Let me give you one example of how I personally managed to overcome my fear of opening trades without hypnosis. Already making money on a real account, I summed up the trading results every evening and saw what a huge percentage of profit I was missing.

I switched to a demo account for 2 days. Result: I dramatically increased the demo. And the fear practically stopped (an interesting remark from my relatives when they saw the results on the demo account: “Why don’t you earn so much on a real account?”).

Note: I started opening trades according to the weekly trend, adding from each pullback according to the reversal of the averages, naturally without following any money management rules.

Those. What helped me overcome my fear was the confidence that the methodology and TS were correct and could produce normal profits.

Tip 1: summarize your work on Forex every evening, objectively evaluate the result, the potential that your vehicle has and note for yourself ways in which tomorrow you can earn more than the previous day.

Tip 2: On a demo account, bring your vehicle to automaticity. As B. Williams taught, to work at the subconscious level.

I don’t believe that someone on a real account will work exactly the same as on a demo (we are not robots who are absolutely without feelings), the question is different, HOW to bring the result on a real account as close as possible to your capabilities that were shown on the demo. Judging by your posts, the result of 200-500% profit on demo in a month for those who started studying at the Trading Academy from the very beginning does not surprise anyone.

The question then is different - how much percent of this result can you consistently earn in real life? If we take the demo profit for the month as 100%, as your potential capabilities today, then what percentage of this result will you have in real life? Some have 10%, some 50%, some even higher.

How to ensure that your result on a real trading account on Forex is UNDER 100 of your potential opportunities, developed based on studying market patterns?

To do this, I constantly invite:

experienced traders, each of whom walked this path independently.
professional psychologists and psychotherapists. Of course, it is easier to attract them to an open forum.

At the MasterForex Trading Academy, I solve this problem in the following way: there are clear rules. Before each trading session, we mark for each currency pair the levels within which for this currency pair there will be:

flat A beginner must be outside the market, an experienced trader CAN work within these limits, clearly realizing that his profit will be minimal, the risk is huge (in these cases I say: flat exists for those who give quotes on Forex in order to bleed the trader before a trend in which even a beginner knows in which direction to open a trade. If you want to work during a flat, work).
a trend, if the criteria are met, the trader MUST open a trade at the very beginning.

3 . The third no less serious problem for a trader (besides the fear of real accounts and uncertainty in his trading system) is problem of "gamer's passion" when a trader cannot miss a movement, even realizing that there is now a flat, that when opening a trade in a flat, the profit can be minimal, the loss can be maximum, and the nerves during such a “game” (not work) will be shaken to the fullest.

It just requires self-discipline and common sense. And read again the book by A. Elder “How to play and win on the stock market.” I don’t want to add anything on my own to the conclusions of the professional psychotherapist Elder.

No less interesting, in my opinion, is the opinion of experienced traders who, on the other hand, independently of each other, actually come to the same conclusion as me.

I wanted to talk about psychology, and that everything is inside us. I got acquainted with the Barishpolets website, since he began to be often mentioned on our forum in terms of studying his method of work. I really liked his next phrase, I quote: "One of the most important properties of a trader is the ability to wait. Can't wait to trade? Calm down - the market was before you, the market will be after you. So your profit will not escape you. Wait. Watch the cat - how he knows how to wait when he is hunting for with a mouse or behind a bird. He can wait for hours without experiencing any inconvenience, even enjoying it! And all in order to deliver an accurate and instant blow at the decisive moment. And if the prey leaves, he goes back to his own without any regret. business - “I’ll catch you tomorrow.” Most of the people I know don’t know how to wait. This is the fundamental difference. The catch-up trader is always late, although he is always in a hurry, he always acts at the wrong time, because he is not ready to deal with the changes that are taking place. "

4 problem - diffidence , lack of character and determination, both at this moment - and in life in general.

I gave an example of how representatives of one DC, having fabricated a trading account in their terminal, brought a young man to an investor, and he, completely ignorant of Forex, went into another room and asked me to come urgently, as he said, all the facts, checks and common sense is that “the boy needs to be given money, but I’m the only one who simply doesn’t believe him.”

