“Professional traders aren't fearless. They've simply learned that process is more important than outcome.” 

The trade is on and your position is down. Not by much, but enough that your pulse just picked up. 

The thoughts start firing before you've even decided to think them: “What if I'm wrong?” “Should I exit now?” “What if it keeps going without me?” 

That happens during the trade. Not at the entry. Not when you verified the trade the night before but right now, with your money and self-esteem on the line, your brain is urging you to do something. 

Pro traders feel this exact moment too. The difference isn't that they've trained the feeling away. It's that they've built a process stronger than the feeling. 

The Short Answer: Pro traders don't control their emotions by suppressing them. They control their emotions by building routines, rules, and habits that reduce how much influence those emotions get over their decisions. Read that again. You’ll need to own it. 

Fear, excitem...

“The market rewards patience. Human nature rewards activity. Successful traders learn the difference.” 

You've done your prep. Your watchlist is ready. The market opens.

Nothing meets your criteria. Five minutes pass. Then fifteen. Then thirty. 

And there it is — the itch. “Maybe I should take this setup.” “It's close enough.” “Something is better than nothing.” 

This is one of the most dangerous moments in trading — not because the market is testing you, but because your own discomfort with inactivity is. 

The short answer: Traders overtrade because the human brain is wired to seek action, stimulation, and immediate reward. Boredom, FOMO, overconfidence, frustration after a loss, and your own dopamine system all push you to take more trades than your plan actually justifies. 

Here's the irony. The more frequently you trade, the worse you'll likely perform. You may be thinking "the more opportunities I take, the more money I'll make.” It sounds logical — more trades, more chances...

One of the most consistent traits shared by successful traders is preparation. Markets move quickly and generate enormous amounts of information. Without preparation, you're forced to make decisions in real time under pressure, which is exactly when emotions tend to override logic.

Preparation changes that dynamic. It moves you from reacting emotionally to executing a your process.

Here's what happens: when you must make rapid decisions without structure, you risk relying more heavily on emotions and biases. Trading amplifies this risk because money, uncertainty, and time pressure are present simultaneously. 

Here's a framework you can customize to your trade plan for a you Pre-Market Preparation Checklist: 

Mental Readiness

☐ Am I rested and focused?

☐ Is my emotional state calm and neutral?

☐ Am I prepared to follow my rules today?

Market Environment

☐ Overnight market activity context (global markets, futures)

☐ Economic calendar events today

☐ Earnings announcements affe...

Many novice traders believe trading success comes from prediction. If they could just predict what the market will do next, profits would follow. That belief sabotages more trading accounts than bad strategies ever could.

Consider scientists. Do they invent and discover by predicting and hoping?

No, scientists don’t. They observe, form hypotheses, test ideas, and revise their thinking when the evidence demands it. Successful traders operate the same way.

A scientist never says, “I think this experiment will work, so I’ll ignore the data if it doesn’t.” Yet traders do this every day. They fall in love with an idea, defend a bias, or rationalize a loss instead of learning from it. That’s not trading, that’s ego management.

Trading like a scientist starts with replacing opinions with questions. Instead of saying, “The market should go up here,” a scientific trader asks, “Under what conditions does price tend to move higher from this level?” That shift alone changes everything. You’re ...

Yesterday’s results: No trades triggered. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Short 5954.50 stop 5960.25. Buy 5965.25 stop 5959.50 if price retraces down from above. (Filtered out during PCE release). 

The World Index: (+100/-100) dips from -50 to -64 with all major world markets Bearish on increasing volatility. 

Catalysts: PCE, Personal Income & Spending and Fed’s Williams @ 8:30. UofM Consumer Sentiment (revised). 

Quick Tip: Manipulation

Courtesy of the WSJ newsletter – “On December 19, 1868, Cornelius Vanderbilt bought additional shares of the New York Central Railroad. He then convened an emergency meeting of the board of directors, which declared an 80% dividend. The stock shot up over the next two days, at which point Vanderbilt dumped his new shares for a $5.5 million profit.”

