I don’t look at my trades as stressful. I’m looking for setups that offer a downside of one, and upside of five, and a win rate of 60 percent at least. When I spot these setups, then I place a trade. I cannot control the results. Also, it’s not very stressful to follow my system since my trading data demonstrates that I’m net positive 90 percent of my trading days.

If you feel more comfortable with a longer time horizon then stick with that. We’re all different. We all should trade to our strengths. I would just say that you should incorporate reading the tape into a five-minute time horizon. Your win rate will improve. You will lower you risk. You will be able to add size for certain trades.

Best of luck.

Mike

I want to add a few more thoughts. Our desk works on visualization exercises for at least 15 minutes every day as a way to gain control over our emotions. I point this out because the shorter a trader’s time frame the more advanced that trader needs to be at controlling his or her emotions. If you’re watching all the ticks in a stock then you must be of a frame of mind where you’re able to quickly forget a losing trade and be focused on finding the next one.

Also, developing traders tend to feel stress if they are unprepared or take losses. First, don’t judge your trades based on the results. Just make good risk/reward trades. You can’t control the results of a trade but you can control how you enter excellent risk/reward trades. If a trade results in a loss that doesn’t mean you made a bad trade. Just accept your loss and thank the market for offering you some new information, which you can now use to enter another excellent risk/reward trade.

Another thing: developing traders tend to try and do too much. What trades do you feel most comfortable with today? Make those trades. Try some others with small size. Can you add these new trades to your quiver? If so, then increase your size the next day with these trades. But you are not Jim Roger just yet. Your job at the beginning is to improve and not to make money. You job is to expand your trading playbook. Think of your trading in this context and you’ll find yourself less likely to be as stressed. But you’re also gonna have to learn how to breathe properly while you trade and you’ll also have to do your visualization exercises if you want to master your emotions.

Great question from Jake. Keep them coming and I will fire back the answers.

Best of luck with your trading. This is still a great trading market for the better intraday traders.

You can be better tomorrow than you are today!

Mike Bellafiore

One Good Trade

The PlayBook

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