How Do I Stay Objective Instead of Emotional When Analyzing Charts?

Options Trading Podcast

Have you ever looked at a chart and seen exactly what you wanted to see, not what was actually there? This is "emotional storytelling," and it's one of the biggest reasons traders fail. This episode is a deep dive into the psychology of analysis and answers a critical question:

How do I stay objective instead of emotional when analyzing charts?

We provide a complete, 12-step toolkit for fighting back against your own brain. Discover why your mind is wired to sabotage you with cognitive biases like confirmation bias, recency bias, and ego. Learn the non-negotiable power of a written trading plan, a pre-trade checklist, and why you must trade small enough to stay calm. We'll show you how to separate your analysis from your trading to prevent in-the-moment bias and finally see the chart for what it is: just data.

Your job isn't to be right; your job is to follow your plan. How could these principles of objective, high-stakes decision-making apply to other areas of your life? Subscribe for more essential insights into mastering your trading mind.

Key Takeaways

• Your Brain is Wired to Sabotage You: Objectivity is an uphill battle. Your brain's "fight or flight" response to risk, combined with cognitive biases like Confirmation Bias (seeing what you want to see) and Recency Bias(thinking what just happened will keep happening), can completely hijack your rational plan.
• A Written Plan is Your Anchor: The most crucial defense is a written trading plan. It externalizes your decision-making, forcing you to use a clear checklist before emotions get triggered. If the setup doesn't match the plan, you do nothing.
• Trade Small Enough to Stay Calm: This is a profound rule. If you feel your heart race or your palms sweat when looking at a chart, your position size is too big. A large position size triggers your primal fear center (amygdala), making rational analysis impossible. Reduce your size until the trade feels "annoying, not devastating."
• Separate Analysis from Trading: The moment you are in a trade, you are biased. Period. The professional approach is to do your heavy analysis and planning before the market opens or when it's calm. When the market is live, your job is not to re-analyze, but to execute the plan you already made.
• Use "If-Then" Statements, Not Predictions: Instead of guessing "I think this will go up," create objective, conditional statements like, "IF the price breaks this level with volume, THEN I will enter." This removes emotional guesswork and replaces it with a simple, prepared response.

"More indicators just give your confirmation bias more ammo... It's not just visual noise, it's cognitive noise. It lets our inherent need for coherence override objective reality."

Timestamped Summary

• (01:55) The Primal Problem: Why Your Brain Sabotages You: A deep dive into the psychological traps—like confirmation bias, recency bias, and ego—that are hardwired to distort your analysis when money is on the line.
• (04:42) The Non-Negotiable Defenses: Plans & Checklists: Learn why a written trading plan is your anchor and how a simple "pilot's checklist" can force discipline and objectivity.
• (08:54) The Practical Fix: Trade Small Enough to Stay Calm: Discover the powerful link between position size and emotion. If you can't look at the chart calmly, your position is too big.
• (09:37) The Pro Move: Separate Analysis from Trading: Understand why you are always biased once you're in a trade, and why all your real analysis must be done before you enter.
• (13:07) The 12-Step Toolkit for Objectivity: A complete walkthrough o

Support the show