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TRADING IN THE ZONE

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MASTER THE MARKET WITH CONFIDENCE, DISCIPLINE AND A WINNING ATTITUDE

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MARK DOUGLAS Foreword by Thorn Hartle

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NEW YORK INSTITUTE OF FINANCE wcw VHDV • Tnnnurn . cvnucv • Tnrvn • cinr.«pnpc Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Douglas, Mark (Mark J.) Trading in the zone : master the market with confidence, discipline, and a winning attitude / by Mark Douglas, p. cm. ISBN 0-7352-0144-7 (cloth) 1. Stocks. 2. Speculation. I. Title. HG6041 .D59 2001 332.64—dc21 00 045251 © 2000 by Prentice Hall All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America 10 9876 5 4321 This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or

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other professional service. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. . . . From the Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations. ISBN D-73SE-DmM-7

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ATTENTION: CORPORATIONS AND SCHOOLS Prentice Hall books are available at quantity discounts with bulk purchase for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information, please write to: Prentice Hall, Special Sales, 240 Frisch Court, Paramus, N] 07652. Please supply: title of book, ISBN, quantity, how the book will be used, date needed. NEW YORK INSTITUTE OF FINANCE An Imprint of Prentice Hall Press Paramus, NJ 07652 http://www.phdirect.com NYIF and NEW YORK INSTITUTE OF FINANCE are trademarks of Executive Tax Reports, Inc. used under license by Prentice Hall Direct, Inc.

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DEDICATION

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This book is dedicated to all of the traders I have had the pleasure of working with over the last 18 years as a trading coach. Each of you in your own unique way is a part of the insight and guidance this book will provide to those who choose to trade from a confident, disciplined, and consistent state of mind.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xm ATTITUDE SURVEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii

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_________________CHAPTER 1___________ THE ROAD TO SUCCESS: FUNDAMENTAL, TECHNICAL, OR MENTAL ANALYSIS?

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IN THE BEGINNING: FUNDAMENTAL ANALYSIS . . . . . . . . . . 1 THE SHIFT TO TECHNICAL ANALYSIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 THE SHIFT TO MENTAL ANALYSIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

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_____________________CHAPTER 2_______________ THE LURE (AND THE DANGERS) OF TRADING

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THE ATTRACTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 THE DANGERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 THE SAFEGUARDS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Problem: The Unwillingness to Create Rules. . . . . . . 27

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Problem: Failure to Take Responsibility . . . . . . . . . . 28 Problem: Addiction to Random Rewards . . . . . . . . . 30 Problem: External versus Internal Control........ 31

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_______________CHAPTER 3______________ TAKING RESPONSIBILITY

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SHAPING YOUR MENTAL ENVIRONMENT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 REACTING TO LOSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 WINNERS, LOSERS, BOOMERS, AND BUSTERS . . . . . . . . . . 50

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___________CHAPTER 4_______________ CONSISTENCY: A STATE OF MIND

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THINKING ABOUT TRADING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 REALLY UNDERSTANDING RISK. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 ALIGNING YOUR MENTAL ENVIRONMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

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___________CHAPTER 5________________ THE DYNAMICS OF PERCEPTION

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DEBUGGING YOUR MENTAL SOFTWARE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 PERCEPTION AND LEARNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 PERCEPTION AND RISK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 THE POWER OF ASSOCIATION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

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___________CHAPTER 6_____________ THE MARKET'S PERSPECTIVE

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THE "UNCERTAINTY" PRINCIPLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 THE MARKET'S MOST FUNDAMENTAL CHARACTERISTIC. .. 93

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_____________CHAPTER 7__________ THE TRADER'S EDGE: THINKING IN PROBABILITIES

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PROBABILITIES PARADOX: RANDOM OUTCOME, CONSISTENT RESULTS. . . . 102 TRADING IN THE MOMENT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 MANAGING EXPECTATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 ELIMINATING THE EMOTIONAL RISK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

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DEFINING THE PROBLEM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 DEFINING THE TERMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 HOW THE FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS RELATE TO THE SKILLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 MOVING TOWARD "THE ZONE". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

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TRADING IN THE MOMENT 106 MANAGING EXPECTATIONS 113 ELIMINATING THE EMOTIONAL RISK 120

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_______ CHAPTER 8__________ WORKING WITH YOUR BELIEFS

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___________CHAPTER 9_________________ THE NATURE OF BELIEFS

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THE ORIGINS OF A BELIEF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 BELIEFS AND THEIR IMPACT ON OUR LIVES . . . . . . . . . . . 142 BELIEFS vs. THE TRUTH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

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________CHAPTER 10__________ THE IMPACT OF BELIEFS ON TRADING

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THE PRIMARY CHARACTERISTICS OF A BELIEF . . . . . . . . . . 153 SELF-EVALUATION AND TRADING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

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__________CHAPTER 11___________ THINKING LIKE A TRADER

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THE MECHANICAL STAGE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 THE ROLE OF SELF-DISCIPLINE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 CREATING A BELIEF IN CONSISTENCY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 EXERCISE: LEARNING TO TRADE AND EDGE LIKE A CASINO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

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A FINAL NOTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 ATTITUDE SURVEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203 INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

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FOREWORD

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The great bull market in stocks has led to an equally great bull market in the number of books published on the subject of how to make money trading the markets. Many ideas abound, some good, some not, some original, some just a repackaging of earlier works. Occasionally, though, a writer comes forward with something that really sets him or her apart from the pack, something special. One such writer is Mark Douglas. Mark Douglas, in Trading in the Zone, has written a book that is the accumulation of years of thought and research—the work of a lifetime—and for those of us who view trading as a profession, he has produced a gem. Trading in the Zone is an in-depth look at the challenges that we face when we take up the challenge of trading. To the novice, the only challenge appears to be to find a way to make money. Once the novice learns that tips, brokers' advice, and other ways to justify buying or selling do not work consistently, he discovers that he either needs to develop a reliable trading strategy or purchase one. After that, trading should be easy, right? All you have to do is follow the rules, and the money will fall into your lap. At this point, if not before, novices discover that trading can turn into one of the most frustrating experiences they will ever face. This experience leads to the oft-started statistic that 95 percent of futures traders lose all of their money within the first year of trading. Stock traders generally experience the same results, which is why pundits always point to the fact that most stock traders fail to outperform a simple buy and hold investment scenario. So, why do people, the majority of whom are extremely successful in other occupations, fail so miserably as traders? Are successful traders born and not made? Mark Douglas says no. What's necessary, he says, is that the individual acquire the trader's mindset. It sounds easy, but the fact is, this mindset is very foreign when compared with the way our life experiences teach us to think about the world. That 95-percent failure rate makes sense when you consider how most of us experience life, using skills learned as we grow. When it comes to trading, however, it turns out that the skills we learn to earn high marks in school, advance our careers, and create relationships with other people, the skills we are taught that should carry us through life, turn out to be inappropriate for trading. Traders, we find out, must learn to think in terms of probabilities and to surrender all of the skills we have acquired to achieve in virtually every other aspect of our lives. In Trading in the Zone, Mark Douglas teaches us how. He has put together a very valuable book. His sources are his own personal experiences as a trader, a traders coach in Chicago, author, and lecturer in his field of trading psychology. My recommendation? Enjoy Douglas's Trading in the Zone and, in doing so, develop a trader's mindset.

