Emotional Discipline for Trading Success with Diana Perkins

Diana Perkins shares how you can master your emotions through discipline for trading success. Her journey has taken her from a childhood fascination with finance to building a career in trading and eventually launching her own trading education business. She mentors aspiring traders and emphasizes that long-term success is overwhelmingly about emotional discipline and risk management. 

We discuss... 

• Diana Perkins shares that she knew finance was her calling from a young age, charging her sister interest on loans at age nine.
• She fell in love with trading stock options and derivatives, and mentors hundreds of aspiring traders.
• Today, Diana runs her own trading education business focused on teaching new traders with an emphasis on risk management.
• Most traders, particularly currency traders, tend to blow up at least one account as a "rite of passage."
• Fear, greed, and mindset are much bigger factors in trading success than simply knowing technical skills.
• Diana works extensively with options traders, helping them overcome the initial intimidation of options complexity.
• She emphasized the importance of discipline and emotional control in trading over just understanding strategies.
• Her favorite strategy when trading professionally is vertical spreads because of their limited risk and “set it and forget it” nature.
• She shared that she still trades today, both in her own account and through a virtual portfolio for her stock-picking service.
• Most people’s natural instincts — fear, greed, impatience — are what make trading so challenging.
• Even random stock picks can perform well if trade management and discipline are handled properly.
• Diana emphasizes that discipline, probability, and risk management are at the core of successful trading, not just stock picking.
• It's important to focus on the amount of premium at risk rather than the number of contracts or shares controlled.
• Verticals require holding to expiration to capture full profit potential since gains are capped.
• Implied volatility (IV) can often cause seemingly "off" prices, particularly around earnings and major events.
• Consistency over time is critical to profiting from strategies like IV trading, much like "sell in May" seasonality trades.
• While AI tools can assist, she double-checks everything manually due to her auditing background and mistrust of "black box" systems.
• Although past performance isn't predictive, understanding human psychology — fear and greed — can offer powerful trading insights.

Today's Panelists:

• Kirk Chisholm | Innovative Wealth
• Barbara Friedberg | Barbara Friedberg Personal Finance
• Douglas Heagren | Pro College Planners

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For more information, visit the show notes at https://moneytreepodcast.com/discipline-for-trading-success-diana-perkins-708