FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

What kind of results are you getting in your trading? Are you violating your rules because you have been unable to keep your commitments, which have lead to disastrous draw downs and massive losses? Well, one of the things that is important in changing this scenario is to recalibrate what you are aiming for by targeting your thoughts to outcome thinking and results orientations. Results orientation is about envisioning what you really want as if you stepped into the future and got it. This is

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

Documenting the data of your trading is essential to success. Also, it's of vital importance to track not only the "mechanical" data; i.e., the data of the actual trading execution (entry, targets, stops and exits); but you must track the "internal" data as well; i.e., what you are thinking, emotionally feeling, and the unconscious beliefs that are driving the T + E + B = R equation. In this equation that is involved in "all" of our outcomes, T = thought, E = emotions, B = behavior and R =

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

When we think, feel, say, and do in a way that is congruent - meaning that we have internal and external consistency, perceived by others as sincerity or authenticity - then we are in alignment. It can also be termed an 'intra-rapport,' moving in tandem with self, in sync and balanced, also centered and grounded. We can also be described as having integrity and 'walking our talk.' Alignment cannot be overstated in its importance to trading or anything that involves performance, for like a

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

The Strongest Mental Models Are Created in Early Childhood Childhood emotional traumas, wounds, and scars create the crux of your mental models of the world. How you see the world is influenced by the way you bonded with your parents/family in the first 3 to 5 years of life. A secure bond or attachment means that you experienced a nurturing upbringing, complete with plenty of affection and limits, as well as room to explore. A secure attachment is one of two main constructs that form the

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

Peak performance trading bridges the gap between wishful thinking and getting the trading results you want. The most powerful tool you have is right between your ears, as long as you learn the combination to unlock your inner self and unleash this strength. And, of course, to unlock your inner strength you must be in the moment, for the moment, fully available and in the "now" of the trade. This means that you are aligned physically, mentally and emotionally; in other words, your system is

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

One of the great myths today is that very successful traders somehow have never made or don't make mistakes, or that they win because they have enormous amounts of luck. Sound familiar? The fact is, everybody makes mistakes, and some of the super achievers and market wizards at points in their lives seemed to make it a "past-time." No matter what heights great achievers rise to, they all have made many, and sometimes devastating mistakes along the way. Mohammad Ali, possibly the greatest boxer

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

In college, I was on the track team, and I distinctly remember a very powerful experience during a conference track meet. It was the end of a long day, the last call for the mile relay, with a slight chill in the spring air and overcast skies. In the stands, a radio played a very loud rendition of "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now." We were neck and neck for winning the conference meet with a rival. You can imagine how motivated we were to bring our "A" game for the win. The mile relay was the final

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

Modeling is an extremely proficient strategy for pursuing success in any performance-oriented endeavor, and especially in the wild and wooly world of trading in the markets. As the saying goes, "If someone can do it, anyone can learn it." Modeling is a state of curiosity and selflessness. It is a desire to listen to, watch, respect, and learn from others, as well as yourself. Modeling is an interest in process over content. Process or the "how" something is done is arguably more important than

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

Did you know that you don't have to be mentally ill to have different personalities reside in your body? Actually, it is quite normal to have various "parts" of ourselves emerge at different times depending on what is going on at the moment. In fact, these parts of the self speak different languages and see different things, as well, which is why you may have slapped your forehead wondering how you made what can only be termed a boneheaded trade after seeing the chart's reality in the wake of

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

Does this sound familiar? Jack has a high profile leadership position. His job demands that he create a year-end report. Jack is well aware of how much effort and time it takes to competently deliver this report and every year Jack will wait until the last minute, incurring unnecessary stress and mental anguish, not to mention lost sleep to get it in on time. However, due to the sensitive nature of this report on more than one occasion Jack has missed important data and except for some

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

Like most emotions, doubt is normal. It is when doubt takes over our minds and unduly influences behavior that you must be careful, for it is foreshadowing a much more dangerous core issue. Larry Wilson, in his book "Play to Win," asks whether your orientation to life is a play to win strategy or playing not to lose. Allow me to briefly explain. A playing not to lose strategy is based on the need to remain in your comfort zone and constantly look for temporary emotional relief by giving in to

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

What are the results that you've been getting in your trading and in your life? If they are less than what you want, then changes are in order – from the inside out. Changes in thinking in turn create new habits and control errant emotions. You see results follow a sequential model. In fact, let's call it The Cause and Effect Model (taken from Larry Wilson's book, "Play to Win") and it begins with an event. An event is anything that gets your attention. For instance, for those who live on the

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

Humans live by the stories that they have constructed from early in life, much like a script to a play and that play is your life and the scripts to that play are your stories. These stories or scripts can also be termed rules that form the foundation of our behavior. In fact, over time as humans grow, they develop a set of typical responses to reoccurring events. These typical responses or patterns of behavior could be termed a list of rules that we live by. For example, when someone speaks,

