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Be Flexible-5 Points to Win in Trading

  
  Education
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Flexibility for the trader  to move with price action is the key to successful trading. You can be rigid with your rules and risk management but you must be flexible when it comes to how the future plays out in price action for any market or stock. It is not those that predict the future that make a lot of money in trading but those that react to what is actually happening that are able to profit from price action.

  1. The ability to change your mind and reverse your trade in the other direction when proven wrong  is a powerful trait.
  2. The ability to admit you are wrong and take your stop loss can save your account.
  3. Put your ego aside and look at what is happening not what you believe should happen.
  4. Trade price action not your opinions.

  5. Always realize the markets are bigger than you are, they are always right.

Trading Rules & A Trading Plan

  
  Education
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There is a saying if you do not know where you are going…how will you get anywhere. There is some what of an analogy with trading and having rules and a trading plan. When you follow trading rules which match your personality along with your trading plan, you are on a path to just let the probabilities occur. Every facet of your trading needs to be thought out. It is not easy developing a trading plan with rules…however once you have it in place & accept the fact that any trade is 50/50 & does not have to work…your edge over time could possibly provide you a rising equity curve.

When you have trading rules & you follow it……you reduce the anxiety and stress levels. You know you need to follow your plan because the only certainty when trading is complete uncertainty. If you think you know where any market is going and do not put on a protective stop…Good luck and would bet you will encounter a huge shock one day.

Part of your trading rules are what to buy or sell

How much to buy or sell

When to get out with a profit or loss… (more…)

Volatile vs. Smooth

  
  Education
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“Conventional economic reasoning says that if two stocks have similar expected future cash flows and similar dependence on the market, we prefer the one that is less volatile. But might we not see some advantage to stock in volatile company A, which has survived many crises, over stock in safe, untested company B? Perhaps A’s stresses have allowed evolution of the characteristics that will succeed in the future, whereas B is narrowly positioned for the conditions of the past. In the future, perhaps A’s volatility will allow it to move faster into opportunities and away from dead ends, and to evolve as conditions change.”

– Aaron Brown, Red-Blooded Risk

Why does academia assume lower volatility is better?
How many real world instances have you seen confirming that more volatile = more robust, while smooth = over managed, artificial, and possibly brittle?
What are some of the advantages of embracing volatility — managing it versus shunning it?

Book Review: Wall Street and the Wilds

  
  Education
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Wall Street and the Wilds by A.W. Dimock, 1915, contains the sage of the rise and fall and rise and fall of a Wall Street gold trader, options seller, stock manipulator, developer of the clearing house, pool operator, Steamship promoter, real estate developer of Elizabeth, New Jersey, telegraph line builders, railroad builder, hunter, photographer and naturalist from 1850 to 1915.

It includes chapters on black Friday, the day that the gold bulls broke the US Treasury in 1870, the effect on prices of the civil way, the way manipulations were carried out in those days, the relation of the flexions to financiers in those days (not much different from today), systems for profiting in gold, the legal system in those days (fees of a million dollars for routine cases were common even in 1880, the early developments of photography in the wilds, hair raising tails of wars between the Native Americans and the US military, pinpoint shooting, advanced fly casting techniques, and much more.

Everything talked about is totally a propos of current techniques in Wall Street. Dimock was a minister’s son born in 1840 who went to Andover and came to Wall Street at 15 and got his start scalping odd lots in insurance stocks. He developed a system of selling gold every 1/8 up and buying it every eight down. He became the Little Napoleon of Wall Street and dominated the gold exchange the way the big grain companies dominate the grain market today, using some of the same techniques. He made so much money that it was easy come, easy go, and he lost it all by guaranteeing the purchase of friends, defrauding by the Goulds during Black Friday, and finally in the crash of 1873.

The book is compelling, and instructive and a great history of 19th century stock and commodity markets, very much akin and resonant of today. It’s highly instructive. I’ll quote from some of the more resonant and sagacious passages: (more…)

Hedge Fund Market Wizards – Joe Vidich

  
  Education
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A critical distinction of all great investing books is that every time you re-read them, you find insights that you somehow missed the previous times. Recently I had the opportunity to re-read some of the chapters in Hedge Fund Market Wizards. The section about equity traders is my favorite one, so I delved into it again. In this post, I am featuring some interesting observations from Jack Schwager’s conversation with Joe Vidich:

1. Position sizing is a great way to manage risk

The larger the position, the greater the danger that trading decisions will be driven by fear rather than by judgment and experience.