Can you guess how this could happen? The answer is very simple - an experienced look at a person is enough to determine who he is and what he can be capable of in business. If in front of you is a “successful” trader who is afraid to look him straight in the eye and is unsure of himself, then how can he confidently and consistently make money on Forex?

The old parable “if you want to change your life and destiny, change yourself first” contains much more deep meaning than it seems at first ordinary glance.

Intuition is based on experience when it unconsciously suggests something that you are not yet able to formulate in the form of logical rules. For example, before the start of individual sports competitions (boxing, wrestling), pay attention to the athletes. As a rule, who will win in a fight and who will lose is written on their faces even before the start of the fight in behavior, in their gaze, self-confidence, etc.

I remembered american film about Mike Tyson. The final fight at the Youth World Championship - due to a number of everyday troubles, Tyson went into the fight completely unprepared and unconcentrated. Those. he was bound to lose. Then the experienced coach pressed on Tyson’s 2 most painful points at that moment (ambition and love for the girl who was sitting near the ring): either you win, or after the fight she will leave not with you, but with him. Even the actor conveyed the range of feelings that was on the face of the young and then unknown Tyson. That's it - he won, because internal concentration and determination reached its maximum peak at that moment.

A psychiatrist I know told me this: hypnosis exists to help overcome complexes that bother a person (fear, for example). The main thing is different, if you are a man, you are a man (winner, conqueror) in everything. It can't be otherwise. Women will probably confirm. Change yourself - your life will change, including your work on Forex. By the way, I have not seen a single successful trader who was not confident in himself. I can say the same about concentration during trading - turn off everything that may disturb you - phones, TV, ask your relatives not to come up, not to interfere. Maximum concentration when, incl. intuition will be able to tell you what logic is not yet able to explain to you.

And now I will give you a couple of statements from those who study at the Masterforex-V Trading Academy.

then Vertual: You are doing great! you know, my first goal is always to break even, and then to profit. And the fact that he pips... it’s real... and his hands are always itching, but it will pass, the main thing is a competent MM. Do not forget about it. I’ve been working on real money for a month now, at first I also chopped pips - I was always afraid that the price would go against me, but now I feel comfortable. Because I am confident in the MF method (the whole month has been a good plus), and I am already working with almost no emotions. And also make a plan for yourself, for example, I first made it for a month, then for a week, etc. You see, it is very important to see the goal in front of you, and not think that just profit and that’s enough. The Master wrote correctly: strategy, tactics, plan, goal. Regarding the plan, I want to say right away that many will not like what I write, some will consider it a waste of time... but I will say clearly - IT WORKS! .. the main thing is the final goal (you must clearly know why you need this, for what), meaning the amount of money earned. Until you know this, or rather, sit down and write it on paper, you are unlikely to realize it, this is not my statement, but all people who have achieved anything in this life talk about this, and psychologists say so. This is how our subconscious is designed - until it clearly sees that you really want it and need it, it will not start working, and may even begin to act against you... In short, it is important to set the ultimate goal! strategy is how I will reach this goal, how I will earn (find, get) this amount I need. those. work on Forex tactics - i.e. the method by which you are going to do this. For me, this is the MF plan technique: i.e. the real amount that you can earn using your tactics per month (for me it’s 1200p in the worst case scenario, this is what 2 months of experience using the MF method showed) now we go down for a week: i.e. 1200/4=300p. per week, of course, you can further schedule it for the day, but I can’t do it, i.e. You can schedule it, but you can’t do it day by day, so I left the week as my final destination. if you are interested in what I wrote, I can continue, but if not, then no

Now carefully read the answer to this question from another trader, whose nickname is for obvious reasons I'm cleaning.

Of course it’s interesting, I also want a big Land Cruiser for $60,000

Did you catch the difference? Some concentrated before the fight, and some relaxed and daydreamed. Even if “m” has the makings in Forex, like the young M. Tyson in boxing, he will not win without the internal concentration of all the resources inherent in him.

My response to the Trading Academy was:

Magister, I support you, the goal of the demo account is to work out the technique until it becomes automatic, for example, when you get behind the wheel of a car, you automatically work with the gearbox, when overtaking you automatically add speed, before the traffic police post you reduce it, speak confidently with the traffic cop, knowing that the required amount in your pocket... On Forex... Polina correctly indicated one approach: “strategy, tactics, plan, goal.” Don't confuse it with self-confidence. If you want to buy a jeep, there is little desire, you need confidence + an accurate calculation of what you need to do to achieve the goal + daily study (analysis) + concentration + daily exhausting work, when in the evenings and on weekends you feel how tired you are.

