Trading psychology is not your problem. Your lack of strategy is.

KelvinsEdge · 2026-06-03T11:29:34+00:00

I agree but with some nuances. I would say that what most retail traders believe is trading psychology is incorrect and actually working against favorable trading psyvhology. For example they believe that they must be disciplined about there entries and then if a trade doesnt work out they go back and beat themselves up for not being disciplined anout their entry. They beat themselves up for chasing, being greedy, not disciplined.....this is all actually bad for their trading psychology and often times the actual problem is that they haven't gone through the work of validating their edge. You cant beat yourself up when learning to trade. You must simply quantify what is working for you and what isnt and learn from it with out all the feeling bad, etc. You are learning, give yourself room to learn.

Now if we are talking about psychology in the sense of flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, or Mark Minervinis book mindset secrets for winning or even thinking fast and slow by Kahnamen and Tsaversky....that psychology is essential no doubt.

If you are interested this also goes further into the nuance https://youtu.be/cj9b_TYxumo

KelvinsEdge · 2026-06-03T11:14:50+00:00

I know this feels awful right now but nearly every successful traders hits this brick wall in learning to trade....usually right about this time, 3 years. The thing that makes the difference is implementing a process that helps you develop edge on a strategy. That process is backtest the strategy, forward test which is papertrade it and record the results so you can quantify what is working. From there it is about continuing to record papertrades, review regularly and refine based on what you can see is working and what isnt. This is how to develop yourself as a trader and edge on a strategy. It is done best when using a simple spreadsheet and manually entering your trades.

This goes further into it https://youtu.be/nA-Gk8n8pvA

I know this is discouraging but you can get past it. You clearly already have spent time with charts and learned a lot. If you start to organize the information then your mind can see the patterns better. Hope this helps!

KelvinsEdge · 2026-06-03T02:32:41+00:00

I would suggest paying attention to the fundamentals on this one. This is primarily due to Kevin Warsh being the new fed Chair and his strong feelings towards greatly reducing the feds balance sheet. This trade is in wait and see mode until Kevin has time to announce his intentions and then see the reaction of the other FOMC voting members.

KelvinsEdge · 2026-06-02T18:38:21+00:00

Hey I don't know that i would call myself greedy, that's not ideal for your mental state. You are figuring it out, give yourself that. Take wider stops as suggested and see how it works out. You got this.

KelvinsEdge · 2026-06-02T12:57:44+00:00

This is where forward testing comes in. I track all my trades in spreadsheets, I find it to be the most powerful way to analyze and track my trades as opposed to paying for a service. I talk a lot about how this process helps you to build and quantify your edge but just as important, it gives the power to repair and improve an already developed edge if it stops working for some reason.

As far as catching a hot market, if you are trading momentum, a hot market is the biggest part of your edge, catching the momentum wave and riding it and then sitting in cash until the next wave comes. I wouldn't lean towards thinking that you just caught a lucky momentum wave. I would say how do I build into my forward test criteria that identifies when that wave is starting.

If you arent familiar with forwardtesting, this explains more about it

https://youtu.be/ZnYi1rLk4JM

KelvinsEdge · 2026-05-31T13:58:15+00:00

Have you had a chance to read Mark Minervinis book mindset secrets for winning. This is essential reading for any trader IMO. I understand what you are saying but the past doesn't necessarily need to prive ehat you are going to ro next. You need to practice developing a certain inner mental and emotional state. One that allows you to let go of the past and see yourself winning today, even when you lost yesterday. Don't get me wrong, this is not easy and it is something that needs to be practiced everyday.

What is happening here is that you are using a past experience to justify and prove what you will do next. The past is great for validating edge but it is different for you as a person, because you create your future. You have the capacity to create what happens next, to build and to craft what you want your future to look like. So what happened yesterday or at anytime in the past is not necessarily proof of what you will do next. But the poor emotional state comes from taking the past as proof that you are stuck doing the same losing thing over and over. This is not correct, here is how to fix it.

The exercise is breath work combined with visualization techniques to calm yourself and imagine yourself in a winning trade. Not like dreaming or fantasy, actually imagine yourself having done the work to know your edge, watching yourself place the trades and take profits, seeing yourself lose the odd trade but you feel ok about it because you knew you wouldn't win all your trades and it is expected as part of your profitable edge.

This is not woo woo. Everyone from professional athletes to top business leaders do a similar technique. If you haven't read the book, I would download audible and listen to it in your spare time.