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

This article is taken from the Trader's Journal magazine (November 2009 issue) The author, Dr. Janice Dorn , is believed to be the only Ph.D. (Brain Anatomist), M.D. (Board-Certified Psychiatrist and Addiction Psychiatrist) and graduate of Coach University in the world who actively trades, writes commentary on the financial markets and manages a subscription-based website. Dr. Dorn has been trading the gold futures markets full time since 1993. She has written over 1500 articles on trader and

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

This article is taken from the Trader's Journal magazine (October 2009 issue) The author, Sam Seiden , brings over 15 years experience of equities, Forex, options and futures trading that began when he was on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange where he facilitated institutional order flow. He has traded equities, futures, interest rate markets, Forex, options, and commodities for his personal interests for years and has educated hundreds of traders through seminars and daily advisory

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

Have you ever found yourself in a trade that later you wondered, "Who was controlling my mouse?" This happens because there are other "parts" of us that can emerge and they lurk in either side of our brains. As you probably know, we have two brain hemispheres that make up what can be termed "the dual brain." The dual brain has two distinct brain systems in which one analyzes piece-by-piece, detailing changes, and the other makes an overall update and applies it until the next change. This dual

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

It is well established that your brain has loads to do with your trading. But there are some facts that may help you to support your trading better by understanding the super computer between your ears. The brain has two sides called the right and left hemisphere. They are at first glance identical, but upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that they are not two halves of one brain but two brains in one skull. This is an important distinction to understand and it has vast implications

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

Routines are powerful habit formers and if you identify a routine for the beginning of your trading session, you will create a support mechanism for optimal ability to perceive the reality of the market order flow. Of course, some of you might say, "I’m not willing to do all that. I’m ready to trade." Well, my question to you would be, how important is your trading to you? Is it only for excitement and entertainment? If so, then why not just go to the casino because in all likelihood you are

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

This article is taken from the Trader's Journal magazine (September 2009 issue) The author, Don Dawson , has been trading the futures markets for 20 years. His perseverance through the ups and downs of trading, openness to experience of others, balanced tolerance for risk and patience to wait for his setups are a few of his strengths as a trader. Don obtained his Series 3 license in 1990. Soon afterward, he registered as a Commodity Trading Advisor with the National Futures Association and

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

Today everyone is trying to earn as much money as they can and most of them do forget all the other things that matter in life. Even though some of them succeed by becoming millionaires, greed acts an important role on their life. How do we cope with greed, our emotions depend on our personal characteristics. Nowadays the popular way to try to grab a big piece immediately is at Forex Market where all the emotions are gathered from all the world. Forex involves greed, emotions, fair and more

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

This article is taken from the Forex Journal (August 2009 issue). The author, Jeffrey Kennedy , is the Chief Commodity Analyst at Elliott Wave International (EWI). With more than 15 years of experience as a technical analyst, he writes and edits Futures Junctures, EWI’s premier commodity forecasting package. If you have been trading for some time, you have no doubt felt like an invisible ‘hand’ sometimes reaches into your trading account and takes out money. Jeffrey Kennedy looks at the five

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

This article is taken from the Forex Journal (July 2009 issue). The author, Boris Schlossberg , began his Wall Street trading career more than 20 years ago at Drexel Burhnam Lambert. There, he traded nearly every type of financial product on the market in the United States from equities and options to stock index futures and foreign exchange. His innate ability to analyze market information and use it to trade has helped him become an industry-recognized, “go to� trading professional. These

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

This article is taken from the Trader's Journal magazine (July 2009 issue) The author, Don Dawson , is an Online Trading Academy instructor. Do you ever ask yourself why other traders seem so successful while you continue to struggle? Don Dawson shares ways to become a better trader by looking at the business of trading as more than just reading the charts.

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

What is the purpose of the foreign exchange market, or any trading market for that matter? It seems like a simple question with a simple answer. The purpose is to facilitate exchange, to permit participants to sell and buy commodities, equities or futures and to trade one currency for another. But that simple definition disguises a world of complexity. If two parties wish to conduct an exchange, of one currency for another or of an equity or bond for a sum of cash the first question is at what

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

Today I am starting an occasional series on one of the most fascinating and essential topics in currency trading; the interaction between the psychology of the market and the decisions of the individual trader. I hope these observations are useful; reader comments are welcome. Technical analysis is sometimes studied as if it contains a grain of secret knowledge or portrays an intrinsic truth about currency movements. Often it is said that a specific chart formation will produce a specific

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

This article is taken from the Forex Journal (May 2009 issue) The author, Johan Kriek, started his trading career when he was just nineteen years old. After finishing school, Johan studied Computer Engineering and started to work for Forex Trader South Africa as an IT specialist. Within one year, Johan advanced from IT Specialist to lecturing and conducting seminars Gradually, Johan became an FX Specialist and conducted various courses in South Africa for Forex Worldwide Training and Support.