For this:

calculate objectively how many points you need to earn weekly and daily profit
Accustom yourself to discipline - where you open a deal (known points, and not 50 points after it). Where do you close the deal? The power reserve per pound is at least 70 points per session. I'll let you know if I see changes in the settings. The euro is significantly less - I only work when the flat level is broken.
Consider the rate of losses and mistakes that everyone has.
c) how many lots and where to enter. How many points will you take? Check the history of the behavior of the currency pairs you are working on (their behavior in flats and various types of trends).
In principle, 2 pairs will be enough for you - but you need to know and feel them like the back of your hand, as well as their relationship with allies, the power reserve of the pair, the dealer, etc.
you lack your own money and want an investor account - please, I suggested you the broker IFXCommmerce, whose phone numbers you know

5 problem. Greed and desire to get everything at once . I will not explain the general and truisms known to everyone, that you cannot jump over the stages of natural development, do not jump over a cliff in two leaps, that child prodigies are deprived and unhappy when they grow up.

Same in Forex. There are stages that you need to go through in order to work out your trading system thoroughly and slowly, without forcing your psyche, which may not withstand extreme stress. These are the stages:

demo account;
real trading mini-account - work in 0.1-0.2 or more lots, gradually increasing the size of the fractional mini-lot;
standard Forex - 1 lot and above;
work of 50-100 or more lots, usually on investor accounts. The difference between each of these stages is the same as between a demo account and a miniforex account, so that it is clear for both novice traders and investors.

6 problem. Forex is like a drug , to which the trader gets used, and without which he simply cannot live.

The reasons, I hope, are clear. Every person subconsciously dreams of a wonderful and prosperous future, and wants to take this path along the shortest and easiest path. This is where Forex comes in, colorful advertisements for all kinds of trading centers, stories about Soros, reading books “It’s easy to play on the stock exchange!” (it’s easy to play, difficult to earn), etc.

As a result, having lost one score, a person convinces himself that it was an accident. Having lost the second score, he concludes that he has already learned a lot. Having lost the third score, he comes up with something else...

How could it have been otherwise? Think objectively, if nothing has changed in your trading system or in your trading psychology, why shouldn’t your fourth trading account be lost like the previous three?

Moreover, this path is repeated 1 to 1 by almost all Forex and stock market traders. I will not quote here from the huge number of letters that I received after the publication of the book “Secrets of Mastery from a Professional Trader” on the Internet (or what B. Williams, E. Nyman and others did not tell traders about Forex). There is too much in these letters personal.

What struck me in these letters was the same general pattern: almost all traders, as one, repeated the path of the others on Forex, losing from 3 to 20 trading accounts each, for a total amount of from several thousand to several tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars! Now multiply it by the huge array of letters that have arrived and continue to arrive to me every day, maybe then you will realize the size of the tragedy, even within Russia alone...

And when you count, look at known facts on the other hand, for example, one DC proudly writes about the authorized capital of 10 million dollars. Think about the question of where this money came from + calculate the costs of advertising + maintaining staff + renting expensive offices and a fleet of personal cars + taxes + staff of analysts + overhead costs + profit of the founders, etc. and multiply this by the many years of existence of this DC, realizing that 10 million dollars is that insignificant amount of the DC alone, which the founders calmly put into the authorized capital without prejudice to everything else.

Maybe then the euphoria and “drug addiction” at the sight of charts of currency pairs will pass and disappear faster for many. And each trader will independently understand the point of transition from a demo account to a real trading account ONLY when he is confident that he can beat the Organizer of this game on Forex, earn confidently, stably and professionally every week, months and years.

Moreover, what’s interesting is that almost the same thing is happening all over the world. See how evolution goes in the book of famous stock trader John Piper "The Road to Trading: 55 Steps to Success"(steps to success are given selectively):

2. We buy a book or two and maybe sign up for a newsletter or two.

3. We find something we really like and start doing further research using that particular technique.

4. We trade in the market from time to time, most of the time losing money, but a little, and sometimes even making profitable trades.

