Far too many traders become engrossed by how much “money” they make on a single trade. 

In my opinion, almost every trading flaw can be rooted in this issue of watching the dollars. 

Have you ever wondered why you trade better in a paper account? It is because there is no real money and if the money isn’t real, there is nothing to personalize. It is the same reason why playing Monopoly is stress-free. 

But put some real money down and you’ll see people start acting like Jojo The Idiot Circus Clown. 

The same is true with trading. For me, I don’t dare look at the value of my portfolio, how much money I have have on a particular trade or how much money I am up or down on the month or on an individual trade. 

One of the great features of ThinkorSwim’s trading platform is the ability to star out all things dollar-related. I keep a spreadsheet that keeps tabs on my portfolio’s value, so that when I put in a symbol, it spits out exactly how many shares I should be buying. I think in shares which keeps me from thinking about dollars, and when I am managing a trade I am not thinking about how much money I stand to make from the trade or am likely to lose. Instead I am following the chart and where it is wanting to take me.

When you do this, trading becomes so much more pure and so much more about the chart and what the chart is telling you. When you get stopped out it isn’t an emotional “I lost $1,000 on the trade”. No, it is more about the technicals of the chart and where it is guiding you. 

When you keep track of the dollars associated with the trade, you start making decisions based on how much money you have made, and most of the time, those decisions are based on personalizing the dollars and what you can make with your new-found gains. 

So if you are going to be a serious trader and make profits on a regular basis, the only way that you are going to be able to do that is by not watching the profits but by watching and following the charts that are right in front of you. 

Please, consider it!