BRETT STEENBARGER'S TRADING PSYCHOLOGY RESOURCE CENTER

Below are resources to help traders become their own trading coaches, improve their trading processes, and develop a positive work-life balance.  All the TraderFeed posts also contain links to valuable resources and perspectives.  

RADICAL RENEWAL - Free blog book on trading, psychology, spirituality, and leading a fulfilling life

---

The Three Minute Trading Coach Videos

---

Forbes Articles:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brettsteenbarger/
  

My coaching work applies evidence-based psychological techniques (see my background and my book on the topic) to the improvement of productivity, quality of life, teamwork, leadership, hiring best practices, and creativity/idea generation.  An important part of the "solution-focused" approach that I write about is that we can often best grow by focusing on what we do well and how we do it--and then doing more of what works for us.  The key is to know our cognitive, interpersonal, and personality strengths and leverage those in the pursuit of performance. 

FURTHER RESOURCES

*  A Creative Way to Use TraderFeed 

*  Brett Steenbarger Bio

*  Brett's Books on Trading Psychology

I wish you the best of luck in your development as a trader and in your personal evolution.  In the end, those are one and the same:  paths to becoming who we already are when we are at our best.

Brett
.

Broad Selling After A Broad Advance: What Happens Next?

On Friday, we saw something unusual.  After the day's steep drop, we finished the day with fewer than 10% of SPX stocks closing above their 3, 5, and 10-day moving averages.  At the same time, by Friday's close, we still saw more than 50% of those shares trading above their 100 and 200-day averages.  Since July of 2006, when I first began collecting these data (over 4400 days), this set of conditions has only occurred 20 times.  In other words, it's been unusual to get a broad short-term decline following a broad longer-term advance. 

While 20 instances is not enough for a robust statistical analysis, I do find it noteworthy that 18 of the occurrences finished higher 20 days later for an average gain of +2.66%, substantially above the average for the entire sample.  

I've found that such historical queries are useful tools for framing market hypotheses.  If I see evidence of buying going forward and then see that we cannot make fresh lows on subsequent selling pressure, the chances are good that I'll participate in the potential bounce.  This is particularly the case if several queries drawing upon different data point to similar conclusions.

The future does not always mirror the past and, in the present situation, it would just take a further escalation of the Middle East conflict to potentially move oil prices higher and stocks lower.  When the present varies greatly from historical patterns, that, too, can be information.

Further Reading:

Learning From Our Best Trades:  Trading With A Backtested Edge

.

Positive Trading Psychology - II: Focus

 

The first post in this series on positive trading psychology took a look at flourishing and what we need to do in order to maximize our performance in life and markets.  When we establish flourishing as a personal and professional goal, we move past the preoccupation with our mistakes and instead learn to make the most out of what we do well.  

In this post, we explore an area of trading psychology that is underappreciated:  cognitive performance.  Research that I've conducted at multiple trading firms finds that our cognitive strengths--what we do best in processing information--are every bit as important to trading success as our personality strengths.  For example, one of the consistent qualities we see among very successful traders is intellectual curiosity.  Rarely, however, do we see traders actively working on growing the breadth and depth of their interests.  

There is much more to trading psychology than "mindset".

Especially important to our cognitive functioning is focus:  the degree to which we can intensify our concentration, processing individual things in great depth and also processing a wide range of things.  One of my first observations when I began my trading career was that I could often identify the best traders by observing their screens.  The best traders had more screens open with a broader range of information.  They had the unique ability to scan and quickly identify what was important and then focus their attention on those areas of opportunity.  This meant that they exhibited quick information processing as well as deep information processing.  During trading, they were laser focused on what was in front of them.  In the state of high focus, they simply saw more than other people and were more prepared to act on what they saw.

I see this among the best traders I currently work with.  By having only the most important information on their screens and focusing intensively on the most relevant news, markets, and price action, they minimize distractions.  This concentration enables them to quickly turn to what is important and act on what they see.  If you watch chess champions during matches, you can appreciate that intensity of focus.  They are not simply focused on winning; they are focused on making the right moves.  They exhibit the flow state, in which they are totally absorbed in their performance.

The capacity for focus is something we can develop.  Many traders make the mistake of performing "meditation" exercises--sitting still and quieting their minds--in hopes of improving their trading.  Quieting the mind is necessary for focus, but not sufficient.  We also need to train ourselves to intensify our concentration and hold that concentration for longer and longer times.  Attention is a kind of "muscle" that can grow with exercise.  A number of apps, such as Brain HQ, can be useful in expanding our capacity for focus.  Meditative exercises that require us to sustain attention for longer and longer times are also useful, particularly when they challenge us to maintain our focus while switching the objects of our concentration.

