Take a trading break?

It has been a good couple of months for me since I started trading from home. I have been busy with all sorts of projects that I have been daydreaming about for a long time. While I have been working on making my daydreams a reality, I have also managed to trade rather well too. Of the four months that I have been trading at home now, I have had three winning months and one losing month. I can’t say that I can complain about that. Nevertheless, I can feel that yearning to get into cash. Not for any reason other than that I am tired. My brain has been working full speed for a few months now and I think it is time for a short rest.

This is something I have read about in, I suppose I should call them, “the great books of trading”. These books have often advised that traders take a complete break from the markets for short periods of time on a relatively regular basis.

I think there are a number of reasons behind this line of reasoning. We don’t realise it, but when we are involved in the market – whether our trades are working or not – we are exposing ourselves to stress. Our minds are constantly focused on the slow upward grind of the oil price, or the crazy rollercoaster ride of the Dow Jones. We never really ever get a chance to switch off. We need to switch off; we need to go on holiday. Ok, so we might not actually need to physically go away, but we need to rest our minds by letting go of the market and its stresses completely, even for a short period of time.

For me, the only way to really do this is to get completely into cash and then to do something else for a while. Like, I don’t know… nothing… or reading or playing Star Craft, or just something other than watching the market.

So this brings me to my game plan. I currently have a couple of trades open, which will stay open until they are either stopped out or reach their target prices. I will likely not take any new trades during this “waiting for my trades to mature” stage. Then, I will magically find myself with no speculative positions open and I will stay that way for a whole week! It doesn’t sound so long, but I can assure you that the power that lies in that week, of not being in the market, is immense. So just a sweet short break, and then back at it. It’s like taking an afternoon nap, but for trading, and for a whole week.

Happy trading!

Petri Redelinghuys