Archives of “January 9, 2019” day

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Most Common Advice is Ineffective

  
  Education
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“Plan the trade, and trade the plan!” is perhaps the most common advice given to traders. As far as advice goes, it’s well meaning, but unfortunately falls well short of addressing the problem most traders actually face. 

Looking at the advice, it has two parts. The first part says you need a plan. No argument there. But the second part, about executing the plan, that’s where the problems appear. Why?

The two parts to the advice ‘plan the trade’ and the ‘trade the plan’ require two very different skill sets. Without understanding the different skills required, it’s highly likely that you will continue to regularly veer from your plan.

Here’s the disconnect. Planning the trade depends on your intellect. And most of the time, the development of the plan does not occur in the heat of battle.  It’s relatively easily to let your intellect guide you, to be the primary driver when you’re not in the heat of battle. But in the heat of battle, when we have to decide right now whether to enter or exit, an entirely different situation occurs. (more…)

Always Be Learning

  
  Education

When you love to do something, you enjoy learning more and more about it.  Most active traders would rather trade than do just about anything else.  Do we enjoy the learning?  Depends upon how we come upon it.  When something is a core value, our fascination with learning more about it is endless.  You can’t get enough of it.  However, when we learn through painful experience, such as the hard knocks of trading, enough certainly is enough.

Losses are tough.  Errors and mistakes are bothersome.  And, yet there’s almost always a lesson in there if you remain alert to improving.  I’ve always said that mistakes are okay if you acknowledge them and learn from them.  James Joyce said, “Mistakes are portals of discovery.”

As I trade and make mistakes, I say to myself, “I don’t have to do that again.”  And I feel reassured and optimistic about the future. Of course, I do, “do that again”.  We all do.  There are certain default attitudes and positions we naturally fall prey to.  But with an attitude of learning, we do it less and less until we (hopefully) stop repeating the unhelpful thinking and behaving.

When you trade with an attitude of constant and never ending improvement, you are alert to small and large ways to get better.  Not perfect, just better.  You pay attention to what you are doing that works so you can repeat it.

I like to end the trading day asking myself, “What did I learn today?”  Then I ask myself, “How can I utilize that tomorrow?” 

You always want to be careful to ask yourself those questions that will get you where you want to go?  “How can I become a better trader?”  “How else can I become a  better trader?” are both good questions.  Never ask yourself toxic questions such as “Why do I always lose?”  Worse still, “Why am I such a loser?”  As Carl Jung said, “To ask the right question is already half the solution of a problem.”

As a trader you want to be in a vigilant and continual process of personal and professional amelioration.  If you’re seeking to get better all the time, you won’t get worse, at least not for long.  Onward Traders!

18 Signs That The Global Economic Crisis Is Accelerating As We Enter H2 2014

  
Analysis, Education
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A lot of people that I talk to these days want to know “when things are going to start happening”.  Well, there are certainly some perilous times on the horizon, but all you have to do is open up your eyes and look to see the global economic crisis unfolding.  As you will see below, even central bankers are issuing frightening warnings about “dangerous new asset bubbles” and even the World Bank is declaring that “now is the time to prepare” for the next crisis.  Most Americans tend to only care about what is happening in the United States, but the truth is that serious economic trouble is erupting in South America, all across Europe and in Asian powerhouses such as China and Japan.  And the endless conflicts in the Middle East could erupt into a major regional war at just about any time.  We live in a world that is becoming increasingly unstable, and people need to understand that the period of relative stability that we are enjoying right now is extremely vulnerable and will not last long.

The following are 18 signs that the global economic crisis is accelerating as we enter the last half of 2014…

#1 The Bank for International Settlements has issued a new report which warns that “dangerous new asset bubbles” are forming which could potentially lead to another major financial crisis.  Do the central bankers know something that we don’t, or are they just trying to place the blame on someone else for the giant mess that they have created?

#2 Argentina has missed a $539 million debt payment and is on the verge of its second major debt default in 13 years.

#3 Bulgaria is desperately trying to calm down a massive run on the banks that threatens of spiral out of control.

#4 Last month, household loans in the eurozone declined at the fastest rate ever recorded.  Why are European banks holding on to their money so tightly right now?

#5 The number of unemployed jobseekers in France has just soared to another brand new record high. (more…)

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