The Illusion of Control

[Moxiee]

Every trader starts believing they can control outcomes. I used to think I could manage losses or time reversals. But control ends at execution. After that, the market decides.

Now, I focus on what’s mine entries, stops, mindset. Letting go gave me more control than clinging ever did.

Freedom beats false control. Do you manage risk or chase control?

[Oshosondy]

Do you manage risk or chase control?

People will manage risk so that they can have a better control, using high amount of money to trade which you can not afford to lose can result to emotional and losses to the point of asset liquidation, but if you have good risk management will be very helpful and it can let you avoid some mistakes. Or if you still lose the money, you can afford to lose it, but patience is very important in trading.

[Synchronice]

Every trader starts believing they can control outcomes. I used to think I could manage losses or time reversals. But control ends at execution. After that, the market decides.

Now, I focus on what’s mine entries, stops, mindset. Letting go gave me more control than clinging ever did.

Freedom beats false control. Do you manage risk or chase control?

Logically, you start trading because you think that you can control the outcome and in control you mean that you are buying a coin at right time and are sure that the price will go up, you'll sell it and profit. If you didn't believe in yourself, then you wouldn't start trading in the first place, so I think that that's normal. I would call it an illusion of control when someone thinks that their trade can pump or dump the price unless they are trading with thousands of Bitcoins.

[slaman29]

Every trader starts believing they can control outcomes. I used to think I could manage losses or time reversals. But control ends at execution. After that, the market decides.

Now, I focus on what’s mine entries, stops, mindset. Letting go gave me more control than clinging ever did.

Freedom beats false control. Do you manage risk or chase control?

I used to think I had discipline. Stop losses all set, every single order was limit, maybe trailing stops to make me feel even more 'powerful'.

But sit at the terminal, see your trades go red, and hover near your stop and you lose discipline. You remove the stop and let it ride.

Or, keep losing? Maybe just another $100 right?

Time to sleep? Why not watch the news more and more and more. See the terminal again and again and again.

It's psychology you can't beat sadly.

[TheUltraElite]

Trading has always been like that, there is always the chance that you feel you are in control but you are never actually in control because the market is always unpredictable. Still in the long term you have a chance to predict correctly that the price is going up but in short to mid term you will make mistakes and feel frustrated.

Hence always try to place long term orders and not short term. Dont day trade because that will devastate a new trader.

Never go all in on trading, even if you become a veteran at it.

[jcojci]

We need to manage risk and not chase profit only. If we are trying to chase profit only, we may lose and difficult to recover our losses. We can't make an accurate analysis but we can try to analyze and follow the market movements.

It needs experience and more learning to have a better outcome. You don't have to worry if you find it difficult to make a profit because you will have your time to get it. You do the right thing so you should carry on that and see how big the outcome is.

[AVE5]

Now, I focus on what’s mine entries, stops, mindset. Letting go gave me more control than clinging ever did.

Freedom beats false control. Do you manage risk or chase control?

You don't keep a cleaned ground of your looses my claiming Ignorant whenever you lose it but how you manages yours risks because as the market volatilities maybe unpredictable, you'd need some other times to go next rounds. Behold, trading is pure gambling because you're predicting the uncertainty.
So you'll need to adhere to your risk managements. Chasing control is ascribed to traders who hasn't been shaped to control their emotions. So both risk management and emotional control shouldn't be undermined so that you can always take responsible decisions.

[yudi09]

Do you manage risk or chase control?

Actually, it's clear that if someone manages risk successfully, control becomes easier.
I won't say that I'm confident I can control the outcome because the strategy I've carefully thought out may not be exactly on target.
But here's the thing: with good risk management, I believe that the burden I'll bear when I get a missed result won't be too heavy.
I'm not taking it too seriously.

[Awaklara]

Freedom beats false control. Do you manage risk or chase control?

Why I think the two are actually related. Traders who manage their trading risks tend to have better control. Although in the trading process, they still cannot avoid losses. However, with risk management, traders have losses that are acceptable. This can serve as a control to avoid losing more, or as a control for traders to avoid being greedy and wanting to earn more.

[Alphakilo]

Every trader starts believing they can control outcomes. I used to think I could manage losses or time reversals. But control ends at execution. After that, the market decides.

Now, I focus on what’s mine entries, stops, mindset. Letting go gave me more control than clinging ever did.

Freedom beats false control. Do you manage risk or chase control?

Learning how to optimize and manage risk is the ultimate form of control a trader can have over the market, because at the end of the day, a trader like yourself would have to apply certain techniques like stop loss, limits, leverage and the likes to better their chances and maintain some form of control over the market trends that is as a result of volatilities and speculation.

Emotional maturity is control too and it doesn't give you the illusion of control, because it is confidence and control in itself. Experience makes a trader attain this height of emotional control and I would conclude that it is actually freedom without falsification.