#1 You don’t get all excited when the market opens

Gone are the days when you couldn’t wait for the weekend to be over and the market to open.

Your heart doesn’t beat faster when the market is about to open. You are no longer that rookie who couldn’t wait to place his first trade right when the market opened.You are much cooler about it.

You know that the market is not going anywhere. Getting excited about the market doesn’t make money; what makes money is the right combination of strategy, risk management and trading psychology.

Does that mean trading has become boring to you?

Maybe. But the good news is that “boring” is good in trading.

#2 You listen to the news for information, not opinions

You stop caring about others’ opinions.

You know that nobody can predict where the market is going next and also realize that TV channels and other new sources thrive on idiots who can’t think for themselves.

However, you need the news- the cold, hard facts and you need them fast.

So, you turn on the TV and from the midst of all that is crap and BS, you pick the news nuggets and factoids that would help you identify better opportunities in the market.

It is not easy to tune out all that noise of opinions and speculations made by the TV pundits but you manage to do it anyway.

#3 You don’t mess with the position sizing 

Your position sizing rules are sacrosanct.

You know exactly what you are risking in every trade and that doesn’t change, no matter what happens. Even if God comes down from the holy land and asks you to trade with higher leverage or position size, you would politely decline.

There is NEVER a good reason to trade based on emotions and impulse.

It doesn’t matter how lucrative the opportunity looks, you do not go above the position size defined before the trading day started.

#4 You don’t check the P&L every 5 seconds

You understand that looking at the P&L while trading is not only childish but also harmful.

The profits and losses have a way of empowering the lower brain of ours which puts fear and greed in control over the rational side. Besides, what’s the point in staring mindlessly at the profits or losses?

It’s not like you would gain some additional insights into the trade.

Rather, you have in front of you all the necessary information that adds value to the trade.

You know, stuff like 5-min, 10-min charts, market breadth, sectoral performance, etc. The trigger to exit doesn’t come from the absolute profits or losses; it comes when the charts and other cues.

#5 You react, not speculate

Trading is not a business of speculation and it took you some time to internalize this fact.

Lord knows you struggled to accept this but when you did, you became free. Free from the burden of doing the impossible and that is predicting the future. When traders speculate, they are just being idiots. No one ever survived by being smarter than the market.

Thank God, you’re not one of them. The good news, as you learned, is that trading is a business of listening to the market.

When you react to the market, you’re trading the right way. You make money, you manage risk properly and most importantly, you survive long enough to see the trading account grow.