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8 Trading Psychology Quotes

  
  Education
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Your biggest enemy, when trading, is within yourself. Success will only come when you learn to control your emotions. Edwin Lefevre’s Reminiscences of a Stock Operator (1923) offers advice that still applies today.

  1. CautionExcitement (and fear of missing an opportunity) often persuade us to enter the market before it is safe to do so. After a down-trend a number of rallies may fail before one eventually carries through. Likewise, the emotional high of a profitable trade may blind us to signs that the trend is reversing.
  2. PatienceWait for the right market conditions before trading. There are times when it is wise to stay out of the market and observe from the sidelines.
  3. ConvictionHave the courage of your convictions: Take steps to protect your profits when you see that a trend is weakening, but sit tight and don’t let fear of losing part of your profit cloud your judgment. There is a good chance that the trend will resume its upward climb. (more…)

Recipe for catching a reversal:

  
  Education
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recipesIngredients: For this recipe you will need one (1) well-known or “classic” technical chart pattern on a daily time frame, preferably near the high or low of the mid-term price range. When your pattern of choice has been observed, you will then need to collect at least two (2) or more instances of public expressions of sentiment which confirm the prognostication of said pattern: pre- or post-market media bytes, business news website headlines, confident/fearful declarations on your favorite trading forum, or any other variety of before-the-fact assumption.

Preparation: When the above ingredients have been secured, wait for a daily close which would confirm “ripeness” of the pattern. Next morning, enter a stop order at the confirmation price in the opposite direction of pattern breakout to initiate position. If stop is triggered, immediately enter protective stop at prior low/high.

Parboiling: If market moves quickly in your favor, take profits on at least a partial portion; mentally “set aside” closed profit for re-entry if market pulls back towards initial entry price with next few days. If pullback manages to hold above prior high/low, re-enter full position at your discretion.

Cooking: Set protective stop for entire position at breakeven and let sit undisturbed for a few days or more if possible.

Presentation: Dish is ready when “failure” point of pattern is breached; serve at market or with trailing stop, whichever you prefer.

21 Things Guaranteed to Happen

  
  Education

1. When you got out for lunch, the market will take a big move in your favor that you were too slow on the trigger to capture. Your wicked friends will stay glued to the screen during that time, knowing the big move in what would have been in your favor is about to happen.

2. When you switch your position size down after series of big losses, you will hit 5 winners in a row, which will not compensate you for just one of the big losses you took.

3. The bonds will rally big on a economic number like GNP, but stocks will go down sharply and the explanation will be concerns about interest rate increases.

4. The big basketball game will feature a comeback the previous evening that is exactly like what happens in your market, and your team won’t make it to black nor will you.

5. Whenever you have a big loss, and it turns around and goes to break even and you get out with a hootenany of relief, the market will go at least as far in your favor if you held as your were under water before.

6. Whenever there is serious morbidity in your family, you will lose many days in a row.

7. After a tremendous decline, the market will percolate around near unchanged for a day or two until you give up hoping for a rise, and then it will have a huge rise in your favor.

8. After a series of lucky trades in your favor, you will increase your size and the market will give you a tremendous beating. The same thing happens with basketball teams when they hit a lucky % of threes in the first half. When they try the same thing in the second half, they will make only 10% of them, and will go on to an ignominious defeat. (more…)

Trading commandments

  
  Education
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ten_commandments1.) Respect the price action but never defer to it.

Our eyes are valuable tools when trading, but if we deferred to the flickering ticks, stocks would be “better” up and “worse” down. That’s backward logic.

2.) Discipline trumps conviction.

No matter how strongly you feel on a given position, you must defer to the principles of discipline when trading. Always try to define your risk and never believe you’re smarter than the market.

3.) Opportunities are made up easier than losses.

It’s not necessary to play every day; it’s only necessary to have a high winning percentage on the trades you choose to make. Sometimes the ability not to trade is as important as trading ability.

4.) Emotion is the enemy when trading.

Emotional decisions have a way of coming back to haunt you. If you’re personally attached to a position, your decision-making process will be flawed. Take a deep breath before risking your hard-earned coin. See related link.

5.) Zig when others zag.

Sell hope, buy despair and take the other side of emotional disconnects. If you can’t find the sheep in the herd, chances are you’re it. (more…)

Trading quotes

  
  Education
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And the great sea with its friends and its enemies. And bed, he thought. Bed is my friend. Just bed, he thought. Bed will be a great thing. It is easy when you are beaten, he thought. I never knew how easy it was. And what beat you, he thought. ‘Nothing’, he said aloud. ‘I went out too far.’

– Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

‘At that point I ought to have gone away, but a strange sensation rose up in me, a sort of defiance of fate, a desire to challenge it, to put out my tongue at it. I laid down the largest stake allowed – four thousand gulden – and lost it. Then, getting hot, I pulled out all I had left, staked it on the same number, and lost again, after which I walked away from the table as though I were stunned. I could not even grasp what had happened to me.’

– The Gambler, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

If you must play, decide upon three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time.

– Chinese Proverb

Luck never gives; it only lends.

– Swedish Proverb

Depend on the rabbit’s foot if you will, but remember it didn’t work for the rabbit.

– R.E. Shay

Building a Winning Momentum

  
  Education
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History has recorded many great winning streaks.

Whether they were made in business, team sports, individual sports or other areas, they all had some common characteristics. They had a strong foundation, a belief in what they were doing and they took it one step at a time.

In trading, we can develop a winning streak if we decide to not always categorize winning with profits.

Success brings about more success, however if we decide we are a failure, then failure can also bring about more failure.

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