You are sitting in front of your PC. Your heart is racing, sweat is starting to pearl on your forehead, and adrenalin is pulsating through your veins at the speed of white light. You have live trade on the very popular Forex Market, and your emotions are going mad.
If you ever wanted to feel like a pregnant woman (no offense intended), then this is just the way to do it. A magnitude of pips and candles and fibs is glaring at you from the computer screen. Your money is gangling around in the air with your sweat, and the only thing you can do is have faith that you made the right move with your trade.
This is all very scary and exhilarating at the same time. Sometimes trading the Forex Market should be compared to teasing a hungry lion with an open cage gate. Sometimes it is just downright tough. Why do you ask?
Because your emotions are out of control, which makes you scared money, and scared money always loses. Why would you lose your money when you are scared? Because you will jump out with you winning trades with small gains; and stay in with your losing trade, hoping that the market will not hit your stop and take your money.
How can you prevent your emotions from ruining your trading career?
First off, never trade money you cannot afford to lose. You cannot use the money you saved up for your retirement or study money for college or any money you are in deep trouble if it is gone. That will make your trading very difficult.
Now you need a plan of attack to trade the market; if you do not have a plan do not live trade using a demo account to build your strategy. Demo trade until you make constant winning trades and see your demo account grow. Then you are starting to get your emotions under control. The most important rule of them all is never to trade without a STOP. Otherwise, you’re out of control. If your system tells you that you must take this loss, never move your stop. It will only worsen your losing trade.
What must I have in place before I start trading live?
First, you must have a plan of attack and have the strength and discipline to stay with your Plan. If you lose, you have to go back and check if you followed your strategy. If not, not to trade again until you fix it. Every strategy will lose sometimes, and you will have to learn that losing is part of trading. Learn from every loss you take by writing down why you lost, so next time you will not make the same mistake again.
Trading is like exercise, jogging, and you need to practice, become emotionally accessible, and be in control when you are trading. When you have your emotions under control, you will succeed and make yourself a great big bundle of money.
Good luck with building your winning strategy!!!!