Archives of “Education” category
rssQuotes from "Trading for a Living" by Alexander Elder and my love for trading
“The market does not know you exist. You can do nothing to influence it. You can only control your behavior.”
“The ocean does not care about your welfare, but it has no wish to hurt you either. You may feel joy on a sunny day, when a gentle wind pushes your sailboat where you want it to go. You may feel panic on a stormy day when the ocean pushes your boat toward the rocks. Your feelings about the ocean exist only in your mind.”
“A sailor cannot control the ocean, but he can control himself. He studies currents and weather patterns. He learns safe sailing techniques and gains experience. He knows when to sail and when to stay in the harbor.”
“When joy sweeps you off your feet, you will make irrational trades and lose. When fear grips you, you’ll miss profitable trades. A professional trader uses his head and stays calm. Only amateurs become excited or depressed because of their trades.”
I still need to control my emotions, thus I am still an amateur trader. No matter how much I try to pretend to myself to not get excited or fearful, its impossible. You just cant lie to yourself… This is the one other skill I need to work on psychology wise.
On a side note I would like to share with you what attracts me about trading (more…)
Trading Truths
- It’s all about risk management … never risk what you can’t comfortably lose.
- Never fall in love with a stock.
- To be succesfull in trading; study, understand and practice. The rest is easier.
- Always start by assuming your analysis is WRONG and that people much smarter and with more recent information are already positioned opposite you.
- Never take on a position larger than your comfort zone. (Don’t overtrade)
- Patience. never chase a stock.
- Before entering the trade very think carefully what will make you wrong, write it down clearly and put it infront of you where you trade, and when your wrong get out happy you’ve followed your trading discipline.
- Buy strength, sell weakness. Most traders are essentially counter-trend; most traders lose.
- No one ever went broke taking a profit!
- Once you find a good one, hang on unless of course they do you wrong.
- Never add to a losing position! (Unless scaling in was part of the plan).
- Whenever you think you’ve found the key to the lock, they’ll change the lock.
- Do not overtrade.
- Trade price not perception.
- Know the difference between stocks that you want to stay married to and those that are just a fling.
- The only sure way to make a small fortune is to start with a large one.
- Cut your losses quickly and you may have a chance.
- An indicator works until it doesn’t.
- “MR. MARKET” IS ACTUALLY “MRS. MARKET” ONLY WOMEN CAN THINK, AND ACT THE WAY THE MARKET DOES. THAT IS WHY -ON AVERAGE -WOMEN ARE BETTER TRADERS THAN MEN, THEY UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY DEALING WITH! (more…)
and to paraphrase Will Rogers: Buy only stocks that will go up. Don’t buy the ones that don’t go up. “THIS is GAMBLING.”
Best Trading Practices for Trend Followers
Best practices are those things that would contribute to your bottom line over a long period of time. These best practices are built on routines. I have the exact same routine every day for my trading. I am up at 5am down load my data and it is automatically entered into my trading platforms. Years of work is instantly automated. I manually check my orders as anything can happen. I know that when I do not follow this exact routine..I will likely reduce my profitability. Maintaining and reviewing a list of best practices can keep a trader grounded in a right mind-set.
Best trend following practices go hand and hand with a complete trading plan which tells us what to buy or sell…how much to buy or sell…and when to exit with a profit or a loss…
Past performance is not indicative of future performance
Traders Read this 100 times. Memorize it. Then duct tape it to your computer screen. –
Example of Drug response curve. You can relate this to "extensive research" or wealth
David Eagleman on Choice & Time
David Eagleman on choice and time form the recent FQXi conference on time. Hang in because it’s good stuff, even if not professional audio & video.