Detached Trading: Managing Expectations During the Trade
How to Stay Grounded Throughout the Trading Session
Find the audio version of this post at the bottom.
If you’ve ever seen a peacock spreading its plumage, you know how stunning and majestic it looks. They do this to attract female peacocks.
However, take away the plumage, and you’ll see an ordinary bird—it doesn't even fly properly!
High promises, low substance.
The market behaves like a peacock’s plumage sometimes—it draws you in, makes you believe in a certain narrative, and creates expectations, only to disappoint you later.
The truth is, it’s not the market raising your expectations; it’s your perception of the market, colored by your ego and deep desire to make a profit. The price is neutral, after all.
When was the last time you made a mistake in the market? What were your expectations at that time? Odds are, they were totally misaligned with the market’s reality.
Most of the time, the moment you open a trade is when you’re most susceptible to these expectations. Think about it:
You enter a trade expecting not much—you’re prepared for a loss—but as the price starts moving, your brain starts attaching a meaning to the candles.
If a candle prints in your direction, it acts as confirmation of the trade, and it feels good. But just because the first candle is in your direction, it doesn’t make the trade any better or worse—it’s just… the first candle.
As the price keeps moving in your favor, getting closer to the target, dopamine is released in your bloodstream in anticipation of a winner.
On a biological level, your body gets ready to accept that outcome, even though it’s still just unrealized profit. Anything can happen, but not according to your brain.
All of a sudden, the price loses momentum and slowly starts to reverse, making you witness a stop-out from what you thought was a guaranteed winner.
Isn't this the most painful loss ever?
But why is it? Not because of the market, not the price or your narrative — your expectations!
Expectation trades are the most dangerous because God knows how you'll act right after closure.
In essence, the vast majority of trading mistakes result from a misalignment of your expectations with market reality.
If you were able to keep yourself grounded in the “anything can happen” mindset throughout the whole trade, you’d be in the best place to take advantage of market information at any point in time.
From the moment you start to lose yourself to your brain’s illusion, you lose decision-making capabilities.
To trade impartially, you need to understand expectations and keep them as unbiased as possible. That’s why we’re here today. In this read, we’ll discuss the science & psychology behind expectations and how you can manage them during the session for exceptional decision-making.