Day Trader 101: Identifying Emotional Triggers

Emotion is a huge part in being a day trader. Even if you consider yourself someone who is not very emotional, I assure you, day trading will bring out your emotions! Emotions showing up do not make you a bad day trader. This is a common misconception within the 101 topics of “how to be a day trader”. There is a narrative that exists which suggests being emotional is a bad thing. To be fair, maybe I’m knit picking,  but feeling emotional is not the problem. Acting on the emotions is where the line is crossed and becomes a huge problem. The best way to avoid acting on your emotions is to develop the skill of recognizing when the emotions have shown up. Better yet, if you can figure out those triggers that will send emotions into motion, you’ll put yourself in an even better position. A skill I would argue is one of the most important you need to learn as a day trader is the ability to identify emotional triggers. When you can be pro-active against acting on your emotions, you will be able to shield yourself against doing those “dumb things” we all will do as traders. There is no Holy Grail day trading strategy which guarantees results; however, there are moves you can develop to assist with your odds of success. Emotional trigger identification is something you should constantly be on the look out for and analyzing. The better you get to know your own human mind, the better chances you have of developing and staying a consistently profitable trader.