Today we have the SEC and regulations to prevent blatant manipulation like Vanderbilt did. But manipulation still exists, just more subtle. 

Insiders are still buying shares ahead of good ne...

Yesterday’s results: The suggested trade didn’t trigger. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5908.75 stop 5903.75 if price retraces back from above. Short 5869.00 stop 5873.00 if price retraces back from below.  

The World Index: (+100/-100) eases from -29 to -14 with most of the world mildly Bearish on lower volatility. 

Catalysts: Fed’s Bowman @ 9:00, Barkin @ 12:00. Existing Home Sales @ 10:00. Crude Oil Inventories @ 10:30. Fed’s Beige Book @ 14:00. TSLA earnings after the close. 

Quick Tip: Short Interest

Short interest is a great “off-the-price-chart” indicator you can add to your research for stock and option trades. It’s the number of shares of a particular stock that have been sold short but have not yet been bought back (closed). 

If short interest is high, it suggests bearish sentiment and an unusually low short interest suggests bullish sentiment.

Here are two popular metrics that you can analyze for edge: 

Short Interest Ratio (SIR) or Days to Cover - Tot...

Yesterday’s results: Buying 5888.50 picked the bottom of the session and ran for 25 points. 

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5908.50 stop 5904.25 if price retraces down from above. Short 5864.75 stop 5868.50 if price retraces up from below. 

The World Index: (+100/-100) jumps from zero to +43 with most of the world Bullish. Asia up strong. 

Catalysts: Building Permits & Housing Starts @ 8:30. Fed’s Waller @ 12:10. 

Quick Tip: Dividend Plays? Really? 

As traders we’re usually focused on capital gains, not holding stocks over the long term and collecting dividends. However, having a dividend producing portfolio is a fabulous way to balance your wealth growth relative to the ups and downs of active trading. 

John Bogle, founder of Vanguard Group, said “Over the long run, it is dividends, and dividends alone, that account for the lion’s share of stock market returns." 

Warren Buffett was a huge fan as well: "The best investment you can make is in a business that has a d...

Yesterday’s results: No trades triggered.

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Buy 5861.25 stop 5858.25. Short 5859.00 stop 5862.00 if price retraces up from below.  

The World Index: (+100/-100) falls from +21 to -29 with mixed sentiment, China/HK down firmly. 

Catalysts: Empire State MFG Index @ 8:30. Fed’s Daly @ 11:30, Kugler @ 13:00. Contrarian Alert: VIX near 20 is unusual at new highs. 

Quick Tip: VIX Explained 

Have you ever heard of the stock market's “fear gauge”? That’s a nickname for the VIX, or Volatility Index. The VIX helps us understand how much uncertainty or risk there is in the market at any given time. 

It measures how volatile the stock market is expected to be over the next 30 days. In other words, it shows how much the prices of stocks might swing up or down. The more the market is expected to move, the higher the VIX goes. 

It's often called the "fear gauge" because when investors are nervous—like when there’s bad economic news, political uncertainty,...

Today’s Best S&P Futures Turning Points: Nothing tradeable today.  

Monday’s results: This strategy is on hold... but is improving and likely out of the drawdown soon.

The World Index: (+100/-100) improves from -7 to +21 with Asia Bullish and the west mixed.

Catalysts: Powell’s Text ahead of Testimony @ 8:30. Fed’s Barr @ 9:15, Powell & Yellen @ 10:00, Bowman @ 13:30. 

Quick Tip: Catalysts

Whether you’re a day, swing, or position trader one thing that must happen for your trade to really move is a catalyst. This could be news, earnings, economics, and many other events. 

A strong catalyst helps in several ways. Price moves quicker and usually farther than normal. Volume increases for better liquidity. 

Ideally, you’ll be proactive in finding potential catalysts that have not hit the mainstream yet. On our Swing Trading Stock/Options team, we get an early peak by monitoring Insider Buying and Unusual Options Activity. Both occasionally precede a publicly announced catalyst. Timin...