前言

《自律的交易者》是一個綜合性的指引，瞭解要成為一個成功的股票或期貨的交易員所需的自律和個人轉變的心理學。本書將作為一個按部就班的指引，引導交易員成功地適應交易世界的非比尋常的心理特質。

我要說「適應」，是因為大多數人在涉足交易的冒險時，並沒有體認到，交易環境與他們長大的文化環境是大不相同的。沒有體認到這個差異性，他們將會無法瞭解，他們已有的許多信念在社會中可以運作良好，到了交易環境中卻會變成障礙，使得他們要成為成功的交易員將會非常困難。要達到他們所期望的成功交易員的水準，至少，就算不是很多，要改變他們看待市場行為的某些方式。

不同於其他的社會環境，交易舞台上有許多特別之處，交易員想要在其中成功地操作，必需要有很高程度的自我控制和自我信任。然而，我們很多人缺乏這種自我控制，因為我們於孩童時期所學習的是在結構的環境中的運作 (function)，在其中我們的行為是由比我們更強大的人所控制，其目的是為了讓我們的行為能夠符合社會的期望。

Thus, we were forced by external forces to behave in certain ways through a system of rewards and punishments. As a reward, we would be given the freedom to express ourselves in some desired manner. As a punishment, we would either be prevented from getting what we wanted, causing emotional pain, or we were inflicted with various forms of corporal punishment, causing physical pain. As a result, the only form of behavior control that we typically learned for ourselves was based on the threat of pain - either emotional or physical - from someone or something we perceived as having more power than ourselves. And since we were forced to relinquish our personal power to other people, we naturally developed many of our traditional resources for success (the particular ways in which we learned to get what we want) from the same mental framework. Accordingly, we learned that acquiring power to manipulate and force changes upon things outside of us was the only way to get what we wanted.

One thing you will learn as a trader is that the mental resources you use

to get what you want in your everyday life will not work in the trading

environment. The power and control that are necessary to manipulate the

markets (make them do what you want them to do) are beyond all but a

handful of individuals. And the external constraints that exist in society to

control your behavior don't exist in the market environment. The markets

have absolutely no power or control over you, no expectation of your

behavior, and no regard for your welfare.

If, in fact, you can't control or manipulate the markets and the markets

have absolutely no power or control over you, then the responsibility for

what you perceive and for your resulting behavior resides only in you. The

one thing you can control is yourself. As a trader, you have the power

either to give yourself money or to give your money to other traders. And

the ways in which you choose to do this will be determined by a number of

psychological factors that have little or nothing to do with the markets.

And this will be so until you acquire some new skills and also learn how to

adapt yourself to suit conditions as they exist in the market environment.

To operate successfully in this environment you will need to learn how to

control yourself in ways that may be completely alien to you.

You will also have to learn how to grant yourself the mental freedom to

shift your perspective to notice alternative possibilities to getting what you

want in the trading arena, regardless of your expectations of how you are

going to get it. There are only a few traders who have come to the

realization that they alone are completely responsible for the outcome of

their actions. Even fewer are those who have accepted the psychological

implications of that realization and know what to do about it.

Rarely do any of us grow up learning how to operate in an arena that

allows for complete freedom of creative expression, with no external

structure to restrict it in any way. In the trading environment, you will

have to make up your own rules and then have the discipline to abide by

them. The problem is, price movement is fluid, always in motion, quite

unlike the highly structured events that most of us are accustomed to. In

the market environment, the decisions that confront you are as endless as

the price movements you intend to take advantage of. You don't just have

to decide to participate, you also have to decide when to enter, how long to

stay in, and under what conditions to get out. There is no beginning,

middle, or end - only what you create in your own mind.

In addition to the negative psychological implications that accompany

these decisions, you must be aware that even if you make the minimum

financial commitment of one contract per trade (as in the futures market),

there is an unlimited potential for profit as well as an unlimited potential

for loss. From a psychological perspective, this means that each trade has

the possibility of fulfilling your wildest dreams of financial independence,

and simultaneously presents you with the risk of losing everything you

own. The constantly changing price movement makes it extremely easy for

you to ignore the risk and tempt yourself into believing you don't have to

follow your own rules, this time.

Here is an environment that offers complete freedom of expression

combined with unlimited possibilities and unlimited risk. If you place in it a

participant who is oblivious to these psychological conditions (one who

operates from a mental framework oriented toward external structure,

constraints, and expectations), then what you have is a formula for

emotional and financial disaster.

This grim scenario certainly explains why so few people ever make

money as traders. Actually, almost all of those who make an attempt at

trading completely underestimate the difficulty and consequently

overestimate their ability to fulfill their inflated expectations. Therefore,

most, if not all, people who trade inflict some degree of psychological

damage upon themselves. I am defining "psychological damage" as any

mental framework that has potential for generating fear.

Fear results from any belief about environmental conditions that has the

potential to cause either physical or emotional pain such as stress, anxiety,

confusion, disappointment, or betrayal. Painful emotional conditions are

basically the result of unfulfilled expectations. Unfulfilled expectations

create a conflict between a person's beliefs about the way things should be

and the actual environmental conditions that don't match those beliefs.