8. We begin to actively trade.

9. The results show that in fact everything is not as simple as it seemed at the beginning. We never fully understood some key points.

10. We continue to trade. The results are not too different, but the number of profitable trades is enough to maintain interest.

11. We are still expecting excellent results.

21. We are broke.

22. It becomes obvious that everything is not as simple as it seemed.

23. We become impossible to tolerate.

24. It also becomes clear that the available information does not bring too much benefit to someone who wants to make money by trading in the market.

26. We begin to cooperate with an American analyst. Notice how wrong this action is for someone who decides to start trading. It would be much better to start cooperating with a trader!

31. It becomes clear that trading according to one’s own judgment (without a clear methodology) is a “lost business.”

34. We start trading using a clear methodology. Although it is not easy, some things become obvious.

43. We meet another trader who becomes our mentor. He shows a new (for us) technique (“market profile”), which immediately “suits” us. This comes from the fact that we now have the right attitude towards the subject.

44. We build on our success. Our systems improve, our results improve, our attitudes become more correct, fear is no longer a big problem.

46. By allowing profits to accumulate, we record greater profits. We managed to do what every successful trader should do. Can we do this again?

47. We begin to move away from fear and gradually become “risk-oriented.”

48. We understand that the most important thing is our attitude. We see that it is vital to relax, we are once again reducing the size of open positions!

49. We spend a few days in the US working in a group with our trading coach/psychologist.

50. We start making money consistently.

51. We're getting a little cocky - again! But this time we are able to recognize this fact and limit the damage. Once again we understand that we must be modest.

52. We begin to trade, sometimes almost on a subconscious level. We become experts.

53. We know that there are still many challenges ahead, but we are confident that we will cope with them.

54. Money is no longer a problem, we actually live in abundance.

55. We find that our lives have improved in all aspects and we have achieved a lot in various areas.

Did you apply it to yourself?

And which of the 55 steps did you stop at? Notice at what stage trading psychology became important to Piper.

It is advisable to read John Piper's book "The Road to Trading" in full, if only because it was written by a trader (of the stock market, not Forex) - harshly, cynically, i.e. not in the style of an analyst who is working off a loan taken from a publisher or trading center to write a book (for example, about how money is easily and freely earned on the stock exchange), but rather in the style of a trader who has gone through the entire difficult path of mastery on his own, and now with irony and a bit of cynicism can calmly write about it.

Re-reading Piper’s book, I suddenly and unexpectedly discovered that by creating a closed forum for subscribers, my trading and teaching experience was pushing me along the same path.

To give subscribers my own Forex trading system, which works equally for the pairs that I trade on Forex (pound/dollar, euro/dollar and additionally dollar/franc), and for any other currency pair in the Forex market.
The methodology of this TS should become universal - like a map with a coordinate system marked on it, and no matter where the price is at the moment for any currency pair, you must clearly understand from what point and under what conditions the movement in this currency pair will be limited or strong.
Unite traders in a closed forum for free communication during trading.
2 times a day at the Masterforex-V Trading Academy, give an overview and your vision of the market and the behavior of currency pairs that day, i.e. your clarifications on the movement of currency pairs in a given coordinate system.
From the vast ocean of information flows, give the most important (I hope, completely different from how others give it), so that any new data can clarify and supplement the initial information, and not add confusion to the heads of traders.
The methodology is initially developed only on a demo account until it is fully optimized for a specific trader and the currency pairs on which he works.
The transition from a demo account to a real one occurs only if you consistently receive 300% profit per month on the demo account.
Continuation of cooperation with the trader using this method after he opens a real account.
Offers of investor services at the Masterforex-V Trading Academy, again on absolutely non-standard conditions for the Forex market. Traders are not waiting for investors, but investors are waiting for traders who are in no hurry to open real accounts and take money from investors.

Hi all! In the midst of market movements, our intellectual and emotional condition makes a real contribution to forex trading results. If you take the time to reflect on your trading performance, you will likely think of many examples where your thoughts or emotions interfered with your trading productivity before you made decisions or because of lack of forethought, and you know that you I shouldn't have done this.

