Archives of “Education” category

rss

The Trader and the Trading System Must Meet

  
Analysis, Education
  • Systems don’t need to be changed. The trick is for a trader to develop a system with which he is compatible.
  • My original system was very simple with hard-and-fast rules that didn’t allow for any deviations. I found it
    difficult to stay with the system while disregarding my own feelings. I kept jumping on and off—often at just the wrong time. I thought I knew better than the system.
  • Also, it seemed a waste of my intellect and MIT education to just sit there and not try to figure out the markets.
  • Eventually, as I became more confident of trading with the trend, and more able to ignore the news, I became more comfortable with the approach. Also, as I continued to incorporate more “expert trader rules,” my system became more compatible with my trading style.
  • As I keep trading and learning, my system (that is the mechanical computer version of what I do) keeps evolving.
  • Over time, I have become more mechanical, since (1) I have become more trusting of trend trading, and (2)
    my mechanical programs have factored in more and more “tricks of the trade.” I still go through periods of thinking I can outperform my own system, but such excursions are often self-correcting through the process of losing money.
  • I don’t think traders can follow rules for very long unless they reflect their own trading style. Eventually, a breaking point is reached and the trader has to quit or change, or find a new set of rules he can follow. This seems to be part of the process of evolution and growth of a trader.
  • A trading system is an agreement you make between yourself and the markets.

What Trend Trading Is (Ignore Fundamentals)

  
Analysis, Education
  • Reliance on Fundamentals indicates lack of faith in trend following.
  • For Trend Traders, understanding the markets is typically optional, often counter-productive.
  • When an up-trend happens, the price is moving up.
  • Trend Traders get a signal and pull the trigger without regard to the result of any individual trade.
  • Playing for comfort and searching for meanings are both counterproductive to Trend Following.
  • Trend Following systems do not speak about entry and exit prices.
  • Trend systems do not intend to pick tops or bottoms. They ride sides.
  • I don’t implement momentum; I notice it and align my trading with it.
  • There is no such thing as THE trend. Some of the shorter indicators are down while some of the longer ones are still up.

6 Stages Of A Trader

  
Analysis, Education
  Tags

If we are to become a great trader we will go through some variation of all 6 of these stages. Being aware of these stages can help you identify where you are now and where you need to eventually be. Stage

One: The Mystification Stage

Stage Two: The Hot Pot Stage

Stage Three: The Cynical Skepticism Stage

Stage Four: The Squiggle Trader Stage

Stage Five: The Inwardly-Bound Stage

Stage Six: Mastery

‘Speculative Strategy’:

  
Analysis, Education
  Tags

The Fourth Axiom tells you not to build your speculative program on a basis of forecasts, because it won’t work. Disregard all prognostications. In the world of money, which is a world shaped by human behavior, nobody has the foggiest notion of what will happen in the future. Mark that word. Nobody.
Of course, we all wonder what will happen, and we all worry about it. But to seek escape from that worry by leaning on predictions is a formula for poverty. The successful speculator bases no moves on what supposedly will happen but reacts instead to what does happen.

Design your speculative program on the basis of quick reactions to events that you can actually see developing in the present. Naturally, in selecting an investment and committing money to it, you harbor the hope that its future will be bright. The hope is presumably based on careful study and hard thinking. Your act of committing dollars to the venture is itself a prediction of sorts. You are saying, “I have reason to hope this will succeed.” But don’t let that harden into an oracular pronouncement: “It is bound to succeed because interest rates will come down.” Never, never lose sight of the possibility that you have made a bad bet.

If the speculation does succeed and you find yourself climbing toward a planned ending position, fine, stay with it. If it turns sour despite what all the prophets have promised, remember the Third Axiom. Get out.

Go to top