25 Trading Mantras

Seeing an opportunity and acting upon it are two different things.

•  Price has memory. Odds are what price did the last time it hit a certain level will be repeated  . . . (BR:  Until support or resistance fails).

•  Pay attention to price action, regardless of what the charts are saying.

•  Look for a reversal at the same place you’re expecting a breakout or breakdown.

•  Price action sets up against the majority; the best profits are often in the opposite direction of the way you’re planning to go.

• Add to your winners and cut your losers. ’nuff said.

•  Opportunities come along all of the time. Wait for the best ones.

•  Don’t overly anticipate or see things that aren’t there. Wait for your signals.

•  The day isn’t over until the closing bell ring. The way it ends may be vastly different from how it begins.

•  Your first job isn’t to make money. It’s to protect capital.

•  Don’t rush to buy the lowest price or sell the highest price; It could get much lower or much higher before turning around.

•  Most profits come during a few days each month. Play a waiting game the rest of the time.

•  Traders lose the most money on the same days the market offers the greatest profits.

•  Place yourself ahead of, behind or opposite other traders. The one place you don’t want to be is in the middle of the crowd.

•  Read the charts with one eye on where the whales will act. These are the pivot points where the broad market will rally or sell off.

•  Traders tend to be early rather than late into positions. Their fear of missing the move overwhelms their fear of being wrong.

•  You lose money when you trade what you believe instead of what you see.

•  Trade triggers, not patterns. The trigger is a perfect alignment of price and time.

•  A nervous stomach gets in the way of short sales. Short-sellers see bull markets in every bounce and give up good trades to avoid getting trampled.

•  Tiny pieces of the market puzzle reveal the big picture. Keep a diary of isolated observations because they pay off in time.

•  Throw money at the market after an extended break. The action gets you in synch faster than sitting around and trying to figure out what you missed.

•  The crowd gets excited about the long side when it’s time to sell short, and excited about the short side when it’s time to go long.

•  Price moves along the path of least resistance.

•  It’s a lot harder to follow your rules when things get really crazy.

•  Whales portray themselves as smart money, but they are as confused as everyone else.