According to my observations, many traders usually know what to do in trading, but they themselves ruin everything. And I believe that the real challenge is to do what you know and follow through with your trading strategy systematically. In this article I will share with you work exercises to increase psychological stability in Forex trading.

Forex trading is a mentally and emotionally challenging activity. And if you want to succeed, it's important to define your own unique "success process" - think about what you need to effectively trade the markets. And then formulate it in unified system, and train yourself to focus on exactly what you need to be successful and develop the thoughts, feelings and behaviors that will allow you to get the best results.

There are many excellent books on trading psychology, but they lack the main thing - ready-made methods for working with the moral state of a Forex trader. To address this issue, I provide you with three well-proven exercises that can be used as part of your own mental preparation for trading success.

Controlling your emotional state

When we see a top athlete miss a crucial penalty in soccer, double fault in a decisive tennis match, or fail to hit a short putt to put the ball in the hole correctly and lose a golf tournament, it is not because these players do not have certain skills or abilities to achieve success, but because at these moments their emotional state has changed - they experience increased stress, anxiety or fear. Feelings of stress, anxiety and fear also have a significant impact on trading performance by affecting our cognitive functioning by reducing blood flow to the frontal lobes. This is why, under stressful conditions, Forex traders often make mistakes in the decision-making process, react emotionally, and then, looking back, ask themselves the question: “What did I do?”

The ability to manage your emotional state, as well as feelings of stress, anxiety or fear, can have a significant impact on the quality of your trading decisions and the results you receive.

Practicing techniques for managing your emotional state on a regular basis can help you increase your stress threshold and thus provide you with powerful techniques for managing your well-being before, during and after trading. One of the simplest and most powerful ways to manage feelings of fear, anxiety and stress is to simply learn to regulate your breathing.

Exercise “Focusing on Breathing”

This is a great technique that you can use to help you calm down and collect yourself before you start trading or while you're in the heat of the moment, and may help you manage your forex trading. You can also use it after experiencing stress, such as a losing position, and it will help you get back to feeling good before you start trading again.

I took this breath-focused technique from Jason Selk's book 10-Minute Toughness because it is easy and simple to remember and do. This exercise will take you only 15 seconds and will allow you to change your inner feeling.

1. Take a deep breath with your diaphragm (belly), filling your lungs with air as much as possible for 6 seconds;

2. Hold your breath for 2 seconds, allowing air (oxygen) to circulate throughout your body and reach the brain;

3. Exhale slowly (as a relaxation) for 7 seconds.

Mental Training Goal: Take 20-40 breaths throughout the day, which will really fill your brain with oxygen and raise your stress threshold.

How to enter the “trading zone”

Surely, many of you have read Mark Douglas’s excellent book “Zone Trading”. So how do you get into “the zone,” that state in which you are most productive and make smart decisions?

You can put into practice a highly effective exercise that will allow you to focus your attention and also give you the opportunity to distract yourself, especially from any negative thoughts that may be overwhelming you, from any doubts and fears that might cause you to close a position too early or move the stop loss.

One of the key aspects of getting into the trading zone is the ability to stay in the present time and focus on current events. Practical use The specific concentration skills outlined in this article will not only help you become better at focusing your attention and mastering related skills, but will also help you develop a deeper ability to be in the present, to notice and pay attention to those factors that are critical to your life. trading activities while being able to avoid the distractions and obstacles that typically lead to underperformance, frustration and lack of discipline.

Concentration exercise for entering the “trading zone”

1. Sit in a comfortable place and give yourself the opportunity to relax.

2. Start by focusing on your breathing. Concentrate on inhaling and exhaling. Just focus on the timing of your breathing.

3. Continue focusing on your breathing for a given period of time, aiming to do this for 10 minutes.

4. You will likely find that your thoughts lag behind your breathing. This is natural, this is how our mind works. Just focus on your thoughts. Let them go. And then focus again on your breathing.

This is a simple but very powerful exercise that helps develop the ability not only to maintain your attention, but also the ability to turn it on. Two very important performance skills.

Perform the exercise daily for 10 minutes.

Visualization

Perhaps one of the most powerful and useful aspects of psychological preparation for a forex trader is the use of visualization.

