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Day Trading is like Monopoly

I know a lot of traders who are just eeking by or breaking even at the end of the month. Many of these traders ask what they could be doing better or what my “secret” is.Monopoly. You buy 4 houses and sell them to buy a hotel. In other words, you find a simple, routine, monotonous way of trading and you just do it over and over. Most of the guys I talk to have a trading strategy, most of them have tested it. What they don’t have is the confidence to just stick with it. Trading shouldn’t be a roller coaster, but rather it should be routine like filling out TPS reports.Mental Toughness by Daniel Teitelbaum. In his book he states that you need to break down the walls that are stopping you from reaching success. He has you work on several mental exercises to help you focus on what you need to do. After all, if you knew that you had to take that GOOG trade this morning or your family would die you’d be plenty motivated to take the trade and to do it right.

So what’s the secret? It’s painfully simple – Day Trading (or any type of trading) is like

I think the main reason that most traders can’t stick with it is that they haven’t got enough mental focus. They get tired and sleep in past market open, or they become unsure of themselves so they fail to initalize the first trade of the day when the setup is right in front of them, or they rationalize that some piece of news or the other will do such and such to the market. All of these rationalizations are subconscious disruptions coming to the surface.

If you’ve ever failed to stick with your trading plan and end up taking the one losing trade of the day, I strongly recommend you check out

Make a committment to yourself, to your family and to your trading by taking the next 30 signals without deviating from your trading plan and I guarantee that you will learn the secret to your trading success – you.

Jim Chanos On Short Selling: The Power of Negative Thinking

Short selling and Jim Chanos go hand in hand. Whenever you see his name, you instantly think of Enron and how he unveiled the fraud there. The Kynikos Associates hedge fund manager is worth following due to his success but maybe more-so for the fact that he makes so many public appearances. If hedge funds operate behind a shroud of secrecy, then short sellers typically operate behind a shroud ten times as secret. Yet Chanos deviates from the norm and can often be found on television, doing interviews, and sharing his ideas. While talking his book might help some of his positions, it also means he’s more often than not cast as a villain. Chanos argues that good short sellers are born, not trained. Many would take issue with that statement as numerous hedge funds recommend their analysts read Kathryn Staley’s book, The Art of Short Selling

to really gain an edge.

In late May, Chanos delivered a presentation at the CFA Institute’s annual conference. You’ll remember that Baupost Group’s Seth Klarman also spoke at this event and we previously covered his thoughts on the markets

as well. This time around we present you Chanos’ speech entitled, “The Power of Negative Thinking” which focused on his bread and butter: short selling. (more…)

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