Yes, it's helpful to maintain our best mindset, but if we don't process information as broadly, deeply, and quickly as possible, we're going to miss opportunities and overreact to limited information.  What I learned early in my work with traders is that successful traders succeed in part because they see more and better than others.  

Cognitive strengths matter.

Further Reading:

Creativity in Analyzing Market Information

.

Positive Trading Psychology - I: Flourishing

 

In the next several posts, I will outline an approach to trading psychology based upon recent research in the field of "positive psychology".  I believe this can be a game-changer for many traders and trading teams.

To use the analogy of positive psychology's founding researcher, Dr. Martin Seligman, the goal of positive psychology is not to go from -5 to 0, but to go from +2 to +5.  This means that feeling good and performing well is not enough.  We are meant to "flourish" by amplifying what is already positive.  According to Dr. Seligman's research, there are five dimensions of flourishing, known by their acronym PERMA:

1)  Positive Emotion

2)  Engagement

3)  Relationships

4)  Meaning

5)  Accomplishments

As the Positive Psychology site explains, flourishing is not something we have or don't have.  Rather, it's a process that can wax and wane at various points in our lives.

Think about what this means:  We think about trading processes, and we might even follow personal processes regarding what/how we eat, our sleep and exercise, etc.  How many of us, however, explicitly follow processes of flourishing in how we approach markets?  Consider a simple PERMA review for traders:

1)  Are your reviews and research efforts generating positive emotion, by focusing on opportunities, learning, and insights?

2)  Are you constructively engaged with markets?  With other traders?  With learning?  Are you focused and operating in a "flow state", or are you distracted and jumping from screen to screen and idea to idea?

3)  Who is mentoring you and how are you learning?  Who are you mentoring and how are you improving them and cementing your ideas?  What are you doing to nourish your friendships and personal relationships, and how are they nourishing you?  If there is no nourishing, there can be no flourishing.

4)  What is meaningful to you in your trading beyond short-term P/L?  What in markets captures your interests and passions and helps you find unique opportunity?  What is meaningful in your life outside of trading that keeps you emotionally and spiritually nourished?

5)  What have you accomplished recently and how can you build upon it?  What have you learned from the accomplishments of others?  How are you celebrating your accomplishments and who are you celebrating with?  How are your achievements in all areas of life keeping you energized and focused?

We develop a flourishing life by focusing on flourishing each day.  Each day is a miniature lifetime.  We are born in the morning and by nighttime we lose energy and lie down to rest.  In between, our challenge is to live the most meaningful and successful life possible.  It's great to cope and correct our mistakes, but the key question is:  How can we flourish today and be all that we're capable of being?  One hint:  a large, recent research review finds that mind-body applications of positive psychology are especially effective.  Maximizing our daily, physical well-being may be the best way to flourish emotionally and in our trading.

Further Reading:

What is Your Emotional P/L?

A Flourishing Assessment 

.

Investing in Your Trading Psychology

 

There is a very important difference between acting on desire and acting on commitment, as anyone in a successful long-term romantic relationship can attest.  If a relationship is only about desire, it quickly burns out and fails when circumstances call for commitment.  Successful relationships translate desire into commitment:  it is because someone is incredibly emotionally special to me that I am committed to them.

Many traders begin with a desire for market success, but never get to the point of commitment to the practices and processes that lead to ongoing profitability.  They love trading, but are not in love with markets.  As a result, they never put the time into truly understanding markets and their dynamics, which is a vital component of trading success.

In a recent Economic Times article, Anupam Nagar reviews ideas from my books and stresses the importance of achieving trading success by building upon one's strengths.  It is not enough to correct one's mistakes; a true edge in financial markets requires that we find *our* edge in those markets.  It is not enough to mimic the trading style and edges of others.  Our mission is to figure out what *we* see uniquely in markets and then translate that it into durable trading practices.  

For that reason, a successful approach to trading psychology requires an investment in ourselves.  We need to figure out what we see uniquely and distinctively in markets and then invest in that.  Success lies at the intersection between our particular strengths and the patterns that exist in markets.

There's an old saying that, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him".  The idea is that the genuine Buddha is not a guru who knows all the answers.  The path to genuine enlightenment is found within, not in following someone else.  We can never find our own, personal conviction in ideas peddled by others.  If we find the market guru, we're meant to "kill" them.  