Every action, feeling and behavior you perform is a result of the activation of neural pathways in the brain. A neural pathway is a connection or system of connections between neurons in the brain. Essentially, each pathway is a morphological model for a particular intellectual skill, feeling, or behavior. These neural pathways are created and then developed and strengthened through practice and repetition, developing into a specific psychological concept, and over time they become automatic - habitual. It is somewhat like walking through a wheat field. The more often you walk along the same path, the more you trample the wheat, and the more clear and visible your path becomes.

Neural pathways can be developed and strengthened by actually shaping a physical feeling or behavior or, interestingly and importantly, by visualizing that feeling or behavior. The mind at a neurological level cannot differentiate between real and imagined experiences, as evidenced by research done in the field of neuroscience using brain scans.

In real life, we can understand this by remembering when we had a bad dream. Was the fear we felt in the dream different from the fear we actually felt? No. Your heart was fluttering, you felt scared, your hands were cold, and your body was covered in sticky sweat. Your body reacted as if it was actually happening. Usage specific methods visualization can have a huge impact on how quickly you adapt your behavior and emotional response by creating the appropriate neural pathways.

Using visualization will give you the opportunity to practice and participate in Forex trading even if you cannot access the real markets, thereby speeding up your development. You can use visualization more effectively to cope with losses or drawdowns, to overcome bad habits and develop new ones that are useful for trading, to access and build a sense of confidence in yourself, to be mentally prepared to trade the markets or to help achieve your goals. trading purposes.

Visualization should involve several senses (vision, hearing, sensory perception); it is better if it is preceded by short-term relaxation; Visualization must be performed for 5-10 minutes.

Exercise “Visualization of successful trading”

You can use the technique below very simply by taking a minute or two to relax and then read this text. Soon you will be able to perform this memory exercise on your own.

Now take a moment and focus your attention on some of the drawdowns, problems and difficult situations that occur in your trading... Imagine one such example now... Float forward in your imagination... Imagine this happening to you sometime in the future…. What is it?..Where?..Go into your body and imagine yourself reacting positively and appropriately to this situation...how you deal with it effectively...Listen to yourself, providing yourself with unemotional and helpful explanations...Feel confident and able to handle these situations …. restrained and focused... And feel successful in solving/overcoming this problem... Work through all your recent difficult trading situations in this way.

Instead of a conclusion

Mental preparation increases your trading performance potential, and by regularly putting it into practice, you can develop new neural pathways in your brain that will raise your stress threshold, provide the conditions for the development of various emotional reactions and states, new and desired principles of behavior in trading. Try the exercises presented above in practice and be sure to write in the comments.

Unlike market movements, which cannot be predicted with 100% accuracy, it is possible to predict people's behavior and their spontaneous reactions. The psychology of trading plays a primary role - look how many traders there are in the world, many of them find themselves at the same time, with the same asset and with the same information, but their decisions are very different.

The point here is not only about knowledge, since in most cases it is the same for everyone, that is, everyone has the same information, but everyone has their own perception, the psychology of trading.

The correct psychology of trading

After some time of such observations and analysis, one can notice situations in which emotions were at the forefront of the decisions made, rather than common sense and prudence. Accordingly, it is already possible to work with this material and reduce the percentage of errors due to the interference of irritation, unwillingness to suffer losses or fatigue. In addition, the ability to “feel” the market, track patterns and predict the development of the situation increases significantly.

Psychological methods in the work of a trader

Many famous and successful traders share their experience by publishing more than one book. All of them also affect the psychological aspect. But few people offer specific ways to remove pre-launch anxiety and maintain a clear mind while concluding a deal. There are not many such techniques, but if you study them and apply them in practice, the result will speak for itself.

How to return a “cold” mind:

To control your emotions and thoughts, you should direct them in a positive direction and consider only the probability of successfully closing a position. This prevents unnecessary tension and prevents emotions from overflowing.
You need to understand your own beliefs. It is better to replace negative views, such as doubt, fear, the risk of failure, with attractive concepts such as making a profit, a profitable deal. A positive attitude leads to success, while negative thinking causes harm and interferes with work.
It has been proven that any physical exercise reduces the level of emotions. Changing the pace of breathing, changing facial expressions, as well as the strength of the voice and intonation are effective. Excessive intensity of passions fades if you slow down the pace of speech. Thanks to simple manipulations with physiology, psychological changes in personality occur. The trader calms down, becomes self-confident, and the ability to make informed decisions returns to him.
A pleasant way to find peace of mind is to switch from intense activity to relaxation. It's worth watching a good movie and getting out into nature. Change of activity, environment, relieves tension, gives rest to the body and soul. Then, with renewed strength and mind, it will be easy to see problem areas and find ways to solve them.

