1. Commandment #1: “Thou Shall Not Trade Against the Trend.”
2. Portfolios heavy with underperforming stocks rarely outperform the stock market!
3. There is nothing new on Wall Street. There can’t be because speculation is as old as the hills. Whatever happens in the stock market today has happened before and will happen again, mostly due to human nature.
4. Sell when you can, not when you have to.
5. Bulls make money, bears make money, and “pigs” get slaughtered.
6. We can’t control the stock market. The very best we can do is to try to understand what the stock market is trying to tell us.
7. Understanding mass psychology is just as important as understanding fundamentals and economics.
8. Learn to take losses quickly, don’t expect to be right all the time, and learn from your mistakes.
9. Don’t think you can consistently buy at the bottom or sell at the top. This can rarely be consistently done.
10. When trading, remain objective. Don’t have a preconceived idea or prejudice. Said another way, “the great names in Trading all have the same trait: An ability to shift on a dime when the shifting time comes.”
11. Any dead fish can go with the flow. Yet, it takes a strong fish to swim against the flow. In other words, what seems “hard” at the time is usually, over time, right.
12. Even the best looking chart can fall apart for no apparent reason. Thus, never fall in love with a position but instead remain vigilant in managing risk and expectations. Use volume as a confirming guidepost.
13. When trading, if a stock doesn’t perform as expected within a short time period, either close it out or tighten your stop-loss point.
14. As long as a stock is acting right and the market is “in-gear,” don’t be in a hurry to take a profit on the whole positions. Scale out instead.
15. Never let a profitable trade turn into a loss, and never let an initial trading position turn into a long-term one because it is at a loss. (more…)
