Fix Trade Hesitation (For Good)

So, every now and then there’s a wave of similar questions hitting my inbox. Maybe it’s the market conditions, or coming back from a summer break, I dunno… But the theme of the moment seems to be this:

“How can I stop hesitating when I see a valid trade setup?”

This wasn’t something I’ve ever struggled with much, if anything I was the opposite, overtrading…

But, I see this in many traders and I have a few tactical ways to combat this.

#1 The first mental roadblock is accepting that all trades can lose. 

You will never be able to get a perfect trade.

We have this misconception that if we get everything lined up we can guarantee a winning trade. C’mon! It’s not going to happen. We can stack layers of edge and play the odds, but that’s all. So the sooner we dismiss any thoughts of creating a ‘perfect trade’ the better.

Accept the risk of the deal.

#2 Have a plan

“Yawn – Mark you are always going on about this.”

Yep! Sorry, not sorry. (as the kids say)

Even if it’s a basic idea of what level you will consider a trade combined with trigger criteria and risk rules. That will do for now. One of the reasons traders hesitate is they don’t really know what they want to see to pull the trigger. Things are ‘sort of’ lining up.

But there’s no certainty.

And by the time they go to pull the trigger price has moved. Fix it by coming up with filter and trigger rules. Then, all you are doing is waiting for a binary event to occur.

For example:

“I will buy if we touch that key level and then break the 1-minute candle high”

Simple, but zero room for ambiguity…

I explain more and give you some tactical ways to deploy this strategy in my latest podcast episode. 

Take a listen here if you like.