That takes time, and it takes an open mind.  In recent years, I've developed quite a personal interest in the topic of rotation within equity markets and how to trace that through breadth and relative strength statistics.  Many markets are not bull markets (investing more capital in stocks) or bear markets (pulling more capital from stocks), but rather are rotational.  In those rotational markets, money comes out of sectors that are not in favor and go into stocks that promise better earnings and returns.  For example, in an environment of economic growth, money might go into technology and consumer discretionary shares and out of more defensive sectors.  From this perspective, asking whether we are bearish or bullish on stocks is the wrong question.  Rather, the challenge is to find where there is relative strength and relative weakness and profit from both.

When we pursue what fascinates us, we make unique discoveries and find our particular edge.  It is when we see things clearly that we can take the kind of risk that leads to meaningful returns.  What I like about a training program such as that at SMB Capital is that there is exposure to many team leaders and mentors.  They recognize that there is no genuine conviction to be found by mimicking the trading of others.  As Garrett Drinon observes, the challenge is to identify what *we* see clearly in markets and then put on the appropriate risk.

We learn from others, then make that learning our own.  

So, so many market Buddhas out there.  

Kill them.

Further Reading:

Finding Your Niche In Life and Trading

.  

My Big Takeaway From The SMB Annual Event

 

It was great getting back to SMB Capital and being part of their first ever annual trading event.  I was especially impressed with the expanded mentoring being offered to developing traders.  This includes virtual "office hours" meetings to discuss trading in real time; intensive step-by-step teaching of successful trades from Lance Breitstein; and detailed modeling of winning options strategies from Seth Freudberg.  It was especially rewarding to see traders I knew as developing professionals who are now successful and offering mentoring to the newbies, including Garrett Drinon, Justin Spero, Carlton Bryan, Jeff Holden, and Max Ganik.  Congrats to Steve Spencer and Mike Bellafiore for their work in building an impressive learning culture. 

My greatest takeaway from the event, however, was the tremendous enthusiasm and interest in learning among the participants.  There was an electricity in the group, as traders were eager to network, learn from each other, and absorb lessons from the presentations.  The experience reminded me that every developing trader is an entrepreneur building a startup business.  It was great to see the drive and sense of quest among these aspiring professionals.

As we become experienced and successful, the challenge is to maintain our spirit of quest.  The longer we do something, the more we have to work to sustain the fire of the startup mode:  learning and doing new things.  That is not only true in our trading, but in our personal lives.  Life is meant to be an adventure.  What I loved at the SMB event was that the traders I knew as beginners had developed a fresh fire in the belly, drawing on their passion for growing talent within the community.  

A few years ago, Margie and I took our first trip to Israel and loved seeing historical and cultural sites.  On our last day, we visited the Holocaust Remembrance Center, Yad Vashem, and there I experienced something that powerfully remains with me to this day.  Seeing the display of all those killed in concentration camps around the world, I (quite uncharacteristically) broke down in tears and felt the very strong sense:  "These are my people".  My equally strong sense was that this is what we mean by God speaking to us:  an intense clarity coming from the soul.  

Since then, understanding that clarity and its significance has become my quest.  I've read easily 150-200 books on religion and spirituality; wrote the blog-based book about the spirituality of trading, Radical Renewal; and recently finished a 450-page manuscript about spiritual development from a Jewish perspective that includes a website and blog.  The next project will be an equally detailed review of Christianity and Islam and the lessons they teach us about spiritual development.  Eventually those lessons will find their way into my work with traders, building on the insight that true clarity and conviction comes from quieting the ego and listening to the soul.

The larger point is that I'm just like those developing traders at SMB.  I've found a mountain to climb and a worthy quest.  And I've learned that what brings us passion is what truly--and sometimes quite literally--speaks to us.  

Thanks to those at SMB who affirmed what is important in life.

Further Reading:  

Radical Renewal:  Tools for Leading a Meaningful Life

.  

Trading Psychology Links: Finding Your Edge

 

*  Setting just one goal for change and working on it consistently for at least a month:  it doesn't lead to revolutionary change, but it creates the evolutionary change that lasts.

*  Very interesting research from Concretum Research regarding time of day when SPX tends to make intraday highs and lows.  Not too surprising that highs and lows for the day are made when market participants are most active.  This sets up valuable research on relative volume, intraday trends, and probability of trend days.  Would be interesting to see how these stats look for individual stocks, particularly ones with lower institutional participation.

*  Following the observation of Mike Bellafiore, it's so, so, so important to experiment, experiment, experiment when learning trading and see what makes sense, what grabs your interest, and especially what you do well.  Too often, traders are so eager (and needy) to make money that they cut their learning processes short and never develop their strengths.

