The Noise and The Price
There is a silent killer in the stock market. It doesn't look dangerous; in fact, it disguises itself as "help." It is everywhere, in every profession, but in the financial markets, it is deafening.
It is the Noise.
The moment you open your trading terminal, you are bombarded. There are endless breaking news alerts, geopolitical updates, social media panic, political debates, and thousands of reports from so-called financial "experts." For a trader sitting in front of their screen, this overdose of information is paralysing. It will make you go mad. You sit there freezing, wondering: Who should I listen to? Who is right? What if the news is bad but the stock is going up?
To survive this chaos, you must learn a lesson from the people who navigate the skies.
The Pilot’s System
Imagine a commercial pilot flying a jet at 35,000 feet in the middle of a massive thunderstorm. It is pitch black outside.
How does the pilot know where to go? He doesn't roll down the window to check the weather. He doesn't look in a rear view mirror to see if another plane is behind him. He doesn't look at the ground to figure out how to land. If he relied on what he could see outside the window, the plane would crash.
The pilot has only one way to survive: He must blindly believe the system in front of him. His dashboard tells him his speed, his altitude, his direction, and the exact angle of his landing. He trusts the instruments because the instruments do not lie, they do not panic, and they do not watch the news.
In the stock market, your trading setup is your dashboard. And Price is your ultimate instrument panel. Everything happening outside of the Price—the TV debates, the Twitter rumours, the economic forecasts—is just the storm outside the window. It is pure noise.
The Brain Command
To detach from the noise and fly by your instruments, you have to give your brain one simple, unbreakable command:
"I will do my analysis, and I will follow my tested trading plan, no matter what."
When you first start doing this, it will feel incredibly uncomfortable. Human nature wants to react to the scary news on the TV. You will feel anxious ignoring a "great tip" from an expert. But once you pass a certain amount of time, and you survive the ups and downs of the market using only your system, your brain will adapt. You will realise that the only thing that is objectively true in the market is Price.
The "Mental Manager" Filter
Now, let’s be realistic. You cannot completely isolate yourself. Unless you live in a cave, you will hear the news. You will see the headlines.
Since you cannot completely avoid the noise, you must learn to filter it. To do this, you need to hire a "Mental Manager" inside your brain.
The manager’s only job is to stand at the door of your mind and compare every piece of outside noise to your instrument panel (the Price).
Scenario A: A piece of news comes into one ear. The news says, "This company is amazing!" Your Mental Manager checks the chart. If the noise matches the Price. You can keep it.
Scenario B: A piece of news comes into one ear. The news says, "This company is amazing!" Your Mental Manager checks the chart. If the chart is not good. The noise does not match the Price. The manager immediately throws the news out the other ear.
Ultimately, every single decision must be signed off by the Price. Ignore the storm outside, trust the instruments on your screen, and execute your plan.
- the trading job