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

All of us at one time or another have come to a fork in the road. It may be a real fork in the road during a trip. It may be a family decision issue. It may be a major situation within your business. It may happen while you trade. How do you approach it? What do you do? Many times, society places so many concerns and warnings in front of us that we just look at both options and then plan and talk and analyze, but no action is ever taken. A commitment to action will always provide a stronger

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

Click the image to read the Ebook Is it Man vs. Market? Or something else entirely? IT’S YOU AGAINST THE MARKET. That’s what they’ll tell you. You’ll read about it on the message boards, at the Expos, and you can’t get away from the sense that there is a mysterious entity which means to seriously harm you, to get you, that wants your entire account and wants to leave you in ruins. It’s the market. It’s tens of thousands of traders, all against you. All wanting you to lose. All because it’s a

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

Every trader will experience storms during their trading career. You might have days or even weeks without any storms, but they will come. Violent movements, large losses, markets that react opposite than your strategy tells you will happen and so much more. We cannot keep these situations from happening; however we can make a decision to either wait for the storms to pass or step out and dance in the rain. If we are planning on waiting until there are no storms, no struggles, no

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

Each of us has a comfort zone. That area where everything seems to work like we desire, stress is almost non-existent and we can basically move forward with our eyes closed and not worry. This might sound like the best way to trade, however, if we never strive to grow, to adjust, to refine to get better, we will actually fade away and regress instead of remaining comfortable. It is a challenge to try new things because once we step outside of the area where we know 100% what we are doing, we

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

Trading has always been and always will be an exciting, yet challenging skill. The best traders around the world, at one time could never make a profitable trade, however they did the one thing that separated them from those who never got better. They asked for help. Asking for some help takes courage, but the rewards are powerful. Almost any question that can be asked has an answer. Each of us must make the decision to step out of our comfort zone and ask someone for help. Once we do that, a

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

Change is all around us and most individuals are OK with that as long as it does not impact them. Bottom line is that we can not escape change, and those who want to be better at what they do learn how to handle change. Traders will deal with change every day. We cannot control changes in the market, the economy or other areas that impact the value of our trade, but we can learn to adapt to the change to make it work for us instead of against us. We can also make our own changes to what we are

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

A week ago, I wrote a letter to a friend about his trading. I told him it was time to get his s*** together. Dear Horatio: You wrote to me and said: My gains for the month are gone. I need a deeper understanding of the Forex Market.  Much  deeper. Negative. You do not need a deeper understanding of the forex market. You need a deeper understanding of yourself. And then you need to start doing what you promised me that you would do: you need to close down your accounts with a lot of

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

This article is taken from the Forex Journal (December 2008 issue) The author, Jim Martens, is the senior currency analyst at Elliott Wave International (EWI). He worked as an analyst with floor brokers before joining EWI in 1993, where he covered commodities and oversaw currency analysis. After a stint with Nexus Capital Ltd., a Soros-affiliated hedge fund, he is back with EWI, covering dollar rates and major cross rates in EWI’s International Currency Outlook. Currency trader Jim Martens

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

Tis the season of the year for family and friends and believing. No matter your family background, heritage or culture this seems to be the time of year where people make decisions about what they believe. Whether it is St. Nick, family relationships, a potential promotion, a foundation of personal faith any of the long list of topics, the end of the year brings about these thoughts. As a trader, if we do not believe in our trading strategy, our processes and who we are as a person, then we

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

Every day we each experience situations that we were not expecting. Some times we handle them pretty well and other times we just crumble. When we have an interruption on the TV or radio that says "This is the emergency broadcasting system, please stand by." most of us have a small pit in our stomach begin to form because we do not know what to expect. Is it a major disaster, a warning or maybe just a test? If we are not prepared, this can cause us to make some serious decisions that might not

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

This article is taken from the Trader's Journal magazine (November 2008 issue) The author, the trader’s coach Adrienne Toghraie , is an internationally recognized authority in the field of human development for the financial community. Her eight books on the psychology of trading, including The Winning Edge – Volumes 1-4 and Trader’s Secrets, co-authored with Murray Ruggiero, have been highly praised by financial magazines. Good decision-making is a skill that requires practice, preparation

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

By building an internal library of information that we can draw on at different times, we will discover that when a difficult situation arises, we will be the one that pauses and re-analyzes instead of the one that zooms forward and then wishes they had been more cautious. Listen to the author's thoughts Change Can Only Be Good When You Decide To Actually Do It No one can make you happy, sad, angry, successful or prosperous. The only one that can do this is you. When the opportunity to change

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

When the market becomes volatile or a series of trades produce loses, it is easy for us to become fearful. We then start to verbalize excuses as to why we even executed those trades or why we use the trading strategy that we use or any of a long list of items. Listen to the author's thoughts We Need To Do What We Have Never Done Before By seeing the areas that we have strengths and keeping them on a path of growth along with honestly working on those areas that need strengthening, each of us

FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology
FXstreet.com: Education: Market Psychology. Useful resoruces to acquire the psychological skills needed to trade successfully in the currencies market.

Everything is difficult before it becomes easy. With the current volatility of the financial markets, it is extremely important that each of us resolve to be patient in our decisions and not make snap judgments. These can create future disaster. The most successful individuals around the world have a foundation of processes that they utilize consistently, no matter whether the markets are trending with clear direction or being extremely volatile. Each of us needs to be patient and allow the