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PREFACE

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The goal of any trader is to turn profits on a regular basis, yet so few people ever really make consistent money as traders. What accounts for the small percentage of traders who are consistently successful? To me, the determining factor is psychological—the consistent winners think differently from everyone else.I started trading in 1978. At the time, I was managing a commercial casualty insurance agency in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan. I had a very successful career and thought I could easily transfer that success into trading. Unfortunately, I found that was not the case. By 1981, I was thoroughly disgusted with my inability to trade effectively while holding another job, so I moved to Chicago and got a job as a broker with Merrill Lynch at the Chicago Board of Trade. How did I do? Well, within nine months of moving to Chicago, I had lost nearly everything I owned. My losses were the result of both my trading activities and my exorbitant life style, which demanded that I make a lot of money as a trader. From these early experiences as a trader, I learned an enormous amount about myself, and about the role of psychology in trading. As a result, in 1982, I started working on my first book, The Disciplined Trader: Developing Winning Attitudes. When I began this project I had no concept of how difficult it was to write a book or explain something that I understood for myself in a manner and form that would be useful to other people. I thought it was going to take me between six and nine months to get the job done. It took seven and a half years and was finally published by Prentice Hall in 1990. In 1983, I left Merrill Lynch to start a consulting firm, Trading Behavior Dynamics, where I presently develop and conduct seminars on trading psychology and act in the capacity of what is commonly referred to as a trading coach. I've done countless presentations for trading companies, clearing firms, brokerage houses, banks, and investment conferences all over the world. I've worked at a personal level, one on one, with virtually every type of trader in the business, including some of the biggest floor traders, hedgers, option specialists, and CTAs, as well as neophytes As of this writing, I have spent the last seventeen years dissecting the psychological dynamics behind trading so that I could develop effective methods for teaching the proper principles of success. What I've discovered is that, at the most fundamental level, there is a problem with the way we think. There is something inherent in the way our minds work that doesn't fit very well with the characteristics shown by the markets. Those traders who have confidence in their own trades, who trust themselves to do what needs to be done without hesitation, are the ones who become successful. They no longer fear the erratic behavior of the market. They learn to focus on the information that helps them

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spot opportunities to make a profit, rather than focusing on the information that reinforces their fears. While this may sound complicated, it all boils down to learning to believe that: (1) you don't need to know what's going to happen next to make money; (2) anything can happen; and (3) every moment is unique, meaning every edge and outcome is truly a unique experience. The trade either works or it doesn't. In any case, you wait for the next edge to appear and go through the process again and again. With this approach you will learn in a methodical, non-random fashion what works and what doesn't. And, just as important, you will build a sense of self-trust so that you won't damage yourself in an environment that has the unlimited qualities the markets have. Most traders don't believe that their trading problems are the result of the way they think about trading or, more specifically, how they are thinking while they are trading. In my first book, The Disciplined Trader, I identified the problems confronting the trader from a mental perspective and then built a philosophical framework for understanding the nature of these problems and why they exist. I had five major objectives in mind in writing Trading in the Zone:

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To prove to the trader that more or better market analysis is not the solution to his trading difficulties or lack of consistent results.

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To provide the trader with the specific beliefs and attitudes that are necessary to build a winner's mindset, which means learning how to think in probabilities.

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To address the many conflicts, contradictions, and paradoxes in thinking that cause the typical trader to assume that he already does think in probabilities, when he really doesn't.

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To take the trader through a process that integrates this thinking strategy into his mental system at a functional level.

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(Note: Until recently, most traders were men, but I recognize that more and more women are joining the ranks. In an effort to avoid confusion and awkward phrasing, I have consistently used the pronoun "he" throughout this book in describing traders. This certainly does not reflect any bias on my part.)

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Trading in the Zone presents a serious psychological approach to becoming a consistent winner in your trading. I do not offer a trading system; I am more interested in showing you how to think in the way necessary to become a profitable trader. I assume that you already have your own system, your own edge. You must learn to trust your edge. The edge means there is a higher probability of one outcome than another. The greater your confidence, the easier it will be to execute your trades. This book is

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To convince the trader that it's his attitude and "state of mind" that determine his results.

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designed to give you the insight and understanding you need about yourself and the nature of trading, so that actually doing it becomes as easy, simple, and stressfree as when you're just watching the market and thinking about doing it. In order to determine how well you "think like a trader," take the following Attitude Survey. There are no right or wrong answers. Your answers are an indication of how consistent your current mental framework is with the way you need to think in order to get the most out of your trading.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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I would especially like to thank all of the traders who bought the signed limited edition manuscript of the first seven chapters of this book. Your feedback gave me the inspiration to add the additional four chapters. Next, I would like to thank fellow traders Robert St. John, Greg Bieber, Larry Pesavento, and Ted Hearne for their friendship and the special ways in which each of them contributed to the development of this book. I would also like to acknowledge my friend, Eileen Bruno, for editing the original manuscript; and, at Prentice Hall, Ellen Schneid Coleman, Associate Publisher, for her professionalism and help in smoothing the path to publication, and Barry Richardson, Development Editor, for his help in shaping the introduction. His time and talent are greatly appreciated. CHAPTER 1

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CHAPTER 1

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THE ROAD TO SUCCESS: FUNDAMENTAL, TECHNICAL, OR MENTAL ANALYSIS?

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IN THE BEGINNING: FUNDAMENTAL ANALYSIS

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Who remembers when fundamental analysis was considered the only real or proper way to make trading decisions? When I started trading in 1978, technical analysis was used by only a handful of traders, who were considered by the rest of the market community to be, at the very least, crazy. As difficult as it is to believe now, it wasn't very long ago when Wall Street and most of the major funds and financial institutions thought that technical analysis was some form of mystical hocus-pocus. Now, of course, just the opposite is true. Almost all experienced traders use some form of technical analysis to help them formulate their trading strategies. Except for some small, isolated pockets in the academic community, the "purely" fundamental analyst is virtually extinct. What caused this dramatic shift in perspective? I'm sure it's no surprise to anyone that the answer to this question is very simple: Money! The problem with making trading decisions from a strictly fundamental perspective is the inherent difficulty of making money consistently using this approach. For those of you who may not be familiar with fundamental analysis, let me explain. Fundamental analysis attempts to take into consideration all the variables that could affect the relative balance or imbalance between the supply of and the possible demand for any particular stock, commodity, or financial instrument. Using primarily mathematical models that weigh the significance of a variety of factors (interest rates, balance sheets, weather patterns, and numerous others), the analyst projects what the price should be at some point in the future. The problem with these models is that they rarely, if ever, factor in other traders as variables. People, expressing their beliefs and expectations about the future, make prices move—not models. The fact that a model makes a logical and reasonable projection based on all the relevant variables is not of much value if the traders who are responsible for most of the trading volume are not aware of the model or don't believe in it. As a matter of fact, many traders, especially those on the floors of the futures exchanges who have the ability to move prices very dramatically in one direction or the other, usually don't have the slightest concept of the fundamental supply and demand factors that are supposed to affect prices. Furthermore, at any given moment, much of their trading activity is prompted by a response to emotional factors that are completely outside the parameters of the fundamental model. In other words, the people who trade (and consequently move prices) don't always act in a rational manner.

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Ultimately, the fundamental analyst could find that a prediction about where prices should be at some point in the future is correct. But in the meantime, price movement could be so volatile that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to stay in a trade in order to realize the objective.

