Understanding trading psychology: How it shapes your investment choices

Summary: 

Trading psychology explores the deep connection between your feelings and your investment decisions. Understanding it will help you develop a positive trading mindset even amidst challenging market conditions. In this blog post, we'll discuss the importance of trading psychology, and how it influences your investment decisions. 

Trading is like a game of darts. You use your skills to take aim, throw the dart, and hope for the best. But unlike darts, trading is not just about skill. It's also about your emotions, instincts, habits, and perceptions. When you're trading, you're not just making decisions based on the charts and numbers. You're also making decisions based on how you feel ⸺ confident, frustrated, or scared.  

Your emotions can have a big impact on your trading decisions. If you're confident, you might be more open to risks. But if you're feeling flustered, you might be more likely to sell your investments. That's why it's important to understand your own trading psychology and manage your emotions to make better choices. 

Understanding trading psychology 

Recall a time when you stood at a significant crossroads in your life, perhaps choosing a college or deciding on a career path. Remember the weight of that decision? The feelings you had - excitement, anxiety, and the pressure to make the right choice - are very similar to what traders and investors feel almost every day. 

Now, trading psychology is all about understanding and managing those feelings. You must be mentally prepared to handle the ups and downs of investing and understand the common pitfalls to avoid bad decisions.

Common emotions that every trader faces

As a trader, you will experience both positive and negative emotions. Let's take a quick look at some that can affect your trading performance.

Excitement: Excitement takes over when you first start trading or when you believe you've spotted a potential winning trend. While this can fuel your passion for trading, unchecked excitement can sometimes lead to hasty decisions without proper analysis.

Tip: Always take a moment to pause and reflect before deciding. Ensure that it's based on facts or research and not just on the thrill of the moment.

Fear: Fear emerges when there's a potential threat to your investments, like when the market takes an unexpected downturn. While a healthy dose of fear can make you cautious, being overly fearful might make you miss out on lucrative opportunities. 

Tip: Balance fear with knowledge. The more informed you are, the better equipped you'll be to face market uncertainties with confidence.

FOMO (Fear of missing out): It's the anxiety of you not being part of an exciting or interesting event. In trading, FOMO can lead you to jump into trends without proper analysis, potentially resulting in losses.

Tip: Remember that there will always be another opportunity. It's better to miss out than to rush in unprepared.

Greed: On the flip side of fear, greed pushes you to want more. The desire to earn even more can be overwhelming. But greed can be blinding, leading you to ignore warning signs and take unnecessary risks.

Tip: Set clear goals and stick to them. Setting and sticking to predetermined profit levels can help control greed.

Doubt: You’re doubtful when you're unsure of your decisions. It's the nagging voice in the back of your head questioning if you've made the right move, if you should've waited a bit longer, or if you've interpreted the data correctly. 

Tip: If doubt persists, consider taking a step back to reassess or seeking advice.

Frustration: Things often don't go as planned. You miss good chances, sell stocks too soon, or encounter bad trades. When you feel frustrated, you end up making impulsive trades over rational trading decisions. 

Tip: Use moments of frustration as learning opportunities. Analyse what went wrong and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Regret: This emotion involves remorse, guilt, or sadness after a bad trading decision. You wish you could go back in time and do things differently. Regret may make you avoid trading altogether or chase your losses to make up for your mistake. 

Tip: Every trader makes mistakes; it's how you respond and learn from these mistakes that matter.  

Hope: Hope makes you believe things will work out in your favour, your trades will be successful, and you will achieve your financial goals. While this may motivate, strengthen, and sustain you in your trading journey, it should not be based on wishful thinking or unrealistic expectations. 

Tip: While hope is essential, it should be grounded. Always back your optimism with solid research and a well-thought-out strategy.

Avoiding psychological traps 

In trading, psychological traps, also known as cognitive biases or mental blind spots, can sway our choices. They're habits that pull us towards emotional or illogical decisions instead of clear thinking. Knowing about these traps and learning how to handle them is important for every trader. Let's explore some of the most common ones:

Confirmation bias: We naturally gravitate towards information that aligns with our existing beliefs. For instance, if you're convinced a particular stock is set to soar, you might only focus on positive news about it, and perhaps overlook potential red flags. To avoid this, you can seek diverse information sources and challenge your own beliefs to make well-rounded decisions.

Anchoring: This means holding onto a specific piece of information, like an initial purchase price, that can cloud your judgment. If a stock's value drops, waiting indefinitely for it to return to its original price might not be the best strategy. Focus on the present value and future potential of an investment, rather than being anchored to past data.

Herd mentality: It's tempting to follow the crowd. If everyone's getting excited about a new trend, you might want to jump on the bandwagon. While it's okay to consider popular opinion, always conduct your own research and analysis before deciding.

Loss aversion: We really don't like losing. So much so that sometimes we'll hold onto something that's losing value, hoping it'll bounce back, rather than just cutting our losses. That is why, it is critical to set clear exit strategies for your investments. 

Wrapping up: Key points to remember 

• Trading psychology is about how your feelings affect your choices when you invest. 
• Managing your feelings like excitement, fear, and FOMO can help you develop a positive mindset towards trading and have a better experience. 
• To get better at trading psychology, you should always learn more, have a clear strategy, set achievable goals, and learn from your errors.

Disclaimer

The investment options and stocks mentioned here are not recommendations. Please go through your own due diligence and conduct thorough research before investing. Investment in the securities market is subject to market risks. Please read the Risk Disclosure documents carefully before investing. Past performance of instruments/securities does not indicate their future performance. Due to the price fluctuation risk and the market risk, there is no guarantee that your personal investment objectives will be achieved