These details are also what I persistently practice daily, and I hope they help you!
1. Watch the market after trading stops
Many of us retail traders are non-professional traders, lacking a complete trading system, and our psychological states are not very stable, making us easily influenced by market fluctuations.
When we stare at the market, our attention is fully focused on small fluctuations; even a slight pullback can make us feel very tense, leading to hasty actions—prematurely closing profitable positions we initially favored or impulsively opening positions in unstudied markets and getting stuck.
Looking back after trading stops, it feels as if I were possessed, trading terribly.
Therefore, I suggest that people with poor self-discipline reduce the frequency of watching the market, or even not watch it at all.
My own habit is to check the market after it closes, as it does not involve current market fluctuations, so it won’t affect my mood, allowing me to execute according to my trading plan rationally.
When stock prices fall to low levels, enter when the price tests support and forms a reversal candlestick, and add to the position after the price has formed a new reversal candlestick after falling. After entering, use the previous high as the target for taking profits.
2. Use pending orders more, and market orders less
The operation of placing pending orders is what I use the most in trading, primarily serving two purposes: one is to reduce impulsive trading, and the other is to achieve better transaction prices.
When you adopt pending orders for trading, after placing your orders, you do not need to constantly watch the market; you only need to occasionally check whether the orders have been executed. When placing pending orders, you can also set your stop-loss and take-profit levels, which saves a lot of mental energy.
Many people like to stare at the market while trading; they complain when they lose a bit, and when they gain a little, they start to get nervous and fear a pullback. Trading daily feels like going to war, leaving one sweating.
Under such a mental state, it is impossible to trade well. That’s why I often say to maintain a certain distance from the market; physically, this means reducing the time and frequency spent watching the market, allowing your mentality to remain stable, which is more conducive to making objective judgments.
Moreover, placing pending orders usually allows for entry after a market pullback, which provides a more advantageous entry price compared to trading at market price during practical operations.
Do not underestimate the price advantage of entering with pending orders; it provides a better opening price. Orders can be realized for profit more quickly, allowing traders to gain a psychological advantage sooner and expand their risk-reward ratio, which is very helpful for subsequent trade executions.
Although this is a very small detail, after years of practice, it has proven beneficial. Our success is built upon many small details stacking up.
3. When holding floating profits, use technical pullbacks to execute short-term trades
Most trends operate in a manner of oscillating upwards or downwards. During the oscillating pullback, held positions may profit less, which can create significant psychological pressure as we worry about whether the market will reverse and whether to continue holding positions. At this point, we can utilize technical pullbacks in the market to execute counter-trend short-term orders.
For example, when holding a profitable long position, close to the market's pressure point, combine with candlestick patterns to execute short positions. After entering the short position, if the market pulls back, the short position profits while the long position profits decrease, but the overall profit will not shrink much. After the market pulls back, near the turning point of the market’s second launch, close the short position and continue to hold the long position.
Doing this can first relieve psychological pressure during oscillating pullbacks and second, enhance profitability.
4. Be an independent trader
Trading is a very serious and personal matter.
The money in our accounts is earned through our hard work, not picked up from the ground. We must take responsibility for every penny.
Many people, when feeling uncertain about something, habitually seek help from others or discuss with them to gain a sense of validation to feel more confident in their decisions, but this is very taboo in trading.
Everyone has different judgments about direction, opening and closing positions, position sizes, and the indicators and timeframes they use, each with their own standards. Once discussions begin, your insecurities can be triggered, leading you to doubt your trading strategies, and ultimately causing anxiety during trading, resulting in losses.
There is a saying in 'The Crowd' that states when a person enters a group, their IQ severely declines. To gain acceptance, individuals are willing to abandon right and wrong, trading their intelligence for a sense of safety and belonging.
Therefore, when we trade, we should avoid falling into this mental trap. It’s best to find a relatively quiet environment where you can think independently, develop, test, and adjust your strategies independently, and finally execute independently.
As for the feeling of loneliness, it definitely exists, but in the face of making money, this slight loneliness is nothing; once you reach genuine profitability, you will understand.
The reason why people are troubled, why they are unpredictable, and why they experience love and hate is all because of their deluded minds making distinctions! It is due to the distinctions of the heart that good and evil, beauty and ugliness, right and wrong arise. The world knows that beauty is beauty, and thus ugliness is also.
Your attachment to love gives rise to greed; when greed is unfulfilled, it gives rise to anger, and the intertwining of love and hate generates ignorance. The cycle of greed, anger, and ignorance repeats due to the constant pull of karma, ultimately leading to countless good and evil results, all of which are fulfilled without exception, and your destiny becomes predetermined—all of this circulates within cause and effect. Heaven and earth are indifferent, treating all things as straw dogs, for the Dao has no distinctions.
Thus, the mastery of all things, the reason why the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind can perceive colors, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, and laws, is all due to the wonderful use of the heart. The heart perceives all things and responds to all things without ever being contaminated or directly taking from anything; thus, the heart is inherently complete and can manifest all laws.
The essence of cultivation is to understand the mind. How to understand it? When you have no distinctions, do not know the two ends, and do not cling to anything, the Bodhicitta naturally manifests.
Similarly, how to trade? When you have no trades in mind, you can naturally traverse bull and bear markets!