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One Liners For Traders

  
  Education
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  • Let winners run. While momentum is in phase, the market can run much further than might be expected.
  • Corollary to that rule: Do not exit winners without reason!
  • Be quick to admit when wrong and get flat.
  • Sometimes a time stop is the right solution. If a position is entered, but the anticipated scenario does not develop then get out.
  • Remember: if one thing isn’t happening the other thing probably is. Historically, this has never been good for me…
  • Be careful of correlations. Several positions can often equal one large position bearing unacceptable risk. Please think.
  • I am responsible for risk management, money management, trade management, doing the analytical work and putting on every trade that comes.
  • I am not responsible for the outcome of any one trade. Markets are highly random. I do not have a crystal ball. I am not as smart as I think I am.
  • Risk management is the first and last responsibility. I can make almost any mistake and be ok as long as I do not violate my risk management parameters.
  • Opportunity comes every day. Do not neglect the work. Must do analysis every day.
  • Opportunity comes every day. Get out of poor positions. Move on.
  • I am a better countertrend trader than a trend trader. Sometimes the crowd is right, and they will run me over at those times if I’m not quick to admit I’m wrong.
  • If you’re going to do something stupid, at least do it on smaller size.

STOP TRADING until you can answer YES to all QUESTIONS

  
  Education
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Managing Risk as a trader is the most important consideration and if you answer NO to any of the following questions, then STOP TRADING until you can answer YES to all of them:

  • Do you have a written trading plan that deals with risk management?
  • Have you calculated the risk that you are comfortable with in every trade?
  • Will you not place a trade, even though you have a healthy balance in your trading account, when you know that your risk exposure goes beyond the risk outlined in your trading plan?
  • Have you identified what your maximum position size will be?
  • Do you have a stop in place every time you trade?
  • Are you aware that risk management is not just about where you place your stop?
  • Will you be able to stick to your risk management rules under ALL trading conditions?

There are many ways to manage your risk but until you have a risk management process written into your trading plan and you stick to these risk management rules on EVERY occasion, then you have more work to do until you are on your way to being a successful trader. (more…)

Day Traders : Read These Rules EveryDay-Spend 10 Minutes

  
  Education
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  1. There is no single true path. 
  2. The universal trait is discipline.
  3. Trade your personality.
  4. Failure and perseverance are part of every successful trader’s life.
  5. Great traders are flexible.
  6. It takes time to become a successful trader.
  7. Keep a record of your market observations.
  8. Develop a trading philosophy.
  9. What is your edge?  Big picture tech, change, on the cusp, understand big trend before others, shifts.
  10. Confidence is important, and you build it from hard work.
  11. Hard work.
  12. Obsessiveness.
  13. Market wizards are innovators, not followers.
  14. To be a winner you have to be willing to take a loss!
  15. Risk control.  Stop-loss, or reducing position size, limit initial position size, short selling.
  16. You can’t be afraid of risk
  17. Some limit downside by focusing on undervalued stocks. (but still can drop.)
  18. Value alone is not enough.  Need catalysts.
  19. The importance of catalysts.
  20. Focus not only on when to get in, but when to get out

How did we end up with two, different definitions of risk?

  
  Education
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When I say “risk” and you say “risk,” chances are high we don’t mean the same thing.

The finance industry defines risk as something measurable. It is variability within a set of known limits. You may have heard it referred to as standard deviation or even volatility. Ultimately, it represents how much an investment wiggles over time.

I’m an adviser who talks to humans. I also happen to be human. From my experience, I know humans outside the financial world define risk differently. In everyday life, we tend to think of risk as uncertainty, or what is left over after we have thought of everything else.

With uncertainty comes variability within a set of unknown limits. It’s the stuff that comes out of left field, like Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s black swan events. Because we can’t measure uncertainty with any sort of accuracy, we think of risk as something outside our control. We often connect it to things like running out of money in retirement or ending up in a car crash.

But how did we end up with two such completely different definitions of the same thing? My research points to an economist named Frank Knight and his book “Risk, Uncertainty and Profit.”

(more…)

THE TWELVE HABITUDES

  
  Education
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A successful trader:

  1. Has a commitment to trading and comes prepared to trade.
  2. Is detached from the results. He thinks in terms of process and believes in the validity of the process.
  3. Is willing to accept loss.
  4. Is at ease with controlled risk.
  5. Thinks in terms of probabilities.
  6. Is comfortable with uncertainty.
  7. Takes the long term view.
  8. Has an attitude of abundance.
  9. Is optimistic.
  10. Has an attitude of open-mindedness and clarity of thought and perception.
  11. Has an attitude of courage. She is willing to act in the face of uncertainty and possible loss.
  12. Is disciplined. Discipline is putting into action those behaviors which need to be done to get you to your goals.