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THE SHIFT TO TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

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Technical analysis has been around for as long as there have been organized markets in the form of exchanges. But the trading community didn't accept technical analysis as a viable tool for making money until the late 1970s or early 1980s. Here's what the technical analyst knew that it took the mainstream market community generations to catch on to. A finite number of traders participate in the markets on any given day, week, or month. Many of these traders do the same lands of things over and over in their attempt to make money. In other words, individuals develop behavior patterns, and a group of individuals, interacting with one another on a consistent basis, form collective behavior patterns. These behavior patterns are observable and quantifiable, and they repeat themselves with statistical reliability. Technical analysis is a method that organizes this collective behavior into identifiable patterns that can give a clear indication of when there is a greater probability of one thing happening over another. In a sense, technical analysis allows you to get into the mind of the market to anticipate what's likely to happen next, based on the kind of patterns the market generated at some previous moment. As a method for projecting future price movement, technical analysis has turned out to be far superior to a purely fundamental approach. It keeps the trader focused on what the market is doing now in relation to what it has done in the past, instead of focusing on what the market should be doing based solely on what is logical and reasonable as determined by a mathematical model. On the other hand, fundamental analysis creates what I call a "reality gap" between "what should be" and "what is." The reality gap makes it extremely difficult to make anything but very long-term predictions that can be difficult to exploit, even if they are correct. In contrast, technical analysis not only closes this reality gap, but also makes available to the trader a virtually unlimited number of possibilities to take advantage of. The technical approach opens up many more possibilities because it identifies how the same repeatable behavior patterns occur in every time frame—moment-tomoment, daily, weekly, yearly, and every time span in between. In other words, technical analysis turns the market into an endless stream of opportunities to enrich oneself.

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THE SHIFT TO MENTAL ANALYSIS

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If technical analysis works so well, why would more and more of the trading community shift their focus from technical analysis of the market to mental analysis of themselves, meaning their own individual trading psychology? To answer this question, you probably don't have to do anything more

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than ask yourself why you bought this book. The most likely reason is that you're dissatisfied with the difference between what you perceive as the unlimited potential to make money and what you end up with on the bottom line. That's the problem with technical analysis, if you want to call it a problem. Once you learn to identify patterns and read the market, you find there are limitless opportunities to make money. But, as I'm sure you already know, there can also be a huge gap between what you understand about the markets, and your ability to transform that knowledge into consistent profits or a steadily rising equity curve. Think about the number of times you've looked at a price chart and said to yourself, "Hmmm, it looks like the market is going up (or down, as the case may be)," and what you thought was going to happen actually happened. But you did nothing except watch the market move while you anguished over all the money you could have made. There's a big difference between predicting that something will happen in the market (and thinking about all the money you could have made) and the reality of actually getting into and out of trades. I call this difference, and others like it, a "psychological gap" that can make trading one of the most difficult endeavors you could choose to undertake and certainly one of the most mysterious to master. The big question is: Can trading be mastered? Is it possible to experience trading with the same ease and simplicity implied when you are only watching the market and thinking about success, as opposed to actually having to put on and take off trades? Not only is the answer an unequivocal "yes," but that's also exactly what this book is designed to give you—the insight and understanding you need about yourself and about the nature of trading. So the result is that actually doing it becomes as easy, simple, and stress-free as when you are just watching the market and thinking about doing it. This may seem like a tall order, and to some of you it may even seem impossible. But it's not. There are people who have mastered the art of trading, who have closed the gap between the possibilities available and their bottom-line performance. But as you might expect, these winners are relatively few in number compared with the number of traders who experience varying degrees of frustration, all the way to extreme exasperation, wondering why they can't create the consistent success they so desperately desire. In fact, the differences between these two groups of traders (the consistent winners and everyone else) are analogous to the differences between the Earth and the moon. The Earth and moon are both celestial bodies that exist in the same solar system, so they do have something in common. But they are as different in nature and characteristics as night and day. By the same token, anyone who puts on a trade can claim to be a trader, but when you compare the characteristics of the handful of consistent winners with the characteristics of most other traders, you'll find they're also as different as night and day. If going to the moon represents consistent success as a trader, we can say that getting to the moon is possible. The journey is extremely difficult and only a handful of people have made it. From our perspective here on Earth, the moon is usually visible every night and it seems so close that we could

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just reach out and touch it. Trading successfully feels the same way. On any given day, week, or month, the markets make available vast amounts of money to anyone who has the capacity to put on a trade. Since the markets are in constant motion, this money is also constantly flowing, which makes the possibilities for success greatly magnified and seemingly within your grasp. I use the word "seemingly" to make an important distinction between the two groups of traders. For those who have learned how to be consistent, or have broken through what I call the "threshold of consistency,"the money is not only within their grasp; they can virtually take it at will. I'm sure that some will find this statement shocking or difficult to believe, but it is true. There are some limitations, but for the most part, money flows into the accounts of these traders with such ease and effortlessness that it literally boggles most people's minds. However, for the traders who have not evolved into this select group, the word "seemingly" means exactly what it implies. It seems as if the consistency or ultimate success they desire is "at hand," or "within their grasp," just before it slips away or evaporates before their eyes, time and time again. The only thing about trading that is consistent with this group is emotional pain. Yes, they certainly have moments of elation, but it is not an exaggeration to say that most of the time they are in a state of fear, anger, frustration, anxiety, disappointment, betrayal, and regret. So what separates these two groups of traders? Is it intelligence? Are the consistent winners just plain smarter than everyone else? Do they work harder? Are they better analysts, or do they have access to better trading systems? Do they possess inherent personality characteristics that make it easier for them to deal with the intense pressures of trading? All of these possibilities sound quite plausible, except when you consider that most of the trading industry's failures are also some of society's brightest and most accomplished people. The largest group of consistent losers is composed primarily of doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists, CEOs, wealthy retirees, and entrepreneurs. Furthermore, most of the industry's best market analysts are the worst traders imaginable. Intelligence and good market analysis can The Road to Success certainly contribute to success, but they are not the defining factors that separate the consistent winners from everyone else. Well, if it isn't intelligence or better analysis, then what could it be? Having worked with some of the best and some of the worst traders in the business, and having helped some of the worst become some of the best, I can state without a doubt that there are specific reasons why the best traders consistently out-perform everyone else. If I had to distill all of the reasons down to one, I would simply say that the best traders think differently from the rest. I know that doesn't sound very profound, but it does have profound implications if you consider what it means to think differently. To one degree or another, all of us think differently from everyone else. We may not always be mindful of this fact; it seems natural to assume that other people share our perceptions and interpretations of events. In fact, this assumption continues to seem valid until we find ourselves in a basic, fundamental