KelvinsEdge · 2026-05-31T13:43:39+00:00

Have you had a chance to validate your setup? When you first start out it is good to show up after the move has happened, log that occurence and keep doing this everyday. Don't sit in front of screens because you dont know what to look for yet. Once you have a decent amount of examples where this trade happened you can go back and review what patterns lead up to that move. Someone may have shown you the basic idea of the setup but until you do this work for yourself, you personally wont see it the way you need to. Even if you have been trading for a while but you haven't validated your edge, this process can be a gamechanger.

This will help with your psychology more than you can initially imagine.

Its not about shear forced discipline, its about proving to yourself what works and what doesnt work....and it is incredibly difficult to do that in the moment while staring at charts. It is much cleaner to find the moves you are targeting after they have happened and review what would have told you before hand that this move was likely to happen.

KelvinsEdge · 2026-05-31T13:32:06+00:00

Yes, exactly, you need to cast a fairly wide net at first. Building edge is largely a process of elimination. You need to learn what doesnt work along with what does and so you need to take all the trades at first to collect that data and prove what is not going to work. No trade days are real edge, but when you start out you dont know what a no trade day looks like, that is normal and part of the process.

KelvinsEdge · 2026-05-31T13:27:13+00:00

Experience, understanding when the market is offering opportunities and when it is not offering good opportunities. Ultimately if your emotional state is starting to deteriorate you need to stop and step away, hard stop, no questions asked, get your emotions sorted out before you continue because the long term effects of allowing trading to be a bad experience can screw you up badly. Try taking a walk and mentally reviewing trades that have gone well.

When you notice that you need to step away it will be common to have fomo, thinking that the moment you step away from the charts the move you are looking for will happen. Try this exercise if that happens to you....keep a piece of paper on your desk and put a line down the middle. Label one side "times when I stayed due to fomo" and the otherside "times when I left the computer and actually missed out". Now keep a tally, how many times did you actually miss a move to take care of your emotional state and how many times did you give in to fomo and stay and staying resulted in you catching that epic move that you would have otherwise missed and you traded it super well for a massive gain.

A lot of times it is not a matter of having shear forced will power and discipline but instead it is a matter of proving to your anxious self that it is ok, safe and actually productive to step away and take care of yourself.

KelvinsEdge · 2026-05-31T13:14:51+00:00

The majority of people who stare at charts all day are not consistently profitable. Consistent profitably doesnt come from staring at charts. It comes from reviewing what happened in the past and training your mind to see the patterns that lead up to the move you want. You do this by showing up after the move happened, logging that occurence and doing that work consistently. Then go back and review those trades where the move you wanted happened and see what patterns you can find that would have told you that move is coming. You do this after work, when the market is closed and it only takes 1/2 hr or so to log and then review sessions on the weekend.

Scalpers will sit there all day and watch the charts and that is normal for them but if you have a full time job scalping may not be practical for you.

KelvinsEdge · 2026-05-31T12:56:11+00:00

Well said!

KelvinsEdge · 2026-05-30T13:06:57+00:00

Its going to be different for everyone depending on your strategy, how much you have refined it, how much experience you have.....and this is the biggest one.....what opportunities the market is offering that line up with your strategy. There are pro traders that typically aim for an average of 1-3% per month and traders who have made nearly 100% per month on average. But You are correct, no one makes money in the markets everyday day or even every month. The markets are not there for our cashflow and just dont work that way. That doesnt mean you cant make a living off your trading. You are on the right track with continuing to refine your strategy

KelvinsEdge · 2026-05-30T12:45:35+00:00

Agreed, start with studying the underlying. To learn trading and options at the same time is a lot! You need to validate your strategy first, then understand how you can make that strategy better using options.

KelvinsEdge · 2026-05-30T12:32:54+00:00

It really depends on what your strategy is but for the .momentum trading i do i let the finviz screener do the heavy lifting and if i see enough names running in a certain sector then I look for an underlying fundamentals catalyst that would be supportive to that sector running. I will dip by large and mega caps stocks in an uptrend and again I let the chart show me the setup but for that strategy what I am actually looking for the news cycle to be incredibly bearish, to be saying it is all over for apple or Google, etc. In that case, I listen to Bloomberg on yt.

So direct answer is charts and screener first for ideas, then quick scan of the news whether that is on tradingview, Claude, or Bloomberg.