Breathing exercises from psychologist Jason Selk

The easiest way to get out of excessive tension is to regulate your breathing. Simple exercises help you recover, restore a positive attitude and balance before starting your next trading. In just half a minute, a person’s emotional sensation completely changes. The exercises are easy to do and remember:

Take a deep breath through your nose for 6-7 seconds. This fills the lower parts of the lungs with oxygen as much as possible.
Hold your breath for 2-3 seconds until oxygen reaches the brain.
Exhale slowly with maximum relaxation for 7-8 seconds.

If you do 30-40 exercises a day, the brain is sufficiently saturated with oxygen. This increases the body's resistance to stress.

Focus training

To prevent anxiety and the emergence of unfounded fears before the start of trading, the zonal trading technique is used. It allows you to adjust the trader’s emotional state to the wave of maximum productivity, making him capable of making responsible decisions. The exercise is performed daily for 10-15 minutes.

You need to sit in a comfortable chair and completely relax, feel complete relaxation.
Then you need to focus on alternating your own inhalations and exhalations, concentrating on their frequency. This concentration should last from 10 to 15 minutes. Constant training develops the ability to effortlessly concentrate thoughts on the main points in the trading process.

Visualization of thoughts and feelings

One of the effective methods of psychological training for traders is the visualization method. When a person sees, hears or feels something, individual neurons in the brain are activated and connected into threads, laying out entire paths. Frequent repetition of an action or thought develops neurons. They become larger and the threads become stronger. This is how a habit or memory is consolidated. After regular exercises of 10-15 minutes each, the brain will automatically suggest the right decision at the appropriate moment.

The first action is to immerse yourself in a state of complete relaxation.
Next, mentally imagine problematic situations, drawdowns, unnecessary risks and other unpleasant moments that you have already experienced.
Then you need to imagine your own body and design its actions for a protective reaction to negative circumstances.
You should focus your attention on those reactions that most help you cope with the obstacle with the least amount of emotion.
At the same time, you need to present yourself as a restrained, confident person, capable of understanding any difficult situation. This feeling must be reinforced in the creation many times in order for a strong neural connection to form. She will come to the rescue during trading when you need to overcome real negative circumstances.

Thus, all the difficult moments that have occurred in the trading process recently are worked out. With constant training, the correct reaction to ongoing actions is developed, which allows you to avoid many mistakes.

Video about the psychology of trading in financial markets

Thus, trading is not an area of activity that should be entirely in the hands of Fortune or external forces. Trading should start from within you, and psychology plays an important role in trading.

Cases of luck are, of course, pleasant moments in life, but trading involves working with probabilities as a source of uncertainty, from which you need to protect yourself in every possible way.

Books on trading psychology

Most traders believe that a successful transaction depends on skill, experience, quality analytics and the right strategy. But there is one more aspect that can negate all efforts and create a completely unpredictable situation, even leading to a market collapse. This is market psychology.

Books about the psychology of trading on stock exchanges teach you to understand the intricacies of the market, tell you how to control emotions, avoid psychological traps and benefit from them.

Valery Safonov “Trading. Additional dimension of decision making"

Valery Safonov, an influential trader, Forex expert and analyst, in his book examines methods on how to increase the efficiency of exchange trading. To get high profits, it is not enough to strictly copy the thinking of famous professionals. Each trader, using the experience of luminaries, must develop his own individual methods. One of them is the “Additional Dimension System”.

It helps enhance forecasting efficiency to generate stable profits. The essence is constant control over strategy and tools. It makes it possible to recognize a signal in time when a strategy or indicator no longer corresponds to the market situation.

The book is intended for traders, analysts, brokers and other financial market specialists. It can be used as tutorial in preparing investors and traders.

