I am certain I have lost more money trading, had more losing trades because I got in too soon, rather than because I got in too late. I should have looked before I leapt.
This is a real problem I have had. So I am certain you will have it as well, if you have not already experienced it. The attraction to making money, for people like us, is greater than the potential risk. We are driven more by greed than we are by fear.
We have learned to essentially see what markets are going to do. We learn to predict things, and we have learned to look forward. Thus, we are afraid more of losing the money we “could have made” than losing money we have in our pockets. That’s the emotional Achilles heel of traders. Overcome it, and you will succeed.
So how do we get around this, what we do to resolve the situation?
To me, the most helpful thing I have done is to have a checklist to make certain that at least three or four elements of a winning trade are in play. Not on my checklist? Then I simply can’t take the trade. I need my checklist to make certain I am not just playing Kamikaze Cowboy. This forces me to a delay my emotions and use my strategies.
It’s a little bit like hunting. Once you get your game in site there are three steps to go through; the first is to breathe, secondly to aim and finally, squeeze the trigger. You can’t rush into this… it’s the same with trading.
I have learned to wait, to be deliberate, to realize almost every trade I entered in my entire life has gone against me, which means 98% of the time there has always been a better place to get in. And for certain, the more emotional I have been about getting into a trade, the worse my entry was. The path of correct action is not an easy one to follow.