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10 Questions for Traders

  
  Education
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Traders must have rules and trading plans because in the heat of trading when emotions flare up that is when greed, fear, and ego can easily hijack the trader. Traders all have many different conflicting parts that can interfere with trading execution. The need to be right, the need to make money, the fear of loss, and the greed of making a lot of money can take over any trader that does not have a disciplined approach that is created before the day begins. Mechanical systems, trading rules, along with positions sizing and risk management factors can keep a trader safe from making huge mistakes.

Here are the top 10 Questions Traders must ask to protect them from themselves.

1. Where does the price of my trading vehicle have to go to prove I was wrong about my entry?

2. How much is the maximum I will lose on the trade if I am wrong?

3. What are my rules for entries?

4. How will I exit my winner to bank profits?

5. What is the current trend of the time frame I trade in?Where is my best entry point to trade in this direction? (more…)

SIMPLIFY

  
  Education
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simplifyWhen we follow a standardized process for trade execution, we help negate the impact that emotions can have on that process.  And when we create a set of rules within which is a subset of rules that allow for less mechanical, more intuitive management of our trades, we can potentially realize additional profits from those intangible insights into market direction without over-exposing our account to risk.  Here is how it works:

  S – Scan your charts .  Create a “Watch List” to help manage your inventory of trading opportunities.

I – Identify a high probability set up.    

 M – Map out the trade’s entry point, stop-loss exit point, and profit exit point. 

P – Pull the trigger.  By systematizing the process as we are talking about here, the anxiety associated with executing a trade is greatly reduced.  Instead of focusing on whatever issues keep you from pulling the trigger, your focus is on following a procedure, a set of instructions.  Mapping out and understanding exactly what our risk is also reduces the anxiety of entering a trade.    

 L – Let the market do its thing.  It’s not very often that you won’t have to take some heat on a trade.  It’s a great feeling when a trade goes in your favor immediately and stays that way.  But that’s the exception and not the rule.  As a good friend of mine would say, “Let it breathe!”  (more…)

The Ten Cardinal Rules for Traders

  
  Education
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1. Learn to function in a tense, unstructured, and unpredictable environment.
2. Be an independent thinker versus a conventional thinker.
3. Work out a way to handle your emotions and maintain objectivity.
4. Don’t rely on hope and fear in the conventional sense.
5. Work continuously to improve yourself, giving importance to self-examination and recognizing that your personality and way of responding to events are a critical part of the game. This requires continuous coaching.
6. Modify your normal responses to certain events.
7. Be willing to face problems, understand them, and recognize that they are in some way related to your behavior.
8. Know when problems can be resolved and then apply methods to solve them. That may mean giving up some control in order to gain a different control. It may mean changes in your personality, learning self-reliance, or giving up independence and ego to become part of a trading team.
9. Understand the larger framework in which trading occurs—how the complexity of the marketplace and your personality both must be taken into account in order to develop the mastery of trading.
10. Develop the right mind-set for trading—a willingness to commit to the kinds of changes in personal habits and beliefs that will drastically alter your life. To do this requires a willingness to surrender to the forces of the game. In order to be able to play at a maximum level, you have to let go of your ego and your need to have things your way.Do the hard thing. – Richard Dennis

Trader's Emotions

  
  Education
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Despair = Losing Money – Trading Better

Do not despair look at your losses as part of doing business and as paying tuition fees to the markets.

Disappointment = Expectations – Reality

Enter trading with realistic expectations. You can realistically expect 20%-35% annual returns on capital with great trading. More than that is possible but unlikely.

Regret = Disappointment in a loss+ Caused by lack of Discipline

If you followed your trading plan and lose money because the market did not move in your direction so be it, but if you went off your plan and traded based on your feelings and opinions then you should feel regret and stop being undisciplined.

Enjoying your Trading = Winning Trades – Fear of Ruin

Trading is much more enjoyable when you are risking 1% of your capital in the hopes of making 3% on your capital with a zero chance of ruin. It is not enjoyable when you are putting a huge percentage of your capital on the line in each trade and are only a few bad trades away from your account going to zero.

Wisdom = Square Root of Experience through years of successful trading

To get good at trading you have to trade real money. Wisdom comes from putting real money on the line for years and proving to yourself that you can come out a winner in the long term.

Faith in your system = Belief through back testing + Experience of winning with it for years

While you have to hold the opinion of whether each trade is a winner or loser it is different for your trading method. A lot of emotional trading can be overcome when you do not have doubts about your method. When you hold an almost religious fervor over believing in your method, system, risk management, and your own discipline you will overcome many of the emotional problems that arise with other traders in the heat of action.

Good Points on Trading psychology

  
  Education
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  • Stop trying to outsmart the market. NO ONE knows exactly where it will go.
  • With each decision you make comes stress:Forget about the “whys’ of the market. After all is said and done, the reasons will be known.FORU
    • The more decisions you make, the more likely you are to be wrong.
    • The more decisions you are used to making, the more pressure you’ll put on yourself to make even more decisions.
    • No one can be that right.
  • Don’t apply logic. Markets move on emotions — period!
  • Plan your trade and trade your plan.
  • Reduce the amount of decisions you make.
  • Make decisions and live with them (also a life lesson!).
    • Good decisions come from experience.
    • Experience comes from bad decisions.

