The Mental Game of Trading

Having an edge is the most important aspect of trading.  After that comes the mental game.  The mental game is an underrated aspect of trading.  This assumes that the trader has a long term edge.  If you don't have an edge, the mental game only prolongs the downward drift.  Important aspects of the mental game:  Discipline, Patience, Aggression, Risk Tolerance, Hope.  

Discipline

 “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly." - Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

The most important piece of the mental game.  In order to maximize lifetime gains, getting to the long run is the most important part.  The law of compounding is often mentioned in investing but usually ignored in trading.  Trading is just investing in shorter term time frames repeated over and over.  Long term investors usually avoid leverage, which allows them to survive and get to the long run.  Traders often use leverage which introduces blow up risk and prevents many from getting into the long run.  

Having discipline to not bet too big.  To not have FOMO and chase.  To not try to catch up and recover quickly (part of : to not bet too big).  Sizing positions correctly to avoid blowing up.  Just as in life, survival is the foundation.  

Patience

"You can beat a horse race, but you can't beat the races." - Jesse Livermore, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator

Traders are always watching the market.  That's like a gambler always watching the action in a casino.  It's tempting to put on trades.  Maintaining the same standards/requirements for entering trades is part of being patient.  A key aspect of patience is also recognizing when a market is good for your strategy and market bias.  A bearish biased trader needs to be pickier and more patient during a bull market and a strong uptrend.  A bullish biased traders needs to be pickier and more patient during a bear market.  For mean reversion traders, being more patient in markets with strong trends, for trend traders being more patient in range bound markets.  

Aggression

"It takes courage to be a pig." - George Soros / Stanley Druckenmiller

There will certain times when your strategy or style of trading will be well suited for the market environment.  You will notice this when you have many consecutive winners or a few big wins.  Its during these times that aggression improves performance.  Being more aggressive in entering trades.  Giving trades more time to reach their destination.  Having more aggressive price targets.  These are the times to follow the cliche: let winners run.  

Risk Tolerance

J. P. Morgan once had a friend who was so worried about his stock holdings that he could not sleep at night. The friend asked, “What should I do about my stocks?” Morgan replied, “Sell down to the sleeping point.” - J.P. Morgan

Know your limitations.  Not everyone has the same risk tolerance.  Some traders will get depressed over a 10% drawdown, other traders will act like its almost nothing.  The simplest way to know your risk tolerance is sleep.  If the positions you take bothers your sleep, you have to size down.  Taking too much risk brings fear.  You can only function rationally and follow your plan when you aren't scared.  Scared money don't make money.  

Hope

"Losers average losers" - Paul Tudor Jones

Hope is what keeps us going.  What is a good thing in life, is not necessarily a good thing in trading.  Most people think of hope when things are going poorly.  When you are in a losing trade, hoping it gets back to even.  Or even worse, adding to the loser.  I add to losers and usually regret it.  Sometimes it works, which we remember, but usually it just makes the loss worse.  The time to hope is when your trading is "hot", not when its "cold".  But that's not natural, most people are wired to hope when things are bad, not when things are good.  

Nothing noteable in the SPX COT data as of last Tuesday.  Same goes for the put/call ratio and activity.  Did notice that commercial traders are accumulating a VIX net long position, which tends to happen near tops.  But SPX COT data is more important.  

Staying on the sidelines as SPX has recovered most of its losses from July 31-August 1.  It looks like it wants to grind higher before topping out.  Still keeping the view that this rally off the April bottom will take approximately 5 months to finish, so that would mean a top around early September.  Staying short some single stocks but mostly in cash.  A lot of potential energy being built up for a big down move, but some of that energy was released July 31-Aug 1.  This bull market is riding purely on technicals and momentum.  Most will agree that the fundamentals are not supporting such a big rally.  That's bubble psychology at work and it is fragile.  When the momentum dies out, it will get very volatile.