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disagreement with someone about something we both experienced. Other than our physical features, the way we think is what makes us unique, probably even more unique than our physical features do. Let's get back to traders. What is different about die way the best traders think as opposed to how those who are still struggling think? While the markets can be described as an arena of endless opportunities, they simultaneously confront the individual with some of the most sustained, adverse psychological conditions you can expose yourself to. At some point, everyone who trades learns something about the markets that will indicate when opportunities exist. But learning how to identify an opportunity to buy or sell does not mean that you have learned to think like a trader. The defining characteristic that separates the consistent winners from everyone else is this: The winners have attained a mind-set—aunique set of attitudes—that allows them to remain disciplined, focused, and, above all, confident in spite of the adverse conditions. As a result, they are no longer susceptible to the common fears and trading errors that plague everyone else. Everyone who trades ends up learning something about the markets; very few people who trade ever learn the attitudes that are absolutely essential to becoming a consistent winner. Just as people can learn to perfect the proper technique for swinging a golf club or tennis racket, their consistency, or lack of it, will without a doubt come from their attitude Traders who make it beyond "the threshold of consistency" usually experience a great deal of pain (both emotional and financial) before they acquire the land of attitude that allows them to function effectively in the market environment. The rare exceptions are usually those who were born into successful trading families or who started their trading careers under the guidance of someone who understood the true nature of trading, and, just as important, knew how to teach it. Why are emotional pain and financial disaster common among traders? The simple answer is that most of us weren't fortunate enough to start our trading careers with the proper guidance. However, the reasons go much deeper than this. I have spent the last seventeen years dissecting the psychological dynamics behind trading so that I could develop effective methods for teaching the principles of success. What I've discovered is that trading is chock full of paradoxes and contradictions in thinking that make it extremely difficult to learn how to be successful. In fact, if I had to choose one word that encapsulates the nature of trading, it would be "paradox." (According to the dictionary, a paradox is something that seems to have contradictory qualities or that is contrary to common belief or what generally makes sense to people.) Financial and emotional disaster are common among traders because many of the perspectives, attitudes, and principles that would otherwise make perfect sense and work quite well in our daily lives have the opposite effect in the trading environment. They just don't work. Not knowing this, most traders start their careers with a fundamental lack of understanding of what it means to be a trader, the skills that are involved, and the depth to which those skills need to be developed. Here is a prime example of what I am talking about: Trading is inherently risky. To my knowledge, no trade has a guaranteed outcome; therefore, the possibility of being wrong and losing money is always present. So when you put on a trade, can you consider yourself a risk-taker? Even though this may

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sound like a trick question, it is not. The logical answer to the question is, unequivocally, yes. If I engage in an activity that is inherently risky, then I must be a risktaker. This is a perfectly reasonable assumption for any trader to make. In fact, not only do virtually all traders make this assumption, but most traders take pride in thinking of themselves as risk-takers. The problem is that this assumption couldn't be further from the truth. Of course, any trader is taking a risk when you put on a trade, but that doesn't mean that you are correspondingly accepting that risk. In other words, all trades are risky because the outcomes are probable—not guaranteed. But do most traders really believe they are taking a risk when they put on a trade? Have they really accepted that the trade has a non-guaranteed, probable outcome? Furthermore, have they fully accepted the possible consequences? The answer is, unequivocally, no! Most traders have absolutely no concept of what it means to be a risk-taker in the way a successful trader thinks about risk. The best traders not only take the risk, they have also learned to accept and embrace that risk. There is a huge psychological gap between assuming you are a risk-taker because you put on trades and fully accepting the risks inherent in each trade. When you fully accept the risks, it will have profound implications on your bottom-line performance. The best traders can put on a trade without the slightest bit of hesitation or conflict, and just as freely and without hesitation or conflict, admit it isn't working. They can get out of the trade—even with a loss—and doing so doesn't resonate the slightest bit of emotional discomfort. In other words, the risks inherent in trading do not cause the best traders to lose their discipline, focus, or sense of confidence. If you are unable to trade without the slightest bit of emotional discomfort (specifically, fear), then you have not learned how to accept the risks inherent in trading. This is a big problem, because to whatever degree you haven't accepted the risk, is the same degree to which you will avoid the risk. Trying to avoid something that is unavoidable will have disastrous effects on your ability to trade successfully. Learning to truly accept the risks in any endeavor can be difficult, but it is extremely difficult for traders, especially considering what's at stake. What are we generally most afraid of (besides dying or public speaking)? Certainly, losing money and being wrong both rank close to the top of the list. Admitting we are wrong and losing money to boot can be extremely painful, and certainly something to avoid. Yet as traders, we are confronted with these two possibilities virtually every moment we are in a trade. Now, you might be saying to yourself, "Apart from the fact that it hurts so much, it's natural to not want to be wrong and lose something; therefore, it's appropriate for me to do whatever I can to avoid it." I agree with you. But it is also this natural tendency that makes trading (which looks like it should be easy) extremely difficult. Trading presents us with a fundamental paradox: How do we remain disciplined, focused, and confident in the face of constant uncertainty? When you have learned how to "think" like a trader, that's exactly what you'll be able to do. Learning how to redefine your trading activities in a way that allows you to completely accept the risk is the key to thinking like a successful trader. Learning to accept the risk is a trading skill—the most important skill you can learn. Yet it's rare that developing traders focus

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any attention or expend any effort to learn it. When you learn the trading skill of risk acceptance, the market will not be able to generate information that you define or interpret as painful. If the information the market generates doesn't have the potential to cause you emotional pain, there's nothing to avoid. It is just information, telling you what the possibilities are. This is called an objective perspective—one that is not skewed or distorted by what you are afraid is going to happen or not happen. I'm sure there isn't one trader reading this book who hasn't gotten into trades too soon—before the market has actually generated a signal, or too late—long after the market has generated a signal. What trader hasn't convinced himself not to take a loss and, as a result, had it turn into a bigger one; or got out of winning trades too soon; or found himself in winning trades but didn't take any profits at all, and then let the trades turn into losers; or moved stoplosses closer to his entry point, only to get stopped out and have the market go back in his direction? These are but a few of the many errors traders perpetuate upon themselves time and time again. These are not market-generated errors. That is, these errors do not come from the market. The market is neutral, in the sense that it moves and generates information about itself. Movement and information provide each of us with the opportunity to do something, but that's all! The markets don't have any power over the unique way in which each of us perceives and interprets this information, or control of the decisions and actions we take as a result. The errors I already mentioned and many more are strictly the result of what I call "faulty trading attitudes and perspectives." Faulty attitudes that foster fear instead of trust and confidence. I don't think I could put the difference between the consistent winners and everyone else more simply than this: The best traders aren't afraid. They aren't afraid because they have developed attitudes that give them the greatest degree of mental flexibility to flow in and out of trades based on what the market is telling them about the possibilities from its perspective. At the same time, the best traders have developed attitudes that prevent them from getting reckless. Everyone else is afraid, to some degree or another. When they're not afraid, they have the tendency to become reckless and to create the kind of experience for themselves that will cause them to be afraid from that point on. Ninety-five percent of the trading errors you are likely to make—causing the money to just evaporate before your eyes—will stem from your attitudes about being wrong, losing money, missing out, and leaving money on the table. What I call the four primary trading fears. Now, you may be saying to yourself, "I don't know about this: I've always thought traders should have a healthy fear of the markets." Again, this is a perfectly logical and reasonable assumption. But when it comes to trading, your fears will act against you in such a way that you will cause the very thing you are afraid of to actually happen. If you're afraid of being wrong, your fear will act upon your perception of market information in a way that will cause you to do something that ends up making you wrong. When you are fearful, no other possibilities exist. You can't perceive other possibilities or act on them properly, even if you did manage to perceive them, because fear is immobilizing. Physically, it causes us to freeze or run. Mentally, it causes us to narrow our focus of attention to the object of our fear. This

