How sexy is a desk with multiple monitors? Nothing excites many of us more than sitting down to our desk with charts whirring and price jumping, reaching for that elusive TP. We’re like captains on a space mission, destination – planet money.
A wise man once said, “Unless you have at least 6 monitors, you’re a loser”.
That wise man was broke 3 months later.
Surely the more markets you can watch at once, the more likely you are to detect trading opportunities, and more money you stand to make!
Right?
Not really…
You only have 2 eyes and unless you’re a circus freak, you can only look at one thing at a time. If you’re looking at multiple monitors it generally means you’re splitting your focus and not absorbing all the information needed to make logical decisions.
Research has shown there’s no such thing as multitasking. Instead, your brain toggles rapidly between each task giving it undivided attention, but only for a moment before toggling back to the previous task.
How many times have you been looking into a pair, only to see a little movement in your peripheral?
Is that a trade setting up? No… where was I? Ok, focus.
More monitors are guaranteed to do one thing – make you feel more successful than you are.
One monitor is plenty. By glueing your eyes to a single chart it makes it easier block out distractions. If a trade looks to be setting up, check other timeframes and correlated pairs, run through your trading plan and decide on a course of action. It should only take 30 seconds to to confirm, and any trade that takes less than 30 seconds to analyse isn’t a trade at all. It’s a punt.
And punting’s for gamblers, not traders.
“Sure Andrew, but if that’s the case, why do you have so many monitors? Hypocrite!”
Whoa, relax.
I have 4 monitors and a news service running on my desk, but it’s taken me time to understand my limitations and deliberately narrow my focus. I have the ability to block out peripherals until a decision is made, only then will I allow distractions to come into view.
I also use my additional monitors to join in the conversation within our trading room, or read up on the latest analysis from my advisory services.
Interestingly when I travel I happily (and successfully) trade from my laptop without issue. It’s nice to take a break from the barrage of information on my full trading station once in a while and view the market through a different lens.
If you’re already trading with multiple monitors I encourage you to pay attention to your focus. How often are your eyes darting between each chart and screen? Take your time, understand what you’re looking at before moving on.
In my experience multiple screens normally make traders less efficient and more prone to over-trading.
What do you trade on? Please feel free to share pictures inside our forum.There’s some impressive PC’s out there I must say!
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