"Sleep Deprivation" Follow-up

Hey Toni, Great post... food for thought. The thing is, I know these exercises can help results, I often plan on doing them, yet I hardly ever use these visualisation techniques. At the start of the trading day I usually am to eager to enter and tend to see things that are not there (in hindsight). Around 11 I tend to be more relaxed and the succes rate goes up.So most of my bad trades happen during the first 45 minutes of trading. Ideally I should do the relaxation exercises before starting trading, however since I do have a job too, it is usually hard for me to take the time to do that. You might ask why I am still trading the opening hour: its because it's also the time I enter some of my best trades and the end result of trading the opening hours adds to the bottom-line. This sleep deprivation might just be the thing for me; it might give me the detachment that is needed and gives me 3 hours extra a day. So, from now on I will try sleeping only 4 hours a day... lets see what happens :) July 10, 2007 12:34 AM - opw

Hey Oscar!

LOL! I am not sure how Petra will appreciate the new schedule!

I had the same problem for the longest time on trading near the open... Yes, some of my largest winners were at this time, but at the same time, I was CONSTANTLY making mistakes! It was almost like I was TOO eager to trade!

I seemed to be more focused and "in the zone" by the afternoon, although I had to be careful to not get too frustrated from missing the great morning setups... That didn't really change overnight and I really don't know quite what it was that did change that issue, but I think a huge part of it came from me really sticking to ONLY trading SPECIFIC types of trades at the open, whereas before I would take a lot of types of setups. Now I MUST have a strong daily in my favor to enter any daytrades in securities near the open. Whenever I stray from that rule I tend to end up paying greatly for my mistake...