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means that thoughts about other possibilities, as well as other available information from the market, get blocked. You won't think about all the rational things you've learned about the market until you are no longer afraid and the event is over. Then you will think to yourself, "I knew that. Why didn't I think of it then?" or, "Why couldn't I act on it then?" It's extremely difficult to perceive that the source of these problems is our own inappropriate attitudes. That's what makes fear so insidious. Many of the thinking patterns that adversely affect our trading are a function of the natural ways in which we were brought up to think and see the world. These thinking patterns are so deeply ingrained that it rarely occurs to us that the source of our trading difficulties is internal, derived from our state of mind. Indeed, it seems much more natural to see the source of a problem as external, in the market, because it feels like the market is causing our pain, frustration, and dissatisfaction. Obviously these are abstract concepts and certainly not something most traders are going to concern themselves with. Yet understanding the relationship between beliefs, attitudes, and perception is as fundamental to trading as learning how to serve is to tennis, or as learning how to swing a club is to golf. Put another way, understanding and controlling your perception of market information is important only to the extent that you want to achieve consistent results. I say this because there is something else about trading that is as true as the statement I just made: You don't have to know anything about yourself or the markets to put on a winning trade, just as you don't have to know the proper way to swing a tennis racket or golf club in order to hit a good shot from time to time. The first time I played golf, I hit several good shots throughout the game even though I hadn't learned any particular technique; but my score was still over 120 for 18 holes. Obviously, to improve my overall score, I needed to learn technique. Of course, the same is true for trading. We need technique to achieve consistency. But what technique? This is truly one of the most perplexing aspects of learning how to trade effectively. If we aren't aware of, or don't understand, how our beliefs and attitudes affect our perception of market information, it will seem as if it is the market's behavior that is causing the lack of consistency. As a result, it would stand to reason that the best way to avoid losses and become consistent would be to learn more about the markets. This bit of logic is a trap that almost all traders fall into at some point, and it seems to make perfect sense. But this approach doesn't work. The market simply offers too many—often conflicting— variables to consider. Furthermore, there are no limits to the market's behavior. It can do anything at any moment. As a matter of fact, because every person who trades is a market variable, it can be said that any single trader can cause virtually anything to happen. This means that no matter how much you learn about the market's behavior, no matter how brilliant an analyst you become, you will never learn enough to anticipate every possible way that the market can make you wrong or cause you to lose money. So if you are afraid of being wrong or losing money, it means you will never learn enough to compensate for the negative effects these fears will have on your ability to be objective and your ability to act without hesitation. In other words, you won't be confident in the face of constant uncertainty. The

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hard, cold reality of trading is that every trade has an uncertain outcome. Unless you learn to completely accept the possibility of an uncertain outcome, you will try either consciously or unconsciously to avoid any possibility you define as painful. In the process, you will subject yourself to any number of self-generated, costly errors. Now, I am not suggesting that we don't need some form of market analysis or methodology to define opportunities and allow us to recognize them; we certainly do. However, market analysis is not the path to consistent results. It will not solve the trading problems created by lack of confidence, lack of discipline, or improper focus. When you operate from the assumption that more or better analysis will create consistency, you will be driven to gather as many market variables as possible into your arsenal of trading tools. But what happens then? You are still disappointed and betrayed by the markets, time and again, because of something you didn't see or give enough consideration to. It will feel like you can't trust the markets; but the reality is, you can't trust yourself. Confidence and fear are contradictory states of mind that both stem from our beliefs and attitudes. To be confident, functioning in an environment where you can easily lose more than you intend to risk, requires absolute trust in yourself. However, you won't be able to achieve that trust until you have trained your mind to override your natural inclination to think in ways that are counterproductive to being a consistently successful trader. Learning how to analyze the market's behavior is simply not the appropriate training. You have two choices: You can try to eliminate risk by learning about as many market variables as possible. (I call this the black hole nf analv<!i<: bpoanif* it is fhp nafh nf ultimate frustration.) Or you can learn how to redefine your trading activities in such a way that you truly accept the risk, and you're no longer afraid. When you've achieved a state of mind where you truly accept the risk, you won't have the potential to define and interpret market information in painful ways. When you eliminate the potential to define market information in painful ways, you also eliminate the tendency to rationalize, hesitate, jump the gun, hope that the market will give you money, or hope that the market will save you from your inability to cut your losses. As long as you are susceptible to the lands of errors that are the result of rationalizing, justifying, hesitating, hoping, and jumping the gun, you will not be able to trust yourself. If you can't trust yourself to be objective and to always act in your own best interests, achieving consistent results will be next to impossible. Trying to do something that looks so simple may well be the most exasperating thing you will ever attempt to do. The irony is that, when you have the appropriate attitude, when you have acquired a "trader s mind-set" and can remain confident in the face of constant uncertainty, trading will be as easy and simple as you probably thought it was when you first started out. So, what is the solution? You will need to learn how to adjust your attitudes and beliefs about trading in such a way that you can trade without the slightest bit of fear, but at the same time keep a framework in place that does not allow you to become reckless. That's exactly what this book is designed to teach you. As you move ahead, I would like you to keep something in mind.

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The successful trader that you want to become is a future projection of yourself that you have to grow into. Growth implies expansion, learning, and creating a new way of expressing yourself. This is true even if you're already a successful trader and are reading this book to become more successful. Many of the new ways in which you will learn to express yourself will be in direct conflict with ideas and beliefs you presently hold about the nature of trading. You may or may not already be aware of some of these beliefs. In any case, what you currently hold to be true about the nature of trading will argue to keep things just the way they are, in spite of your frustrations and unsatisfying results. These internal arguments are natural. My challenge in this book is to help you resolve these arguments as efficiently as possible. Your willingness to consider that other possibilities exist—possibilities that you may not be aware of or may not have given enough consideration to—will obviously make the learning process faster and easier.

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CHAPTER 2

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THE LURE (AND THE DANGERS) OF TRADING

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In January 1994, I was asked to speak at a trading conference in Chicago, sponsored by Futures Magazine. At one of the luncheons I happened to be sitting next to an editor for one of the major publishers of books about trading. We were having a lively conversation about why so few people become successful at trading, even people who are otherwise very accomplished. At one point, the editor asked me if a possible explanation for this phenomenon might be that people were getting into trading for the wrong reasons.

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THE ATTRACTION

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I had to pause for a moment to think about this. I agree that many of the typical reasons people are motivated to trade—the action, euphoria, desire to be a hero, the attention one can draw to himself by winning, or the self-pity that comes from losing—create problems that will ultimately detract from a traders performance and overall success. But the true underlying attraction to trading is far more fundamental and universal. Trading is an activity that offers the individual unlimited freedom of creative expression, a freedom of expression that has been denied most of us for most of our lives. Of course, the editor asked me what I meant by this. I explained that in the trading environment, we make almost all of the rules. This means there are very few restrictions or boundaries on how we can choose to express ourselves. Of course there are some formalities such as having to become a member of an exchange to be a floor trader, or meeting the minimum financial requirements to open a brokerage account if you're an off-the-floor trader. But otherwise, once you are in a position to start trading, the possibilities that exist for how you go about doing it are virtually limitless. I went on to give him an example from a seminar I attended several years ago. Someone had calculated that, if you combined bond futures, bond options, and the cash bond markets, there would be over eight billion possible spread combinations. Now add the timing considerations based on how you read the revailing market conditions, and the various ways to trade become virtually limitless. The editor paused for a moment and asked, "But why would having access to such an unrestricted environment result in fairly consistent failure?" I answered, "Because unlimited possibilities coupled with the unlimited freedom to take advantage of those possibilities present the individual with unique and specialized psychological challenges, challenges that very few people are properly equipped to deal