This conflict is expressed through our emotions in the form of pain that we

generally label as stress, anxiety, confusion, and so on.

People seem to avoid pain instinctively by building up mental defenses

against the intrusion of environmental information that would confirm the

existence of any conflict. These defenses consist of denials, rationalizations,

and justifications - all of which will result in perceptual distortion.

"Perceptual distortion" occurs when our mental system automatically

distorts environmental information by shaping and selectively excluding

certain information to compensate for the conflict between what we expect

and what the environment is offering us. This will be done in such a way that

we will believe a shared reality exists between ourselves and the outside

environment, thus avoiding any pain. I am defining a "shared reality" as a

correspondence between one's beliefs about the environment and the

actual environmental conditions that exist.

If you are distorting market information, you are not sharing a reality

with the markets, and you are also indulging yourself in an illusion, to the

extent that you hide from the possibility of disappointment. At this point,

you would be setting yourself up for what could be called a "forced

awareness." Obviously, if the markets are doing something other than what

you are allowing yourself to perceive (because some, if not most, of the

information the markets have to offer won't validate what you want or

hope), then something has to give. These distortions will continue until

there is such a disparity between your acquired mindset and the conflicting

market information that the mental defenses (illusions) will break down.

This usually creates a state of shock, where you may wonder how things

could get so bad so quickly.

In such a situation, the market forces you to confront your illusions of a

shared reality, creating a painful forced awareness. At some point in your

trading career you will need to understand how all of us, because of our

common upbringing, try to control market events through our perception of

what we think will happen next and then rigidly hold on to these

expectations. This is where you need to learn how to gain the kind of mental

flexibility that allows you to shift your perspective to be aware of other

alternatives and possibilities. You may not be able to control the markets,

but you can control your perception of them in order to achieve a higher

degree of objectivity, resulting in a higher degree of shared reality with the

markets.

As painful as these forced awarenesses may be, they are not likely to

deter you from being attracted to the opportunities the markets have to

offer. However, the cumulative psychological effect on you will be very

negative. If you have suffered through several forced awarenesses, your

perception of market activity will eventually become heavily weighted

towards avoiding pain instead of seeking opportunity. Your fear of losing

money, being wrong, or missing an opportunity will become your primary

motivation to act or not act.

Now, there are several major problems that result when fear becomes a

motivation to do or not do something. First, it will limit your range of

perceived opportunities by narrowing your focus of attention, keeping it on

the object of your fear. This means that out of all available market

information, you will only perceive information that will, in effect, validate

what you fear the most. Your fear will systematically exclude from your

awareness market information that would indicate the existence of other

alternatives and opportunities.

As you begin to understand the negative relationship between fear and

perception, you might be surprised to learn that in your attempts to avoid

losses, you actually create them. Fear will also limit your range of responses

to any given situation. Many traders suffer considerably when they know

exactly what they want to do but, when the moment to execute arrives, find

themselves completely immobilized.

Before anyone can become successful in an environment with the

unstructured character of the trading environment, one needs to develop a

supreme sense of self-confidence and self-trust. I am defining selfconfidence

as an absence of fear and self-trust: knowing what to do at the

moment it needs to be done, and then doing it without hesitation. Any

hesitation will only create self-doubt and fear. To whatever degree selfdoubt

exists as a state of mind, to that same degree you will feel fear,

anxiety, and confusion.

The negative experiences that result from trading in a state of fear, anxiety,

and confusion, will create or add to an already-existing belief of inadequacy

and powerlessness. Regardless of how hard any of us may try to hide from

others what is going on, we obviously can't hide our results from ourselves

If the market's behavior seems mysterious to you, it's because your own

behavior is mysterious and unmanageable. You can't really determine what

the market is likely to do next when you don't even know what you will

do next, regardless of what you may perceive or want.

The few successful traders who have, in some way, transcended these

psychological obstacles have been generous with their one-line gems of

trading wisdom: "Learn to take a loss," "Go with the flow," "The trend is

your friend," "Cut your losses and let your profits run," "To know the

markets you need to know yourself," and on and on. The Disciplined

Trader fully explores, breaks down, and then organizes the psychological

components of this advice into a step-by-step learning process, a process

that takes you through the various stages necessary to orient yourself

successfully to the trading environment. This book will explain to you what

skills are necessary, why you need to understand them, and most

important, how to go about learning them.

This book is organized in four sections. The first consists of the first two

chapters and serves as an introduction. The second consists of Chapters 3

through 8 and defines the problems or challenges of becoming a successful

trader. The third section consists of six chapters that will give you the basic

insight you will need to identify what has to be changed in your mental

environment and what you can do to change it. The fourth section consists

of Chapters 15 and 16 which put everything together into a unified

framework to develop specific trading skills. You will learn how to observe

market action from an objective perspective, determine where you need to

limit yourself, and establish the steps you will need to take to expand

those limitations in a productive and psychologically healthy way.