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Positive Affirmations

affirmationsRepeat the words yourself to ingrain them in your brain.
Repeat the words yourself to ingrain them in your brain.

  • I am a consistent trader.
  • I have complete confidence in my abilities.
  • – I follow my trading plan.
  • I know the markets today are capable of doing anything.
  • I am prepared to trade what I see.
  • I will have winning and losing trades today.
  • I set stops immediately after I enter a trade.
  • I will never add to a losing position.
  • I have complete confidence in my abilities.
  • I have supreme concentration.
  • I will immerse myself into the market flow.
  • I will take what the market offers up to me.
  • I know what my trading edge looks like.
  • I will not hesitate when my system gives me a signal.
  • I have complete trust in probabilities.
  • I will buy when my system signals me to buy.
  • I will sell when my system tells me to sell.
  • I will trade responsible size, never risking too much.
  • I am moving closer to my goals everyday.
  • I am a skillful trader but always striving to do better.
  • I learn from my mistakes so I do not repeat them.
  • I have complete confidence in my abilities.
  • I am an excellent trader.

Links worth reading

  • The secrets of the Afghan war released (WSJ)
  • BP set to announce Hayward departure (FT)
  • Must read: The death of paper money (Telegraph)
  • European Banking’s Next Focus Is Funding (WSJ)
  • U.K. Growth Forecast Cut on Budget Curbs, Ernst & Young to Say (BusinessWeek)
  • Taleb: Government Deficits Could Be the Next ‘Black Swan’ (BusinessWeek)
  • Deficits Don’t Matter as Geithner Growth Gets Lowest Yield (Bloomberg)
  • When will the US go the way of Rome (RCM)
  • Are you A Discretionary Trader? How would you be able to tell?

    Here is a quiz that will help you decide. Answer Yes or No to the following questions.
    1. Do you sometimes buy newsletter recommendations without having a real plan for how you’ll get out of the trade?
    2. Do you occasionally (or often) take trades based upon some interesting indicator that you learned in a workshop (i.e., when you see that indicator go, you usually get into a trade, but again you have no real plan about how you’ll get out of the trade)?
    3. Do you trade three or more different systems in the same account?
    4. Do you trade more than ten different systems?
    5. Do you sometimes enter a trade and later not remember why?
    6. Are you unsure of how many systems you have?
    7. Do most of your systems lack a complete set of rules to guide your behavior?
    8. Are your systems equivalent to the setups used to get into the trades and nothing more?
    9. Are you unable to list the rules for the last trade you made?
    10. Are you able to list the rules for any of the last five trades you made? (more…)

    Trading Wisdom

    This (Trading) is not a job where you get paid by the hour. You get paid for doing the right thing”

    -“Forget that your money is at stake. Money in trading account is just a tool for making money. Preserve your tool. You need it to make money”

    -“Don’t let the outcome of one trade alter your trading discipline. One trade doesn’t make a system…”

    -“Trading is a game of probabilities. You don’t have to be right every time. You just have to follow your rules”

    -“You decide your fate; the market doesn’t”

    -“Pure followers of stock pickers will never be around…Learn or you are bankrupt”

    -“Be aggressive in trending market and conservative in choppy market”

    “Take home runs when you can, but don’t beat yourself up about missing a few. One trade should never make or break your account”

    Personal Strengths and Weaknesses

    We all have different personal strengths and weakness.  Many people focus on transforming a weakness into a strength. While that is admirable, the reality is that it’s not always possible. Although I agree with the basic idea of brain plasticity, and I whole-heartedly agree with the idea of always striving for self-improvement, I also know that as humans we have a certain degree of natural-born temperament and not everything about us can be changed.

    Although we can’t always build or change every weakness into strength, the good news is that we can always leverage our strengths, if we know how. And that is mighty powerful. It’s so powerful that if you leverage the right strengths in the right way they can do an excellent job of not just counter-balancing your weaknesses, but can propel you so far ahead  that those weaknesses pale in comparison.

    One of the most powerful things you can do for yourself is identifying your natural strengths and then work to see how you can build on them.

    We all have different personal strengths, and knowing how to leverage them is an important part of successful trading. A major consideration here is that you try to identify and leverage your own personal strengths, and not simply copy someone else’s. All too often I see struggling traders running from one style to another style whenever they see someone else’s success. One of the primary reasons why copying someone else’s trading style doesn’t always pay off in trading is because of different personal strengths.

    Consecutive Loses

    loser-1

    You go long and the market immediately goes down – you go short and the market immediately goes up.  That’s 2 consecutive losses AND you are getting a little ‘anxious’ so you don’t take the ‘next’ trade and it of course works.  BUT to make the situation worse you then ‘chase’ the entry and it immediately reverses – another loss AND this is 3 in a row.  Ok 1 more try – this can’t happen on every trade can it – pray mode?   
    This time though you will be real clever.  You have at least noticed that the market is in a range AND it’s the bounce from the low/retrace from the high that is causing all the problems.  So this time the next trade you take will be a range extreme fade AND the hell with your trading method.  The market is at the range low AND per your new ‘on the fly’ plan you go long AND the range immediately breaks out giving you consecutive loser #4 – trading against a method trade that is going far enough to pay for the previous 3 losers and make you net ahead.   
    Now what are you supposed to do – QUIT?  AND to be sure that there is no more temptation – your throw your computer out the window and dive out right behind it.  You are in a trading psychology spiral.