How to improve psychology
Hello,
A small origin story on my part. I have always been into investing and I have been active in long term investments for some time. However, I decided to take a swing at day trading, and to start, I took a pretty big swing and missed. It was money I could afford to lose but I tried too much too soon (I lost this in natural gas which is unsurprising for a novice). Undeterred by this I quickly focused on the basics and worked up from there. I pivoted into Oil and found my home. I studied the commodity for months and made small profits (for context I target modest gains of +50$, occasionally higher if I can monitor the trend). Timeline wise from my start to present day, I am nearly two years into day trading. I am almost at breakeven from my losses at the start to where I am now, but when it comes to Oil trading I have been fortunate enough to grind it out with success.
Now onto my questions for the forum:
- I have always been modest in my take profit aims to ensure I get a win but I often leave more profit on the table and regret it. How do people improve their gains when on a good trend. What are you looking for to know this has more in it?
- How to set correct stops? An odd question maybe, but I feel like my stops are not that good when it comes to the charts. I often set what I tell myself is not much money to lose and then I get stopped but then the move I predicted and invested into happens. Then I get into my head thinking If I set a more realistic stop then I would have been fine.
- How to overcome overtrading/revenge trading. This is linked to the previous questions really, as often they lead me into this. I usually overtrade and then my original target happens and I breakeven, but prior to it I risked extra trades to achieve it instead of say this is my bigger stop and I aim for my target and see. The revenge trading happens when I chicken out on a trade and then what happens is what I thought.
I know some of the answers might be obvious but I am trying to improve on the mindset. I think I have the knowledge and experience to do well and to continue learning. What holds me back now is the psychology of it.
Any advice would be much appreciated and how anyone managed to make the next step to increase their gains.
Happy to go into more details if it helps and my current situation when it comes to attention given on trading.
First time poster, longtime reader.