Habitude 1: Preparedness

  • A successful trader trains his mind for high power trading. If he needs a coach or mentor, he gets one. He takes the time for meditation, self-suggestion and positive visualization. He learns helpful questions to ask himself. He does whatever it takes to prepare himself mentally to trade.
  • Set goals
    • Put your goal into words. Form a sentence that is specific, simple, short, positive, in the present tense, and achievable.
    • Make a mental movie of yourself with the goal achieved.
    • Step into the movie and live it and feel it as if it is already true.
    • Design the steps necessary to take to get to the goal.
    • Commit yourself to doing the steps and make a timetable to do them. (more…)

Ten Tasks of Top Traders

  
  Education
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  1. Daily self analysis:   Successful trading is 40% risk control and 60% self-control.
  2. Daily mental rehearsal:   Practice being disciplined in your mind before you trade daily.
  3. Developing a low risk idea:   Trade with the odds on your side with a defined risk.
  4. Stalking:   Wait for the entry. Utilize patience and don’t pull the trigger to soon.
  5. Action:   Take the entry when the signal is hit. Do not freeze up. Be definitive.
  6. Monitoring:   Keep an eye on what is happening with your position.
  7. Abort:  Be ready to cut your losses, when you are wrong and hit your stop loss.
  8. Take profits:  Use trailing stop or profit target when one is hit. Allow the market to take you out.
  9. Daily briefing:   Think through your trading & what you did right/wrong based on your trading plan.
  10. Periodic review:   Is your trading working? Do adjustments need to be made?

The Three pillars of trading

  
  Education
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Money Management: You must make your trades as fixed as possible. Trade with the same risk, capital, units, percentage, and in the same type markets to manage risk most effectively.

Methodology: Choose a method that works for you and your personality. (Dow Theory, technical indicators, patterns, price and volume, etc) Once you have a methodology to your trading, test it in the real world, in real time, either with micro trades or paper trade. You need a sample size to judge its efficacy.

Trader Psychology: Manage your hope, greed, fear, and pain to stay in the game.

Where Are You Placing Your Bet?

  
  Education
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Some love risk. Others avoid it till the grave. Whether you take it head on or run in the other direction it will always catch you. Risk cannot be avoided so you better know how to put the odds in your favor. Consider the following:

You want to see life as a continuum running on a loop back and forth from risk to reward. If you want a big reward, take a big risk. If you want an average reward and an average life, take an average risk. Easier said than done, however, if you want the big reward. Our system is notorious for playing Whac-A-Mole with achievers.

From an early age, people are conditioned by families, schools, and virtually every other shaping force in society to avoid risk. To take risks is inadvisable; to play it safe is the message. Risk can only be bad. However, winners understand risk is highly productive, and not something to avoid. Taking calculated risks is different from acting rashly. Playing it safe is the true danger. Far more often than you might realize, the real risk in life turns out to be the refusal to take a risk.2 If life is a game of risk, then to one degree or another, being comfortable with assessing odds is the only option for a fulfilling life.

Consider trading from a “startup” business perspective. Every business is ultimately involved in assessing risk. Putting capital to work to make it grow is the goal. In that sense, all business is the same. The right decisions lead to success, and wrong ones lead to insolvency. Blunt, but true. There are ways to go in the right direction, however. Ask yourself these questions:

  • What is the market opportunity in the market niche?
  • What is your solution to the market need?
  • How big is the opportunity?
  • How do you make money?
  • How do you reach the market and sell?
  • What is the competition?
  • How are you better?
  • How will you execute and manage your business?
  • What are your risks?
  • Why will you succeed? (more…)

Stress hormone linked to financial crisis

  
  Education
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STRESS TRADINGThe stress that financial traders suffer during periods of high volatility in the markets reduces their appetite for risk, according to a study led by Cambridge university neuroscientist and former Wall Street trader John Coates. This may prolong financial crises.

The research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, combines field and lab work. Prof Coates and colleagues discovered that levels of the stress hormone cortisol increased by 68 per cent on average in a group of City of London traders over eight days in which market volatility increased.

 The scientists took this finding to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge where they used pharmacology – hydrocortisone tablets – to raise cortisol levels in volunteers, also by 68 per cent over eight days. Participants then played an incentivised risk-taking game. The appetite for risk collapsed, by as much as 44 per cent according to one measure, in those with raised cortisol. (The study was double-blinded with a control group taking dummy tablets.) (more…)

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