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with, or have any awareness of for that matter, and people can't exactly work on overcoming something if they don't even know its a problem." The freedom is great. All of us seem to naturally want it, strive for it, even crave it. But that doesn't ean that we have the appropriate psychological resources to operate effectively in an environment that has few, if any, boundaries and where the potential to do enormous damage to ourselves exists. Almost everyone needs to make some mental adjustments, regardless of their educational background, intelligence or how successful they've been in other endeavors. The kind of adjustments I'm talking about have to do with creating an internal mental structure that provides the trader with the greatest degree of balance between the freedom to do anything and the potential that exists to experience both the financial and psychological damage that can be a direct result of that freedom. Creating a mental structure can be difficult enough, especially if what you want to instill is in conflict with what you already believe. But for those of us who want to be traders, the difficulty of creating the appropriate structure is invariably compounded by a backlog of mental resistance that starts developing at the very earliest stages of our lives. All of us are born into some sort of social environment. A social environment (or society), whether it's a family, city, state, or country, implies the existence of structure. Social structures consist of rules, restrictions, boundaries, and a set of beliefs that become a code of behavior that limits the ways in which individuals within that social structure can or cannot express themselves. Furthermore, most of the limitations of social structure were established before we are born. In other words, by the time any of us get here, most of the social structure governing our individual expression is in place and well entrenched. It's easy to see why a society's need for structure and the individual's need for self- expression can conflict. Every person who wants to master the art of trading faces just such a fundamental conflict. I'd like you to ask yourself what one characteristic (a form of personal expression) is common to every child born on this planet, regardless of the location, culture, or social situation the child is born into. The answer is curiosity. Every child is curious. Every child is eager to learn. They can be described as little learning machines. Consider the nature of curiosity. At its most fundamental level, it is a force. More specifically, it is an inner-directed force, which means there's no necessity to motivate a child to learn something. Left on their own, children will naturally explore their surroundings. What is more, this inner-directed force also seems to have its own agenda; in other words, even though all children are curious, not all children are naturally curious about the same things. There's something inside each of us that directs our awareness. Even infants seem to know what they want and don't want. When adults encounter this unique display of individuality expressed by an infant, they're usually surprised. They assume that infants have nothing inside of them that makes them uniquely who they are. How else would infants express their individuality than by what in their environment attracts or repels them? I call this inner-directed

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guidance the force of natural attractions. Natural attractions are simply those things about which we feel a natural or passionate interest. Ours is a big and diverse world, and it offers each of us a great deal to learn about and experience. But that doesn't mean each of us has a natural or passionate interest in learning about or experiencing all there is. There's some internal mechanism that makes us "naturally selective." If you think about it, I'm sure you could list many things to do or be that you have absolutely no interest in. I know I could. You could also make another list of the things you are only marginally interested in. Finally, you could list everything you have a passionate interest in. Of course, the lists get smaller as the interest levels rise. Where does passionate interest come from? My personal view is that it comes from the deepest level of our being—at the level of our true identity. It comes from the part of us that exists beyond the characteristics and personality traits we acquire as a result of our social upbringing.

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THE DANGERS

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It is at the deepest level of our being that the potential for conflict exists.The social structure that we're born into may or may not be sensitive to these inner-directed needs and interests. For example, you may have been born into a family of extremely competitive athletes, but feel a passionate interest in classical music or art. You may even have natural athletic ability, but no real interest in participating in athletic events. Is there any potential for conflict here? In a typical family, most members would put a great deal of pressure on you to follow in the footsteps of your brothers, sisters, or parents. They do everything possible to teach you their ways and how to get the most out of your athletic ability. They discourage you from seriously pursuing any other interests. You go along with what they want, because you don't want to be ostracized, but at the same time, doing what they want you to do just doesn't feel right, although everything you've learned and been taught argues in favor of becoming an athlete. The problem is, it doesn't feel like who you are. The conflicts that result from what we're taught about who we're supposed to be and the feeling that resonates at the deepest levels of our being is not at all uncommon. I would say that many, if not most people, grow up in a family and cultural environment that gives little, if any, objective, nonjudgmental support to the unique ways in which we feel compelled to express ourselves. This lack of support is not simply an absence of encouragement. It can be as deep as the outright denial of some particular way in which we want to express ourselves. For example, let's look at a common situation: A toddler, who for the first time in his life, notices "this thing," which we call a vase, on the coffee table. He is curious, which means there's an inner force that's compelling him to experience this object. In a sense, it's as if this force creates a vacuum in his mind that has to be filled with the object of his interest. So, he focuses on the vase, and, with deliberate intent, crawls across the vast expanse of the living room floor to the coffee table. When he gets there, he reaches up to the edge of the table to pull himself to his feet.

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With one hand firmly on the table to maintain his balance, his other hand reaches out to touch this thing he has never experienced. Just at that moment, he hears a scream from across the room, "NO! DON'T TOUCH THAT!" Startled, the child falls back on his butt, and begins to cry. Obviously, this is a very common occurrence and one that is completely unavoidable. Children have absolutely no concept of how they can injure themselves or how valuable something like a vase can be. In fact, learning what is safe and what isn't and the value of things are important lessons the child must learn. However, there are some extremely important psychological dynamics at work here that have a direct effect on our ability to create the kind of discipline and focus necessary to trade effectively later in life. What happens when we're denied the opportunity to express ourselves in the way we want to, or we're forced to express ourselves in a way that doesn't correspond with the natural selection process? The experience creates an upset. Being "up-set" implies an imbalance. But what exactly is out of balance? For something to be out of balance, there has to be something that's in balance or in equal proportion in the first place. That something is the relative degree of correspondence that exists between our inner, mental environment and the exterior environment where we experience our lives. In other words, our needs and desires are generated in our mental environment, and they are fulfilled in the exterior environment . If these two environments are in correspondence with one another, we're in a state of inner balance and we feel a sense of satisfaction or happiness. If these environments are not in correspondence, we experience dissatisfaction, anger, and frustration, or what is commonly referred to as emotional pain. Now, why would not getting what we want or being denied the freedom to express ourselves in some particular way cause us to experience emotional pain? My personal theory is that needs and desires create mental vacuums. The universe in which we live has a natural tendency to not tolerate a vacuum and moves to fill it, whenever one exists. (The philosopher Spinoza observed centuries ago that, "Nature abhors a vacuum.") Suck the air out of a bottle and your tongue and lips will stick to the mouth of the bottle, because you have created an imbalance (a vacuum), which now must be filled. What are the dynamics behind the expression "Necessity is the mother of all invention"? The recognition that a need creates a mental vacuum that the universe will fill with inspiring thoughts (if your mind is receptive). The thoughts, in turn, can inspire movement and expression that result in the fulfillment of that need. In this respect, I think our mental environment works like the universe at large. Once we recognize a need or desire, we move to fill the vacuum with an experience in the exterior environment. If we are denied the opportunity to pursue the object of this need or desire, it literally feels as if we are not whole, or that something is missing, which puts us into a state of imbalance or emotional pain. (Do our minds also abhor a vacuum, once one has been created?) Take a toy away from a child who is not finished playing with it (regardless of how good your reasons may be for doing so) and the universal response will be emotional pain.

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By the time we're 18 years old, we've been on Earth approximately 6,570 days. On average, how many times per day does the typical child hear statements like:

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"No, no, you can't do that." "You can't do it that way. You have to do it this way." "Not now; let me think about it." "I'll let you know." "It can't be done." "What makes you think you can do it?" "You have to do it. You have no choice."