Lars Tweed "The Psychology of Finance"

Lars Tweed, Bachelor of Science in Business, an experienced investor and successful trader, in his book talks about the dependence of the financial market on the psychology of the masses and individuals.

The book teaches you to understand the psychology of stock trading using many specific examples, as well as how to prevent mistakes and avoid psychological traps.

The author clearly shows how psychological instability of market participants can cause empty space a strong wave of price movement, on which someone will rise, and someone, on the contrary, will fall into the abyss.

Lars Tweed analyzes in detail the reasons for the emotional instability of traders and points out specific facts that foreshadow a price jump. The publication tells you how to recognize panic in time and be able to remain calm. And most importantly, how to turn mass hysteria to your advantage.

John Piper "The Road to Trading"

John Piper is a successful trader, stock analyst, author of monographs on trading strategies. In this book, he analyzes the way of thinking of a trader, his psychological state at each stage of development as a specialist.

It also presents a market analysis detailing philosophical, technical and psychological methods. The book presents in detail the author’s “Trading Pyramid”, where the actions of a trader from beginner to high level skill. Beginners will be interested to learn about the hidden difficulties in stock trading and ways to overcome them.

David Cohen "Stock Market Psychology: Fear, Greed, Panic"

Most traders are accustomed to relying on technical analysis, studying strategies, indicators and other tools. To a lesser extent is devoted to fundamental analysis. But few people pay attention to studying the psychology of a trader. And completely in vain.

Ultimately, making a profit or loss largely depends on the psychological state of the trader. David Cohen clearly explains how market psychology can change the market situation and influence a successful or unsuccessful trade. The book is intended for traders, investors, Forex.

Thomas Oberlechner “Forex Market Psychology”

In the book “Forex Market Psychology,” Thomas Oberlechner clearly shows readers how important the role of psychology is for the work of a currency trader. Having analyzed his own experience, as well as the experience of successful colleagues, the author came to the conclusion that in the Forex market, knowledge of market psychology is especially valuable.

After reading the book, you will learn how subconscious processes influence trading decisions. You will be able to control your own feelings and moods that prevent you from making the only correct trading decision at a crucial moment.

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The title of the article reflects three main psychological states that can engulf a trader in the process of his work. All these conditions are interconnected, flow from one to another and can have the most detrimental effect on the state of the account. You need to know the enemy by sight, so a trader needs to learn to recognize these states in himself in order to subsequently prevent their development. Let's look at the trader's fear, greed and hope in more detail.

Suppose a trader opened a position on the Forex market. The following scenarios are possible:

1. The price moves towards the trader, the position begins to make a profit

2. The price goes against the trader, the position begins to make a loss

3. The price is marking time

In the first case, when the position begins to make a profit, the trader may be afraid of a price reversal and rush to close the deal ahead of schedule, succumbing to fear. Or, on the contrary, having given in to greed, he can chase greater profits without moving the stop loss order at least to the breakeven area, flattering himself with the hope that the price, which has rolled back, will again go in his direction.

When the price goes against the trader, hope can play a very bad joke on him. The hope is that the price will reverse and go positive. Hoping for a price reversal, while being afraid of losing money and an open position at the stop loss level, a trader can make one of the main mistakes - moving the stop loss order in the direction of increasing the loss.

When an open position does not bring profit due to the fact that the price fluctuates at one level for a long time, not daring to move up or down, many experienced traders advise closing the position. The logic here is simple, you opened a position based on a certain forecast of price movement, and if this movement does not occur, your forecast is no longer correct. In this case, it is better to exit the market and, after waiting for certainty in the price movement, open the position again (perhaps it will be in a different direction).

In a stressful situation, and trading, for example on the Forex market, is a real stressful situation, it is important to have a clear action plan. An action plan or trading system is needed in order to act without thinking in a pre-planned manner. After all, when you are overwhelmed by emotions, maintaining a cool head, and, consequently, clarity of thought is not at all easy. Therefore, proper drafting and unquestioning adherence to it is so important.

A trader cannot control the behavior of the market, its sharp ups and downs, but he can control his attitude towards them. You don’t have to strive to control everything, you just need to control yourself. And thanks to the presence of a trading system, this control is reduced only to strict adherence to its rules.