TraderFeed Blog: Heart Rate Variability (HRV): Enhancing the Trader's Self Control

• From Brett Steenbarger's TraderFeed blog: Heart Rate Variability (HRV): Enhancing the Trader's Self Control

fear, resistance, growth: T.Y.P.S, biofeedback and intuitive trading

• one of the biggest obstacles to increasing my performance as a trader is the influence of fear in my decision making process...
• i have recently begun using Zen Trader System's T.Y.P.S. audio tapes to help me relax, and attempt to reprogram my subconscious inclinations...
• here are some observations i have had since i began using the tapes:
• periodic instances of clearer/sharper eyesight...i sometimes experience better vision when i do certain breathing exercises as well...i am not claiming that the T.Y.P.S. tapes are making my vision better, i am just making an observation...
• a spontaneous image of one of my trading account balance's being 10% higher than it currently is...this image, almost dream like, occurred during the 'Neuro Nap' tape: i was writing the new account balance in the notebook where i document all of trades (which i have been for 13+ years now)...
• more frequent instances of frustration at the difficulty of the entire trading endeavor, a feeling/recognition that i am working so hard to just keep up, that getting ahead and back to my account balance highs from of the summer of 2007 will never occur...
• its been interesting that as i am doing more work on the emotional side, i am also experiencing a bit of an emotional backlash against the potential for growth...while there is a conscious intention to grow, there is also something inside of me that is resistant to this change, to growth...
• mentally, i can be very harsh on myself...i need to work on being kinder to myself...
• overall i am not trying to force anything, i am just trying to relax and grow...i am very happy with the T.Y.P.S. audio series, and i plan on continuing to use it...
• dr. brett steenbarger considers biofeedback to be a best practice in trading (i highly recommend this post)...i am becoming more interested in using a computer based biofeedback system to help me increase my level of coherence (a measure of emotional regulation) and then to help me monitor my biorhythms during the trading day...dr. brett recommends the use of the 'freeze framer' program (now known as 'emWave PC Stress Relief System')...
• i am becoming more of a proponent of the idea that a goal of trading is not to eliminate emotions from the decision making process, but to use emotions as part of the decision making process...developing and refining the feel for a particular market, may lead to a deeper intuitive sense of the proper directional bias for a particular time frame and the proper position size in that particular market...this is what i am trying to do with my discretionary swing trading of the NQ, and i feel like i am on the right track with it...
• this intuition can not just be cognitively based, it must also have emotive inputs...if i understand the evolution and the architecture of the human brain correctly, then our smaller cognitive abilities sit atop a larger emotive mosaic...perhaps its not that our cognition will lead our emotions, but that our emotions will lead our cognition...i am not a trained psychiatrist or neurologist or medical doctor or anything like that...i am just trying to make sense of how my brain works and how this effects my trading...
• i am hoping that all of this emotive work combined with an ever increasing cognitive understanding of how markets tend to move, will help improve my intuitive trading such that trading becomes a more relaxed and fluid process, with an ever increasing sense of personal well being and trading account balances...
• if anyone has had any experience with the T.Y.P.S. audio series or with biofeedback, i would love to hear about it...

Two great blogs: Dr. Brett Steenbarger's 'Trader Feed' and Rob Hanna's 'Quantifiable Edges'.

I have been traveling through the blogosphere of late and have found numerous great sites, all of which have been added to the blog roll (to the right and the then scroll down a bit).

However two stand out to me:

• Dr. Brett Steenbarger's TraderFeed ...in addition to numerous technical and statistical studies that are posted, he just hits the ball out of the park when it comes to the psychology, trading and peak performance...this is a great example: Mental Fatigue and getting to the next level of performance
• Rob Hanna's Quantifiable Edges...on a daily basis, he performs original studies on market behavior...i have numerous ideas for potential systemic swing trading models based on the concepts and research that he has performed and documented...

8/20/2009 post open update

NQU09 discretionary swing trade/'BTD Index' systemic swing model:

• NQU09 traded down to 1591 after the 830 economic data releases, and if that is the low for the session, and with an expected range of 2.00-2.60% today, then the NQU09 projects up to 1623-1632 for today's session...
• 1632 has been the high of this month long base...
• sell limit 1612.50 has been filled...
• sell limit 1617.50 is still open...
• though the 'BTD Index' systemic swing trading plan calls for exiting at the close if the NDX closes about 1603.50, i am going to call an audible and sell that NQU09 lot at limit 1622.50...this is against that model's trading plan...
• added a buy limit 1603.50...if it fills, then i will sell it at limit 1622.50 and move the 'BTD Index' related lot from limit 1622.50 to 1627.50....
• NQ started to show some RS compared to the other major equity indices (YM, ES, EMD, TF)...

VCM daytrading account:

• shorted the LANC gap up into resistance and booked a quick + $0.70/share on the post gap up drop...
• HURN gapped up, i bought some on a pullback, it didn't show much strength after the pullback, so i exited with + $0.06/share...
• GENZ trading above its daily and hourly base, bought some on a pullback, exited on a return to the morning high for + $0.27/share...able to enter and exit a second position in GENZ for + $0.15/share...

Other:

• really impressed with Dr. Brett Steenbarger's TraderFeed blog...i am finding it to be a great resource for statistical analysis of market behavior as well as for insights into the psychological (EQ) part of trading...
• i am having a lot of fun trading today!

Disclosure: Long NQU09, Long GENZ.


***remember this is an illustration of what i am trading and my thinking...my trading plan may change without notice...this is not a recommendation for you or anyone else, to buy or sell this or any other security...***