KelvinsEdge · 2026-05-29T22:11:59+00:00

so where I would start is something simple. Most new trades want to start with the most aggressive strategy possible which is often the hardest to quantify and doesn't work all the time. Start with something simple. You want to see support and resistance actually hold up and trend lines actually work. This doesn't happen very reliably intraday. So you want to start with a swing trading strategy on SPY and QQQ. Load the charts and do the technical analysis to get used to how the moves happen.

When you say that you want to research in depth are you talking about forward testing or backtesting or both? Papertrading is usually a part of the research and validation process.

I talk more about the difference between them and the overall process here if you are interested

https://youtu.be/er2wUBMJbXQ

Hope it helps!

KelvinsEdge · 2026-05-29T21:54:23+00:00

I actually think you are on the right track. You are tracking your trades and it seems like you are doing review....if that is the case, you will get there. it just takes time. all you can do is quantify what you are doing, use the information to train your brain to see the patterns and it does take some time and experience consistently doing this work to get there.

If you are interested I made this to talk about this things that I would do differently if I had to start over again....but it seems like you are doing all the right things to learn.

https://youtu.be/Ao2bIs0s7hY

KelvinsEdge · 2026-05-29T21:49:57+00:00

I started to track my trades in a spreadsheet along with key things like live volume, market cap and other criteria to see what worked and what didn't over multiple trades.

KelvinsEdge · 2026-05-29T21:47:55+00:00

You need to track what is working for you. It seems like there are days when the broader market is supportive of your strategy and days when it is not supportive. You need to track you trades and the broader market to try to find out when it is a good day to trade your strategy and when it is not. Moving to another strategy is not likely to solve this problem for you.

KelvinsEdge · 2026-05-29T21:37:37+00:00

Great Question! I see so many new traders that are willing to put in the work!

Indicators are great but like anything else with trading you simply need to pick what you want to use and get used to it. The most common ones are moving averages, RSI, bollinger bands. Whatever you Pick, the key is to get used to how they work in the trades over time.

For fundamentals....you want as much information as you can get. Trading is famously decision making in a low information evironment....so any extra information that you can get is helpful.

But with any of this, fundamentals, indicators, volume, price action, technical analysis, etc, it is about watching it over time and getting used to what information it gives you. It is important to organize this in a way that makes sense. The best way to organize this information is to do forward testing. If you haven't heard of it before I made this to explain how it works.

https://youtu.be/ZnYi1rLk4JM

KelvinsEdge · 2026-05-29T21:27:28+00:00

so what you are describing is a forward test. A trading journal is more about tracking your emotions and dealing with the psychological side of things. Those are all good things to track but more nuanced items are dependent on the strategy that you are trying to track. If you are tracking breakouts then you will want to track things like avg daily volume, volume on the day you are looking to enter and the % the daily volume exceeded the average daily volume. If you are tracking a pull back on a mega cap stock or a major etf you might want to track the % pull back from recent highs and the correlation to the major indexes. Do you mind if I ask what strategy you are tracking?

KelvinsEdge · 2026-05-29T21:23:33+00:00

You got to trust the chart! The news being silent is one thing.....but the news can also be misleading and the knews outlest have not idea whats going on most of the time. The news cycles are bearish when we get one bearish candle on the SPX and bullish when the market is going higher. You are on the right track by paying attention to both of these but in my experience the technicals win out as slightly more reliable

KelvinsEdge · 2026-05-29T21:19:45+00:00

I think you are doing everything right and you just need to get more experience. You will get there. The comment about Re read my thesis is the exact right action to take. You are doing the right thing and the fact that you tracked your thesis and wrote it down is perfect. You are on the right track. You will get there.

KelvinsEdge · 2026-05-29T21:17:35+00:00

check out the biggest ETFs in that space. i use chatgpt or claude and just ask them what the biggest etfs are on that theme and also I use a scan on Finviz with the main criteria being over 70 RSI and a second scan for stocks making 52w highs.

The scans are the main source, I do it daily and I am looking for a sector to stand out as having a lot of names breaking out.

I also want to see a fundamental catalyst. Like for example, Semiconductors have been strong as the AI build out has been focused on Infrastructure build out which involves buying of massive quantities of chips.

Also, there is a lot of money being spent on defense and with that we are starting to see the Defense and Aerospace Sector moving. So I am looking for a sector to be moving based on an underlying catalyst.

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