Traders tend to be an obsessive bunch. We spend far too much time at our screens and it’s easy to neglect other aspects of our lives, including proper diet, exercise and various “maintenance” tasks that feel boring by comparison.
Here’s a 15-item checklist to help you determine whether your trading is ‘obsessive’ and may be tilting you mentally and emotionally off balance.
Indicate next to each behavior whether it applies 1) never 2) rarely 3) sometimes 4) often 5) almost always.
1) A vivid fantasy of making lots of $ today.
2) Feelings of invulnerability.
3) Eating breakfast/lunch at your trading desk.
4) Hyperfocus on price bars as they form.
5) Talking out loud to the market.
6) Bargaining with the market about an open position.
7) Cursing at the market.
8) Ignoring or irritation at wife, partner, kids, pets, plants, inanimate objects.
9) Trading at the expense of normal household maintenance.
10) A sudden urge to increase position size.
11) An urge to increase trading frequency.
12) Canceling or moving stops.
13) Adding to a losing position.
14) Mind-reading the market (trying to figure out what it is going to do next).
15) Skipping breakfast or lunch in order to trade.
If you score 3 or more on 5 items on this list, you are probably psychologically “over-coupled” with the market, which is likely to distort your perception of risk and adversely affect your bottom-line.
If you want to learn more about your perception of risk, you can take a free Risk Profile at : http://www.daytradingpsychology.com/risk-profile/