*  I like Crede Sheehy-Kelly's advice to practice each day being the person you want to become.  Per Ayn Rand, those who fight for tomorrow live in it today.

Have a great week!

.  

How to Change Your Psychology

 

We internalize what we do consistently.

If we consistently avoid effort, we will internalize lack of initiative.  If we consistently reach out to others with love, we will internalize warmth and caring.  Change begins with doing.  Simply shifting goals or mindsets will not produce lasting change.

Notice how athletes work out in structured routines.  Surgeons learn their craft by following evidence-based procedures and following these faithfully.  Performing artists master their craft through feedback and repetition.  When practice and performance are process-based, something important happens psychologically:  We internalize a sense of discipline and self-control.  Consistency of preparation and practice creates consistency of performance.

To change ourselves psychologically, we can start with just one improvement we wish to make and create a routine for implementing that shift every single day.  If I want to internalize a sense of physical fitness, I can go to the gym daily and challenge my limits in terms of flexibility, aerobics, and strength.  If I want to internalize discipline in my trading, I can use backtests and performance reviews to create rules for when to take trades, where to enter/exit, etc.  Following rules each day leads me to internalize a sense of control.  Pushing my limits each day reinforces a sense of growth and achievement.

Choose one goal and do one thing to achieve that goal daily for a month.  Then take on a second goal for a month, etc. and add that to the first.  Then a third goal, a fourth--and soon you internalize a sense of progress, achievement, and self-control.

We don't change by thinking new things.  We do new things and shift how we think and feel.  

What one thing will you do consistently this week to be your best version of yourself?

Further Reading:

How to Change Your Life

.

Trading Psychology Links: Developing Yourself by Developing Your Self

 

*  Every trade plan is an opportunity to work on our psychology, training us to act on opportunity and not react to fear; 

*  Lance Breitstein does a great job of explaining why success in trading requires investment in ourselves;

*  Such a valuable point from Adam Fiske:  What indicators/signals do you track regularly to tell you *not* to trade?

*  Jeff Holden from SMB Capital observes that we need to work on proper bet sizing--and understand the relative degrees of edge we have in trades--before we start betting big;

Have a great finish to the week!

*

How to Deal With the Fear of Not Being Right

 

It's one of the great paradoxes of psychology that when we run from something we fear, we are most likely to encounter it.  The important principle here is that we internalize what we do.  When we act on a particular premise, we reinforce that premise in our minds.  Thus, when we run from a feared outcome, we end up reinforcing that fear.

An experienced trader recently reached out to me regarding the fear of not being right when in a trade.  Psychologically, that means we're taking being wrong as a threat.  The threat of being wrong can become so strong in our minds that we take off the position before it has a chance to be right!

Every trade plan is an opportunity to work on our psychology.  When we set a stop loss for a position, we want to use that stop to intensively mentally rehearse what we want to be doing if the order is triggered.  Very often, we can get stopped out of a trade, but nothing happens to invalidate the idea behind the trade.  For example, I might get long a stock on an earnings beat in the premarket.  The stock stalls out and begins to retrace some of its initial gain.  I become so afraid of not being right that I take the position off--only to see the stock roar higher at the NYSE open when large volume hits the tape.  

If I have set a stop on the trade, however, I can--at that time-- mentally rehearse the conditions that would get me back into the position.  Just because a premarket flow took me out of an initial position doesn't mean that the fundamental strength of the company won't support a higher share price.  

So, so often the trade doesn't work out, but the idea--and the work we have put into generating the idea--is still valid.  We lose sight of the good work that goes into a trade when we focus on the fear of not being right.  What makes the trade not right is not the same as what makes the trade idea not right.  It's when we can embrace the possibility of any trade being wrong that we open ourselves up to re-entering positions and profiting from being right.

Further Reading:

How FOMO Can Actually Help Your Trading

.

Trading Psychology Links: Finding Our Optimal Performance Mindset

 

The right mindset won't substitute for a rigorously developed edge in the markets, but the wrong one can certainly undo all our training and experience.  Here are some valuable trading psychology perspectives that can help you make the most out of your experience:

*  It's not enough to control our emotions and stick to time-tested processes.  We have to actively develop a positive mindset if we're going to maximize our creativity, productivity, and performance.

*  Akil Stokes offers a diverse trading psychology podcast for developing traders.

*  Valuable trading psychology videos and tweets from Yvan Byeajee.

*  Here are two valuable books on trading psychology:  The Mental Game of Trading by Jared Tendler and Mastering the Mental Game of Trading by Steven Goldstein.

*  This is the focus needed for successful trading.  If we need to make money, markets control us.

Have  a great finish to the week! - Brett