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These are just a few of the relatively nice ways in which all of us are denied individual expression as we grow up. Even if we only heard such statements once or twice a day, that still adds up to several thousand denials by the time we reach adulthood. I call these lands of experiences "denied impulses" to learn— impulses that are based on an inner need, originating from the deeper part of our identity, from the natural selection process. What happens to all of these impulses that have been denied and left unfulfilled? Do they just go away? They can, if they are reconciled in some way: if we do something, or someone else does something, to put our mental environment back into balance. What can put our mental environment back into balance? There are a number of techniques. The most natural one, especially for a child, is simply to cry. Crying is a natural mechanism (nature's way) for reconciling these denied, unfulfilled impulses. Scientific researchers have found tears to be composed of negatively charged ions. If allowed to take its natural course, crying will expel the negatively charged energy in our minds and bring us back to a state of balance, even though the original impulse was never fulfilled. The problem is that, most of the time, events are not allowed to take their natural course and the denied impulses are never reconciled (at least, not while we're still children). There are many reasons why adults don't like it when their children (especially boys) cry, and do everything they can to discourage this behavior. There are just as many reasons why adults will not bother to explain to children why they are being forced to do something they don't want to do. Even if adults do try, there are no assurances that they will be effective enough to reconcile the imbalance. What happens if these impulses aren't reconciled? They accumulate and usually end up manifesting themselves in any number of addictive and compulsive behavior patterns. A very loose rule of thumb is: Whatever we believe we were deprived of as children can easily become addictions in adulthood. For example, many people are addicted to attention. I am referring to people who will do most anything to draw attention to themselves. The most common reason for this is that they believe they either didn't get enough attention when they were

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young or didn't get it when it was important to them. In any case, the deprivation becomes unresolved emotional energy that compels them to behave in ways that will satisfy the addiction. What's important for us to understand about these unreconciled, denied impulses (that exist in all of us) is how they affect our ability to stay focused and take a disciplined, consistent approach to our trading.

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THE SAFEGUARDS

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To operate effectively in the trading environment, we need rules and boundaries to guide our behavior. It is a simple fact of trading that the potential exists to do enormous damage to ourselves—damage that can be way out of proportion to what we may think is possible. There are many kinds of trades in which the risk of loss is unlimited. To prevent the possibility of exposing ourselves to damage, we need to create an internal structure in the form of specialized mental discipline and a perspective that guides our behavior so that we always act in our own best interests. This structure has to exist within each of us, because unlike society, the market doesn't provide it. The markets provide structure in the form of behavior patterns that indicate when an opportunity to buy or sell exists. But that's where the structure ends—with a simple indication. Otherwise, from each individual's perspective, there are no formalized rules to guide your behavior. There aren't even any beginnings, middles, or endings as there are in virtually every other activity we participate in. This is an extremely important distinction with profound psychological implications. The market is like a stream that is in constant motion. It doesn't start, stop, or wait. Even when the markets are closed, prices are still in motion. There is no rule that the opening price on any day must be the same as the closing price the day before. Nothing we do in society properly prepares us to function effectively in such a "boundary-less" environment. Even gambling games have built-in structures that make them much different from trading, and a lot less dangerous. For example, if we decide to play blackjack, the first thing we have to do is decide how much we are going to wager or risk. This is a choice we are forced to make by the rules of the game. If we don't make the choice, we don't get to play. In trading, no one (except yourself) is going to force you to decide in advance what your risk is. In fact, what we have is a limitless environment, where virtually anything can happen at any moment and only the consistent winners define their risk in advance of putting on a trade. For everyone else, defining the risk in advance would force you to confront the reality that each trade has a probable outcome, meaning that it could be a loser. Consistent losers do almost anything to avoid accepting the reality that, no matter how good a trade looks, it could lose. Without the presence of an external structure forcing the typical trader to think otherwise, he is susceptible to any number of justifications, rationalizations, and the kind of distorted logic that will allow him to get into a trade believing that it can't lose, which makes determining the risk in advance irrelevant. All gambling games have specified beginnings, middles, and endings, based on a sequence of events

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that determine the outcome of the game. Once you decide you are going to participate, you can't change your mind—you're in for the duration. That's not true of trading. In trading, prices are in constant motion, nothing begins until you decide it should, it lasts as long as you want, and it doesn't end until you want it to be over. Regardless of what you may have planned or wanted to do, any number of psychological factors can come into play, causing you to become distracted, change your mind, become scared or overconfident: in other words, causing you to behave in ways that are erratic and unintended. Because gambling games have a formal ending, they force the participant to be an active loser. If you're on a losing streak, you can't keep on losing without making a conscious decision to do so. The end of each game causes the beginning of a new game, and you have to actively subject more of your assets to further risk by reaching into your wallet or pushing some chips to the center of the table. Trading has no formal ending. The market will not take you out of a trade. Unless you have the appropriate mental structure to end a trade in a manner that is always in your best interest, you can become a passive loser. This means that, once you're in a losing trade, you don't have to do anything to keep on losing. You don't even have to watch. You can just ignore the situation, and the market will take everything you own—and more. One of the many contradictions of trading is that it offers a gift and a curse at the same time. The gift is that, perhaps for the first time in our lives, we're in complete control of everything we do. The curse is that there are no external rules or boundaries to guide or structure our behavior. The unlimited characteristics of the trading environment require that we act with some degree of restraint and self- control, at least if we want to create some measure of consistent success. The structure we need to guide our behavior has to originate in your mind, as a conscious act of free will. This is where the many problems begin.

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PROBLEM: The willingness to Create Rules

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I have not yet encountered a person interested in trading who didn't resist the notion of creating a set of rules. The resistance isn't always overt. Quite the contrary, it's usually very subtle. We agree on the one hand that rules make sense, but we really have no intention of doing whatever is being suggested. This resistance can be intense, and it has a logical source. Most of the structure in our minds was given to us as a result of our social upbringing and based on choices made by other people. In other words, it was instilled in our minds, but did not originate in our minds. This is a very important distinction. In the process of instilling structure, many of our natural impulses to move, express, and learn about the nature of our existence through our own direct experience were denied. Many of these denied impulses were never reconciled and still exist inside of us as frustration, anger, disappointment, guilt, or even hatred. The accumulation of these negative feelings acts as a force inside our mental environment causing us to resist anything that denies us the freedom to do and be whatever we want, when we want.

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In other words, the very reason we are attracted to trading in the first place—the unlimited freedom of creative expression—is the same reason we feel a natural resistance to creating the kinds of rules and boundaries that can appropriately guide our behavior. It's as if we have found a Utopia in which there is complete freedom, and then someone taps us on the shoulder and says, "Hey, you have to create rules, and not only that, you also have to have the discipline to abide by them." The need for rules may make perfect sense, but it can be difficult to generate the motivation to create these rules when we've been trying to break free of them most of our lives. It usually takes a great deal of pain and suffering to break down the source of our resistance to establishing and abiding by a trading regime that is organized, consistent, and reflects prudent money-management guidelines. Now, I'm not implying that you have to reconcile all of your past frustrations and disappointments to become a successful trader, because that's not the case. And you certainly don't have to suffer. I've worked with many traders who have achieved their objectives of consistency and haven't done anything to reconcile their backlog of denied impulses. However, I am implying that you can't take for granted how much effort and focus you may have to put into building the kind of mental structure that compensates for the negative effect denied impulses can have on your ability to establish the skills that will assure your success as a trader.

