Check your intuition at the door

One of the things I'm coming to realize about day trading is just how little intuitions matter. In all of our other ventures we get a 'feel' for things. Trading and the markets moving defy this, especially when it comes to 'is this move done', etc.

Experience teaches, of course, and to the degree that we've internalized lessons those count as intuition, the ability to quickly know how to react and how to take steps.

However, The Big What is what happens next, and intuition will not, I believe, ever help here. Sometimes we guess correctly and sometimes we don't. I see and hear people in the room all the time talking about their gut telling them what's going to happen next, and they are frequently wrong, and I doubt that they are right more than chance. Its a big lie that we tell ourselves. I've done it a lot, and I was really, really hoping that it would be the key that unlocked the door in the same way that it unlocks so many other things in life. We eventually just lean on our intuition in so many situations in life, and in the case of the markets its worse than a mistake, its a fool's errand.

What tricks us is that the times when we are right make us feel like we are harmony with market motion, when we're really not, we just guessed right. I think this is also why we think we are being punished when we are wrong, its like we have been jilted by something that we know and are strong with and now its turned our back on us.

I have really studied the curious emotions around the way that I fear the market's reprisal, being humble, not boasting, etc. because I think deep down I don't want it to get mad at me and punish me by not whispering into my ear what the future holds. The only reason I would think such a ridiculous thing (and it is ridiculous) is because I've convinced myself that there is a relationship there when, in fact, there is not. The market is not a being, its the cumulative results of the actions of people and software. Its an outcome. Every tick is an outcome.

Again and again they say that the best traders are not emotional, and I believe that I have a glimpse into what this means: that decisions are made based on some criteria (even if its 'this looks strong' or 'this looks weak') based on experience, and then you execute and see the results.

This is an 'aha' thing for me because I wanted to be able to feel it, and I think I see that that's the wrong goal. The goal is to detach not emotion but any sense that our intuitions will be a good guide to the action.

Now, if things are going down and the technical analysis says there is further to go then its reasonable to conjecture that more will come -- that's basic trading. However, that's based on something objective -- the MACD or the stochastic or a pennant being created or whatever.

This will help, I think, I can work on the discipline of 'not feeling it'.