6/23/2026 - One of the great tragedies in the trading world is that trading psychology has become equated with the psychology of beginning traders, thus focusing on such things as discipline, emotional control, fear, greed, and frustration. To use the analogy I often turn to as one who teaches at a medical school, it is as if we were to discuss the psychology of the emergency room physician in the terms that apply to beginning medical students. Of course the beginner in any field has doubts, needs, ambitions, etc. and those can color decision-making. What makes a professional a true pro is that they have moved beyond those initial self-doubts and concerns and now can focus on the challenges of peak performance.
An area of psychology that applies to the pros is the ability to access intuition in generating trade ideas. Intuition is implicit or tacit knowledge: it's what we know, but don't know that we know. It shows up as gut feelings and flashes of insight. Intuition comes to us; it's not something we can manufacture upon demand.
There are, however, things we can do to access and activate intuition. The more things we see, the more things we can connect. That is why, in the interviews of the Market Wizards, we find that so many of them spend hours and hours reviewing charts and markets. They are feeding their heads with example after example, confident that intuition will capture the patterns of strength, weakness, reversal, and continuation.
Because their review is conducted in a state of intense focus, the successful trader is not only seeing more things, but processing them more deeply. The quality of focus--its sustained intensity--fuels the generation of intuitive insights. To the outside observer, it simply looks as though the Market Wizard works harder than others. It's more than that, however. What makes the magic of a Wizard is how they work--and what that work generates in terms of intuitive learning.
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6/22/2026 - When a psychologist/therapist speaks with a person, the truly important themes emerge when there is a discrepancy between *what* a person says and *how* they say it. The mood and tone and body language suddenly don't fit with the meaning of the message. That is the first sign of potential conflict, and it signals an opportunity for the therapy. Growth occurs when we are physically, emotionally, and cognitively aligned. That is when we're most open to absorbing new meanings from life and pursuing fresh sources of purpose. In markets, trends persist when there is an alignment between the behavior of the parts of the market and the market as a whole. When the components of an index begin going their own way, that is an early sign that the market sector is losing alignment. The tide is no longer lifting all boats; the winds are shifting. Changes occur within the alignment of the market before those changes manifest themselves as clear price reversals and new patterns of movement.
Listening to the market the way a therapist listens to a client--carefully gauging not only what is happening but how--allows for flexible trading. Conviction makes convicts: We become trapped by what we attach ourselves to. When we listen with an open mind, the subtle shifts in market behavior become clear.
The meaning of market action lies in *how* it gets from Point A to Point B.
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