What type of Trader are you? Screen Watcher or Set and Forget?

After a couple of busy weeks moving house I am now set-up in my new country home and ready to ease myself back into trading.

So  here’s another brief installment in my What type of Trader are you?

Are you:

a.  A Screen Watcher

– someone who likes to sit in front of the screen all day

– needs to watch their trades set-up, execute, flow and exit

– enjoys watching / monitoring their set-ups

– needs the instant feedback / gratification from trades

Or are you:

b. Set and Forget

– Someone who abhors watching a moving market

– struggles to watch their trades without feeling a need to meddle!

– Likes to just ‘set and forget’ their trades

Both paths have their pro’s and con’s.  The upside of being a screen watcher is tremendous.  However the temptation to meddle / over-trade to satisfy a need to be doing something is immense.  Remember trading is a performance activity and as such we humans tend to only perform very well for brief periods of time.  Spending all day in front of the screens can be counter productive if it leads to tired sloppy trading.

If done properly being able to set and forget trades is also an enjoyable pursuit as it allows to you to focus on other tasks and removes the roller-coaster ride of emotions that comes from watching every tick on the screen.  Well it does remove it if you can resist the temptation to look at your charts / P&L during the day!

So which one are you?   

Either path is viable….if done correctly!  Once again the answer comes down to knowing yourself and knowing the best way for you to trade.

Trade Well

FXTrader Paul