Everyone "stalks" the market waiting for their particular "set-up" (man am I sick of that word!) or their confluence of circumstances that indicates the other players are about to.... start selling, start buying, do nothing ... whatever.

But when the market makes a relatively (and that word is key) big move, many many traders feel like "OH S*&T" I missed it. Usually the knee-jerk reaction is to fade that move or the "Oh I will just get a little bit of the retrace" or "Surely it will revert to the mean". In other words, the context of frustration over missing the first move compels a trade driven by the frustration over missing out.

How intensely you feel this - or the next feeling - which is usually "I will show them I am smarter and I saw the turn first" has just about NOTHING to do with the here and now. In fact, if you find yourself fighting trends you can be assured that whether you know it or not, there exists a context of feelings around being smart or being powerful - and it again /IS NOT/ created in the present.

It is a fractal representation of your essential emotional templates. Call it echoes, emotional architectures or fractal psychology but your reactions absolutely re-create the mix of feelings you had growing up.

How do I know this - because I haven't met a trader yet that when I got to know a little bit about them I couldn't see exactly what they were repeating or recreating. And I have only met one or two who couldn't see it - at least intellectually - when we talked about it. In fact off the top of my head, I can really think of two.

In any event, don't fight trends to prove you are smarter than your dad and if you really want to get to the next level in your trading, figure out the elements that occur to recreate how you felt towards your parents, other authority figures and ABOUT YOURSELF (!) when you were less than 20 and maybe even less than 2. You might not have had language then but you did have feelings ... and your brain wires by firing (as the neuroscientists say) ... so that is the path of least resistance in adulthood.

(and yes I know some of you can't believe the market and your trading induces you to feel like you felt a long time ago...)

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