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PROBLEM: Failure to Take Responsibility

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Trading can be characterized as a pure, unencumbered personal choice with an immediate outcome. Remember, nothing happens until we decide to start; it lasts as long as we want; and it doesn't end until we decide to stop. All of these beginnings, middles, and endings are the result of our interpretation of the information available and how we choose to act on our interpretation. Now, we may want the freedom to make choices, but that doesn't mean we are ready and willing to accept the responsibility for the outcomes. Traders who are not ready to accept responsibility for the outcomes of their interpretations and actions will find themselves in a dilemma: How does one participate in an activity that allows complete freedom of choice, and at the same time avoid taking responsibility if the outcome of one's choices are unexpected and not to one's liking? The hard reality of trading is that, if you want to create consistency, you have to start from the premise that no matter what the outcome, you are completely responsible. This is a level of responsibility few people have aspired to before they decide to become traders. The way to avoid responsibility is to adopt a trading style that is, to all intents and purposes, random. I define random trading as poorly-planned trades or trades that are not planned at all. It is an unorganized approach that takes into consideration an unlimited set of market variables, which do not allow you to find out what works on a consistent basis and what does not. Randomness is unstructured freedom without responsibility. When we trade without well-defined plans and with an unlimited set of variables, it's very easy to take

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credit for the trades that turn out to our liking (because there was "some" method present). At the same time, it's veiy easy to avoid taking responsibility for the trades that didn't turn out the way we wanted (because there's always some variable we didn't know about and therefore couldn't take into consideration beforehand). If the markets behavior were truly random, then it would be difficult if not impossible to create consistency. If it's impossible to be consistent, then we really don't have to take responsibility. The problem with this logic is that our direct experience of the markets tells us something different. The same behavior patterns present themselves over and over again. Even though the outcome of each individual pattern is random, the outcome of a series of patterns is consistent (statistically reliable). This is a paradox, but one that is easily resolved with a disciplined, organized, and consistent approach. I've worked with countless traders who would spend hours doing market analysis and planning trades for the next day Then, instead of putting on the trades they planned, they did something else. The trades they did put on were usually ideas from friends or tips from brokers. I probably don't have to tell you that the trades they originally planned, but didn't act on, were usually the big winners of the day. This is a classic example of how we become susceptible to unstructured, random trading—because we want to avoid responsibility. When we act on our own ideas, we put our creative abilities on the line and we get instant feedback on how well our ideas worked. It's very difficult to rationalize away any unsatisfactory results. On the other hand, when we enter an unplanned, random trade, it's much easier to shift the responsibility by blaming the friend or the broker for their bad ideas. There's something else about the nature of trading that makes it easy to escape the responsibility that comes with creating structure in favor of trading randomly: It is the fact that any trade has the potential to be a winner, even a big winner. That big winning trade can come your way whether you are a great analyst or a lousy one; whether you do or don't take responsibility. It takes effort to create the kind of disciplined approach that is necessary to become a consistent winner. But, as you can see, it's very easy to avoid this kind of mental work in favor of trading with an undisciplined, random approach.

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PROBLEM: Addiction to Random Rewards

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Several studies have been done on the psychological effects of random rewards on monkeys. For example, if you teach a monkey to do a task and consistently reward it every time the task is done, the monkey quickly learns to associate a specific outcome with the efforts. If you stop rewarding it for doing the task, within a very short period of time the monkey will simply stop doing the task. It won't waste its energy doing something that it has now learned it won't be rewarded for. However, the monkey's response to being cut off from the reward is very different if you start out on a purely random schedule, instead of a consistent one. When you stop offering the reward, there's no way the monkey can know that it will never be rewarded again for doing that task. Every time it was rewarded in the past, the reward came as a surprise. As a result, from the monkey's perspective, there's no reason to quit

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doing the task. The monkey keeps on doing the task, even without being rewarded for doing it. Some will continue indefinitely. I'm not sure why we're susceptible to becoming addicted to random rewards. If I had to guess, I would say that it probably has something to do with the euphoria-inducing chemicals that are released in our brains when we experience an unexpected, pleasant surprise. If a reward is random, we never know for sure if and when we might receive it, so expending energy and resources in the hope of experiencing that wonderful feeling of surprise again isn't difficult. In fact, for many people it can be very addicting. On the other hand, when we expect a particular outcome and it doesn't come about, we're disappointed and feel bad. If we do it again and get the same disappointing outcome, it isn't likely that we will keep doing something we know will cause us emotional pain. The problem with any addiction is that it leaves us in a state of "choicelessness." To whatever degree the addiction dominates our state of mind, to that same degree our focus and efforts will be geared toward fulfilling the object of that addiction. Other possibilities that exist in any given moment to fulfill other needs (like the need to trust ourselves and not to subject too many of our assets to risk) are either ignored or dismissed. We feel powerless to act in any other way than to satisfy the addiction. An addiction to random rewards is particularly troublesome for traders, because it is another source of resistance to creating the kind of mental structure that produces consistency.

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PROBLEM: External versus Internal Control

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Our upbringing has programmed us to function in a social environment, which means we've acquired certain thinking strategies for fulfilling our needs, wants and desires that are geared toward social interaction. Not only have we learned to depend on each other to fulfill the needs, wants and desires we cannot fulfill completely on our own, but in the process we've acquired many socially-based controlling and manipulating techniques for assuring that other people behave in a manner that is consistent with what we want. The markets may seem like a social endeavor because there are so many people involved, but they're not. If, in today's modern society, we have learned to depend on each other to fulfill basic needs, then the market environment (even though it exists in the midst of modern society) can be characterized as a psychological wilderness, where it's truly every man or woman for himself or herself. Not only can we not depend on the market to do anything for us, but it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to manipulate or control anything that the market does. Now, if we've become effective at fulfilling our needs, wants and desires by learning how to control and manipulate our environment, but suddenly find ourselves, as traders, in an environment that does not know, care, or respond to anything that is important to us, where does that leave us? You're right if you said up the proverbial creek without a paddle. One of the principal reasons so many successful people have failed miserably at trading is that their

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success is partly attributable to their superior ability to manipulate and control the social environment, to respond to what they want. To some degree, all of us have learned or developed techniques to make the external environment conform to our mental (interior) environment. The problem is that none of these techniques work with the market. The market doesn't respond to control and manipulation (unless you're a very large trader). However, we can control our perception and interpretation of market information, as well as our own behavior. Instead of controlling our surroundings so they conform to our idea of the way things should be, we can learn to control ourselves. Then we can perceive information from the most objective perspective possible, and structure our mental environment so that we always behave in a manner that is in our own best interest.

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CHAPTER 3

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TAKING RESPONSIBILITY

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Although the words "taking responsibility" sound simple, the concept is neither easy to grasp nor easy to put into practice in your trading. We have all heard the words and been confronted with the need to take responsibility so many times in our lives that it is easy to take for granted that we know exactly what the phrase means. Taking responsibility in your trading and learning the appropriate principles of success are inextricably connected. You have to understand, with every fiber of your being, the ways in which you are and are not responsible for your success as a trader. Only then can you take on the characteristics that will allow you to join the select group of traders who are consistently successful in the markets. At the end of Chapter 1, I introduced the idea of stepping into a future projection of yourself. In other words, the consistently successful trader that you want to become doesn't exist yet. You must create a new version of yourself, just as a sculptor creates a likeness of a model.