Maintaining discipline,easily said than done.

Most people differ in terms of their ability to maintain self-control and discipline.Basically it increases following a specific trading strategy and not deviating from it.Sounds simple!

How are you handling the current volatilty?Are you agonizing the current sell-off?

DISCIPLINE v.s. EMOTION
Maintaining discipline is easy when that strategy is having a profitable run.But all strategies have times when they are profitable.This is a fact of trading the markets and accepted by profitable market traders as the price of doing business.

However,when a strategy is going through an unprofitable period,maintaing discipline is something else again.A trader seeing losses in his portfolios tries to find a reason why exiting the strategy is a good idea.Anything to take away the pain.

The problem is exiting a proven strategy is almost always going to cause much "more" pain.

Following the emotional crowd may take away the "pain" for a short while,but it is NOT the way to profit.

DISCIPLINE VERSUS PROFITS.

Keep in mind that you don't have to be disciplined all the time.You only need to be disciplined when you are executing a buy or sell signal.It sometimes helps to remember this fact.It eases some of the pressure to think that you only need to be "disciplined" when you execute a timing signal,rather than during all waking hours.

Don't minimize the importance of self-control and discipline.The more undiscipline you can trade,the more profits you will realize over time.

The urge to ignore a buy or sell signal,or even exit a trade because it is not currently profitable,can be very strong and often only those traders committed to following an unemotional timing strategy will stay the course.

But when the big profit-making trend begins,if you do not take the trade,you will be left by the wayside.Because it is impossible to know "ahead" of time when that major trend is going to start,you must take all the trades.

Remember,there is always a next trend.the only question is when it will start.

CONCLUSION

This year's huge rally started after a period of declining prices.The stock market was in a disarray.Many traders and market makers had given up.

When the rally started,no one knew it was the rally that would keep going higher all year.It was just another buy signal.But this time the trend just kept rising without looking back.

Now we have more volatility and some big declining days.If the majority of stock market investors and traders had the ability to stick with a good timing strategy,most would be rich.Because that is not the case,we know that many market makers as well as traders fall by the wayside.

Tracking the Dow on Tuesday closing.

The Bulls have finally scaled up Devil's Hill at Wyoming!

The hourly movement has too many DOJI's and very noticeable towards the last 2 hours of trading.Any doji's that were formed from a bullish trend represents a peak or shooting star and it's dangerous for the next day session.

Matching Friday & Tuesday candlestick together,Looks like a spinning top.Danger ahead!Noticed the long tail or shadow that has pierce through the Friday's candlestick body.The long tail is the area where the bears are waiting to drag it down to that level again.Caution!