Good morning, traders…

Ben here. 

I want you to imagine a world where your natural instincts are your worst enemy…

Well, actually, you don’t need to imagine it: you’re trading it. 

You see, in the stock and options markets, your natural reactions to fear and optimism can lead you astray, driving decisions that sabotage your success. 

When the market looks scary and bearish, your instinct is to flee. When it seems promising and bullish, you dive in headfirst, often with reckless abandon. 

But what if you could train yourself to act against these instincts … to make decisions based on logic and rationality rather than reaction and emotion? 

Today, we’re gonna delve into the psychology of trading, uncovering strategies to transform your approach and potentially improve your performance. 

The stock market is designed to work against our typical human instincts. 

This is why most traders fail. They either don’t recognize this fact or fail to account for it.

With that in mind, let me show you how to leverage discipline, patience, and rational thinking to navigate the market’s emotional traps. 

Fear and Optimism

Your natural instincts drive you to react to fear and optimism in ways that can be detrimental to your trading. 

When things look scary, your instinct is to run away. 

This is known as the “Fight or Flight Response” and it’s literally encoded into our DNA.

Conversely, when things look great, we want to jump in or seek more opportunities, size up, and get overly aggressive. 

Remember The Cycle of Market Emojis…

Traders tend to buy and sell stocks based on how they’re feeling.

But this behavior often leads to poor trading decisions, because…

The Market Has No Emotions

While a healthy human being demonstrates compassion and emotion — the market is entirely devoid of these traits. 

It doesn’t care about your success or failure. It doesn’t feel bad if you lose all of your money. 

This is why every decision you make in the market must be devoid of emotions. 

To achieve this, you need to ask yourself a critical question:

• “Am I making this decision based on emotion?”

If the answer is yes — and it’s the typical human response to the situation — you need to pause and switch on the “rational thinking” part of your brain. 

Here’s how to do it:

1. Risk Assessment: This addresses the greed aspect. Determine the risk involved in your trade.
2. Planning: Have a plan that addresses your emotions if the trade works or doesn’t.
3. Execution: Decide the best way to execute the trade despite how you might feel when it happens.

Setting stop-losses at risk levels that ensure you pay yourself when you can is a simple and practical way to apply this strategy.

Discipline: The Key to Trading Success

To avoid falling into the emotional, instinctual, and psychological traps set by the market, we must practice discipline. 

Discipline means doing what we must do for our own good, regardless of how we feel about it. 

Moreover, this principle applies to all areas of life, not just trading.

Here’s a trick to develop discipline…

Find three things in your life that you’d like to improve, and make doing them as easy as possible. 

For example, if you wake up early to work out, you could:

1. Arrange to meet people who expect you to be there, so you won’t let them down…
2. Lay out your workout clothes, shoes, and water the night before…

Over time, your mind and body will stop resisting. It will become routine.

Remember: You’re a psychosomatic being made up of three parts: head, heart, and hands.

Forms of Discipline in Trading

1. Patience: Waiting for the right setup, exit, or situation.
2. Executing the Plan: Proper position sizing based on risk and sticking to your stops.
3. Reflecting and Learning: Adjusting your strategy when you make mistakes.

To become a master of the stock market, you must observe what successful traders do and emulate their practices. 

For instance, professional cyclist Greg LeMond, a three-time Tour de France winner, was asked if cycling ever got easier…

He said, “No, you just get faster.” 

The same goes for the market. While trading won’t get easier, you will get better at it over time.

The Five-Letter Acronym for Trading Success

Success in trading requires time, focus, resilience, belief, and community. 

And speaking of community … I’m constantly amazed at the insight, skill, and ideas shared within the Daily Strike Alliance.

Click here now to join our incredible community of active options traders. 

Last but not least, here’s a handy acronym to help you succeed:

F.O.C.U.S.
Follow
One
Course
Until
Successful

By applying these principles and maintaining discipline, you can master the psychology of trading and improve your chances of success in the markets.

Now, before we go, let’s look at:

💰The Biggest Smart-Money Bets of the Day💰

• $6.64 million bullish bet on AAPL 08/16/2024 $215 calls @ $7.40 avg. (seen on 6/26)

• $4.2 million bullish bet on PDD 07/26/2024 $140 calls @ $4.20 avg. (seen on 6/26)

• $1.47 million bullish bet on IREN 08/16/2024 $15 calls @ $1.50 avg. (seen on 6/26)

Happy trading,

Ben Sturgill

P.S. If you want access to more juicy options-trading setups, there’s only one place to start…

TODAY, June 27 at 7:00 p.m. EST, millionaire trader Bryce Tuohey is hosting a LIVE WEBINAR for the Daily Strike Alliance where he’ll be breaking down the most promising trade ideas he’s seeing in the options market right now, like…

170% on CVNA in ~2.5 hours*

1,080% on PANW in ~24 minutes*

336% on LYFT in ~4 hours*

191% on UBER in ~6 hours*

265% on CME in ~20 minutes*

466% on SHOP ~40 minutes*

955% on PLTR in ~5 hours*

Stop missing great opportunities — CLICK HERE NOW TO RESERVE YOUR SPOT!

*Past performance does not indicate future results