What are the behavioral or psychological traits that perhaps unknowingly sabotage your investment results? Brett Steenbarger, Ph.D., author of the Trader Feed blog as well as the book The Psychology of Trading, shares a handful of negative psychological traits that are often the undoing of individual investors. In a special feature for TraderEducation.com, Steenbarger offers his insights on how to deal with:

(1) Performance anxiety;

(2) Negative thinking;

(3) Perfectionism;

(4) Over-trading; and

(5) Letting emotions interfere with the analysis of a trade.  

Of these, performance anxiety is probably the most vexing of all the problems: "Performance anxiety occurs when a performance that is usually automatic becomes the object of excessive scrutiny.  This attention to the performance creates an interference effect, in which the performance can no longer flow naturally... Whenever fears about the outcome of a performance dominate the performance, outcomes are apt to suffer."

[image: Analyze This movie poster]

It is so amazing that I am guilty as charged on all five counts and I still make money? Which one that stands out the most is over trading. The negative thinking is probably causing me the most harm. Fear always stands in the way of a good trade. You know that money is real. Little fear can be a good thing.

Problem is there is so much to be afraid of. These guys have been doing this for over 100 years. I am only in for a year. So those ROI' s are standing in the way of are good trading? That is the most talked about thing on the boards, making money.

djk actually a person does not have to undo there Self in an irrational market. Most are rational when they invest into a security. Unfortunatly, the Market might not see the individuals rational, at that time, Investing ahead of the Curve was one of my posts, I forgot where i parked it in this digital highway but its somewhere.

Rather than putting the blame on opening an account, the person has to realize they didn't have the right education on how today's market works and the tools that we have to make rational decisions in any type of market. I certainly didn't.

When we accept the failure, we have to look forward and change our behavior, so that failure will not reoccure that is from BB&T CEO that is posted on one of the other posts.

The end result is our awareness of possible failure, and what we do or don't do. combats that result. Because everyone wants to be successful.

This goes against the philosophy If there is a winner there has to be a loser. If we think in those terms, then very possibly we are going down the wrong path and giving advantage to the other participants automatically before we even enter a trade. Still set Stop/limits. Peace