Adrian Reid explains how traders survive when multiple crises hit at once. He argues that expecting things to go wrong, combined with confidence in solving problems, keeps emotions in check. His Market System Map shows markets exhibit only nine distinct behaviors, letting traders design strategies that work across many conditions.
stressful situation is compounded by our physical and mental state. If we're exhausted because we're not sleeping enough and something stressful happens, how much more difficult is it? So much more difficult. And one thing I've learned is that challenging situations tend to cluster. You know, something goes wrong with the tech at the same time as the market is extremely volatile, at the same time as there's an announcement from some foreign power about what they're doing geopolitically at the same time as you're having a fight with your spouse. These things tend to cluster, and if our physical state— if we're tired, if we're stressed out and emotional— those things are much more difficult to deal with. A lot of people will hope bad things don't happen, and I, I hope bad things don't happen as well, but What you want to happen and what you expect is likely to happen or is probable are two different things. So I have the expectation that at some point multiple bad things are going to happen together. So I don't expect that everything will go smoothly. If you have the expectation that everything is going to go smoothly, what is going to happen? You're going to be disappointed. And with that disappointment comes stress and frustration, angst. And probably mistakes, but I have the expectation that shit will go wrong. But I also have the belief that I can figure it out. And having the belief in yourself that you can figure things out goes a long way towards keeping the emotions under control. A similar analogy is, you know, we talk about Market System Map. Is what could happen that could affect the markets? I mean, there's thousands of things, millions of things that could happen that could affect the markets, right? And we could worry about all of those things and monitor all of those things, but essentially, there's only 9 things the market could do. And that's defined by the market system map. So we don't have to worry about all of the causes. We just know there's only 9 things the market could do, and we have systems that profit from some of those different market behaviors. So we don't worry about all of the detail. We worry that we, we just make sure that we can figure it out by having strategies in place that will profit from more of those conditions. So with my trading, my philosophy is I need to understand how it all works. I believe that if something goes wrong, I'll be able to figure it out, or I'll be able to find someone who can help me figure it out quickly. I certainly don't expect that everything is going to go smoothly every day. Because it absolutely doesn't. Even if you're automated, even if you've got the best software in the world, even if you've got multiple redundancies and VPS in the cloud that you pay a fortune for and all of that, stuff can still go wrong. And being prepared for that, I think, is one of the keys.