If you are diversified enough, then no single trade is particularly painful. The critical risk controls are being diversified and cutting your exposure when you don’t understand what the markets are doing and why you are wrong.

It is really important to manage your emotional attachment to losses and gains. You want to limit your size in any position so that fear does not become the prevailing instinct guiding your judgment. Everyone will have a different level. It also depends on what kind of stock it is. A 10 percent position might be perfectly okay for a large-cap stock, while a 3 percent position in a highflying mid-cap stock, which has frequent 30 percent swings, might be far too risky.

2. Charts are extremely important.

One of the best patterns is when a stock goes sideways for a long time in a narrow range and then has a sudden, sharp up move on large volume. That type of price action is a wake-up call that something is probably going on, and you need to look at it. Also, sometimes whatever is going on with that stock will also have implications for other stocks in the same sector. It can be an important clue. (more…)

EVERY OUTCOME IS PRECEDED BY A PROCESS

  
  Education
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Van Tharp3Every outcome is preceded by a process. You will not make money trading unless you follow a predetermined plan and continually stick to that plan. That’s why you should pat yourself on the back every day if you can honestly say that you totally followed your rules throughout the day. Every “Market Wizard” arrives at that stature by taking one trade at a time. The primary difference between that person and the average trader is that the Market Wizard probably continued to follow his plan every single day. 

Thoughts of Market Wizard Gary Bielfeldt

  
  Education
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Discipline

I like to think of myself as very disciplined when it comes to sticking to my system. However, after my recent selling, I have started to question how disciplined I really am. I keep making changes to my system that I think are improvements, but is that just a lack of discipline to stick to the original plan? Also, just because I am more disciplined than most of the people I know doesn’t mean that I have enough discipline to trade successfully.”

Patience

Patience is probably my weakest of these five traits. For as long as I can remember I have never really been patient about anything. My trading is no different. I I have chased after extended stocks as well as bought too soon because I was afraid that the market was going to take off without me. I need to work on this more than anything else.

Courage

This is an area that I have improved in tremendously over the past 18 months. I have found that the combination of more knowledge and more experience have given me greatly increased confidence in my purchases. This has allowed me to feel more comfortable when I establish new positions. (more…)

JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH ON STOCK MARKET MEMORY LOSS

  
  Education
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Where else but in the markets can short term memory loss be both beneficial and profitable?

John Kenneth Galbraith, an economist, says the financial markets are characterized by…

“…extreme brevity of the financial memory.  In consequence, financial disaster is quickly forgotten.  In further consequence, when the same or closely similar circumstances occur again, SOMETIMES IN A FEW YEARS, they are hailed by a new, often youthful, and always extremely self-confident generation as a brilliantly innovative discovery in the financial and larger economic world.  There can be few fields of human endeavor in which history counts for so little as in the world of finance.” [emphasis mine].

Warren Buffett Warns Amateur Investors Against This Common Mistake

  
  Education
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Today’s Smart Investor tip comes from billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who outlined the biggest mistakes amateur investors make for Adam Shell at USA Today.

The Oracle of Omaha warns investors against an incredibly common mistake: You shouldn’t try to time the market. He says it’s a mistake to predict or listen to others who predict the short-term movement of stocks. By the same token, he says you shouldn’t try to flip stocks like high-frequency traders do.

Instead, Buffett says the best thing the average investor can do is buy an index fund over time. That’s it. From USA Today: (more…)

CHANGE IS ESSENTIAL

  
  Education
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The stock market, just like life, can change on a dime.  In the market, just as in life, we must learn to adapt to change.  What separates the great trader from the rest of the crowd is his or her ability to change based on current market conditions.  In other words, NO EGO ALLOWED.  Mark Douglas, in his first book entitled The Disciplined Trader writes,

“There must be a difference between these two types of traders-the small majority of winners and the vast majority of losers who want to know what the winners know. The difference is that the traders who can make money consistently on a weekly, monthly, and yearly basis approach trading from the perspective of a mental discipline.  When asked for their secrets of success, they categorically state that they didn’t achieve any measure of consistency in accumulating wealth from trading until they learned self-discipline, emotional control, and the ability to change their minds to flow with the markets.”

We trade the current market conditions as they unfold with a plan to trade one way or the other.  To do otherwise would be to fight an undefeated foe.

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