10 Points for Traders

  
  Education
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  1. Capital flows from those who fight trends to those who follow them.10 HABITS

  2. In the long term money flows to those who manage risk and are able to hold on to their profits from those who don’t manage risk. 
  3. Traders that persevere through the learning curve stick around long enough to make money from those that just trade with no understanding of what they are doing.
  4. Robust systems take money from traders with no edge over the markets.
  5. Traders that trade price action take money from those that trade opinions.
  6. Traders that enter a trade based on a reversal signal make money form those that stubbornly hold on to a losing trade and hope.
  7. Money flows to those who let winners run from those that hold losing trades and hope.
  8. Capital flows from those that trade a winning methodology from those that trade on emotions.
  9. Those with big egos pay a price to try to prove they are right by holding a losing trade those that admit they are wrong quickly keep hard earned profits.

  10. Money flows from those who do not know how to trade to those who do.

Anger

  
  Education
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As traders, fear and greed are the two emotions that we commonly handle in our trading decisions.

But I believe another emotion that we also sometimes experienced would be – anger.

Most traders have learned to be calm and sensible during trading. But there would certainly be times times when we fumed at missing out a fantastic trade, for not buying more contracts of a great trade, or frustrated for committing that same trading blunder again.

We would blame just about anything or anyone when our trading suffered. Somehow we didn’t realize that the anger have originated from us.

I recently read a book called “Zero Limits” co-written by Dr Joe Vitale & Dr Hew Len. The book was quite an eye-opening read. It mentioned that we are the one who are fully responsible for any circumstances which are happening within & around us.

When we encountered another person pouring out his or her frustrations, whether they were meant for us or not, we should accept that we were partly responsible for that happening, since his or her frustrations had come into our lives.

Naturally, we are responsible for our own anger too.

The way to resolve this would be, strange it may sound, is to keep cleansing ourselves by constantly repeating the phrases “I love you”, “I’m sorry”, “Please forgive me” and “Thank you” to ourselves.

According to the book, these are simple but powerful words that we convey to the Divine. We connect to the Divine by expressing our love and gratitude to him. At the same time, we seek the Divine’s forgiveness of our wrong doings.

Saying these 4 phrases will cleanse the memories of greed, fear and anger associated with anything (including trading) as we give in to the Divine to handle the situation for us.

We would experience a peace of mind that the Divine is taking care of us. Another positive outcome of cleansing ourselves is that we are now open to receive the inspirations from the Divine for us to act upon.

I encourage you to read more about this ancient Hawaiian practice called Ho’oponopono from “Zero Limits” to experience this positive feeling.

I hope that in time you will gradually banish your anger not only in your trading but also in other parts of your life.

“I love you”, “I’m sorry”, “Please forgive me”, “Thank you”.

Discipline

  
  Education
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A day trader should leave no room for fear and greed to take over, otherwise, this will be the key to your losses. A good trader should be disciplined, make discipline a habit, and act in accord with trading systems/strategies. You can do your trade in a consistent and reliable manner this way. Certain situations require an individual to make decisions based on their pre-set criteria and parameters.

 You should make it a point to habitually follow your trading system/plan. When you’re making trading decisions, don’t let your emotions rule you. A day trader should always be disciplined, and once you attain your objective, leave the market first. Oftentimes people plunge in deeper because they are influenced by greed and fear.

 There are also day traders who are quite reluctant to lose money. For instance your stock goes down,and you’re still hoping that after some time it will rise again. And to your surprise, the share price goes further down. If only you were not reluctant to lose money, you could have sold it the first time its price went down, and prevent further loss.

 Day traders need to make fast executions and confirmations of the trade, so you must have a fast internet connection. They also need to receive and deliver quotes, news, and other pertinent market data. A fast internet connection allows you to make your day trading in a timely fashion. If you’re serious with your day trading. You would need hardware and software requirements to put a sufficient platform at home for online trading.

 You can practice through simulated trading before using real money. Here you can incorporate all your trading techniques and see if they actually work. Don’t be a scared to lose a certain amount of money. But it doesn’t mean that you should not limit your losses. Most importantly, you should learn from your past losses. Becoming a day trader is a simple thing. But in any case it requires dedication, time and effort. You will reap profits that you’ve never imagined, if you are able to put all of these things together.

Passion & Hope -Two Key Drivers

  
  Education
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The two key drivers of success in any endeavor is passion and hope.

Passion creates the energy to do what we need to do to get to where we want to go. Many times money is just the side effect of the work we do driven by our own passion and desire for success with little thought given to the monetary reward that could happen during the battle for success. When we are passionate about something we just love doing it, we just love the game itself and everything about being in that game and playing it. True professionals do not use their bank account as a daily motivator to work, they are doing what they were born to do, they are just being who they are and what they are.

Hope is what gets us up in the morning and keeps us working toward our goals. Hope gives us the ability to do hard work today for a potential reward in the future. Hope sees an account at $0 and sees that it could be over a million dollars if the right plan is followed. Hope gives us the energy to work hard in our present circumstances believing that we are receiving an education that will show us the path to where we want to be. The greatest cause of depression is being realistic about the present and future and the loss of hope in tomorrow.
being better than today.  Know what you want, and understand how to get there. If you are willing to do what you have to do and be willing to pay the price that your goal costs you can have what you want.

“A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.” 
― Bob Dylan

Emotional Intelligence v Intellectual Intelligence in trading.

  
  Education
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What is more important for success as a trader – A high level of Intellectual Intelligence, or a high level of Emotional Intelligence?

Warren Buffett once said; “Success in investing doesn’t correlate with I.Q. once you’re above the level of 25. Once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing“.

 Very briefly emotional intelligence can be defined as an ability, skill or a self-perceived ability to identify, assess, and control the emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups. 

 Broadly speaking intellectual intelligence can be defined an academic or cognitive intelligence. Resing and Drenth (2007) use the following definition: “The whole of cognitive or intellectual abilities required to obtain knowledge, and to use that knowledge in a good way to solve problems that have a well described goal and structure.”

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