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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].

Battle of Waterloo and Trading

  
  Education
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I often talk about the Battle Of Waterloo and how it relates to trading in general and specifically strategy development. If you don’t know the battle (which I recommend reading about if you have time), just listen to this once popular country song and you’ll get a sense to why I think this is so important.

While I’m no historian, I do think traders can learn a lot about trading through learning about important battles in history. The Battle Of Waterloo offers a great example as it offers many lessons for us to consider:

  1. Make your planning and risk analysis commensurate with the size of your project. For major endeavors, contingency plans are critical.

  2. Know when to cut your losses if necessary. Don’t let your desire to succeed be the enemy of good judgment.

  3. Be sure that the justification is clear for your project, and that your entire team is sold.

  4. Don’t become over-confident, especially after many successes. Remember the basic principles.

  5. Never attempt an unpopular endeavor in isolation.

  6. Don’t make enemies. You are only as good as your allies.

  7. Adopt leader style politics, not the Machiavellian style. Look for the win-win.

Many of these lessons apply to good trading, especially the ones about the importance of having contingency plans, knowing when to cut losses, having clear justifications for your trades, the importance of avoiding overconfidence and finally how important it is to attack from a strong position like having plenty of capital and cash reserves.

Needless to say, every trading strategy has their own weaknesses. So, what the most common weakness I’ve found? That’s easy – human error. That’s right, usually most strategies that have been backtested and proven to work continue to work well unless we do things to either deviate from the plan and/or we apply leverage to it rendering it extremely vulnerable. It is fairly often that I see traders come forward with a hot strategy they’ve used and are in the process of levering it up, creating havoc and exposing themselves to great risk. There is good reason for the expression – leverage always kills. In my experience, that has been true. Beyond that, many strategies are based on things that don’t account for the constantly evolving nature of the market. (more…)

STOCK TRADING IS ABOUT ATTITUDE

  
  Education
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“If you want to be good at something, practice.  Practice deliberately, and do so for many years.”  Mike Bellafiore, One Good Trade

If the activities that lead to greatness were easy and fun, then everyone would do them and they would not distinguish the best from the rest.”  Geoff Colvin, Talent Is Overrated

“He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.” Benjamin Franklin

“Commitment, perseverance, and discipline are the characteristics that move people beyond desire to action, that differentiate mediocrity from greatness, and that separate greatness from superstardom.”  Doug Hirschhorn, 8 Ways to Great.

“I always felt that my greatest asset was not my physical ability, it was my mental ability.”  Bruce Jenner

“Those who are motivated by the love of the game attain a deeper sense of satisfaction from their work than those who are driven solely by the pursuit of wealth.” Brian Shannon, Technical Analysis Using Multiple Time Frames

“A free lunch is only found in mousetraps. “ John Capuzzi (more…)

Have You Asked Yourself… Why?

  
  Education
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Why do you trade? This might sound like an easy question, however many of us do not really know the answer.

Once we discover our true reason for trading, then there are many other questions that will help us become a better trader.

If we will take the time to ask ourselves why we trade, what are our goals, what areas do we have struggles, what are my commitements…and then answer them honestly, we will begin to grow as a trader. Any successful endeavor takes planning and commitment. The planning begins with your questions… and answers.

Hard Realities for Traders

  
  Education
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* If you don’t save a good portion of your earnings in successful years of trading, you won’t last during the less successful years;

* If you don’t have a solid nest egg of savings to support you while you’re learning trading, you won’t survive your learning curve;

* Everyone has a passion for trading; if you don’t have a passion for learning to trade, take a pass on financial markets and find the field of endeavor that offers intrinsic reward;

* If you’re living for your trading, you won’t make it trading for a living. Other things need to sustain you in the lean times, particularly the things that are more important than markets;

* The ratio of time spent working on your trading to time spent actually trading is predictive of long-term career success;

* In any performance field, the percentage of participants who can sustain a living from their craft is under 5%; always have a Plan B;

* No one can make you successful as a trader if you lack the requisite talents and skills; a mentor can, at best, help you make the most of the talents and skills you possess;

* Even if you are very successful as a trader, your annual income will be a fraction of your leveraged portfolio size;

* Your risk and reward will always be proportional: count on drawdowns of at least half of what you hope to make in markets;

* Psychology alone cannot make you a successful trader, but it can make you an unsuccessful one;

* Quiet markets reveal the best traders;

* Over time, your risk-adjusted returns are more valuable than your absolute returns;

* Trading is a business and, as such, must always adapt to changing market conditions;

* If you can’t make money consistently when paper trading, you won’t be successful when your capital is on the line;

* If someone promises you trading success, keep a close eye on your wallet.

The Top 10 Mistakes Traders Make

  
  Education
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1. Failure to have a trading plan in place before a trade is executed.
A trader with no specific plan of action in place upon entry into a futures trade does not know, among other things, when or where he or she will exit the trade, or about how much money may be made or lost. Traders with no pre-determined trading plan are flying by the seat of their pants, and that’s usually a recipe for a “crash and burn.”

2. Inadequate trading assets or improper money management.
It does not take a fortune to trade futures markets with success. Traders with less than $5,000 in their trading accounts can and do trade futures successfully. And, traders with $50,000 or more in their trading accounts can and do lose it all in a
heartbeat. Part of trading success boils down to proper money management and not gunning for those highly risky “home-run” type trades that involve too much trading capital at one time.

3. Expectations that are too high, too soon.
Beginning futures traders that expect to quit their “day job” and make a good living trading futures in their first few years of trading are usually disappointed. You don’t become a successful doctor or lawyer or business owner in the first
couple years of the practice. It takes hard work and perseverance to achieve success in any field of endeavor — and trading futures is no different. Futures trading is not the easy, “get-rich-quick” scheme that a few unsavory characters make it out to be. (more…)

What is important in trading

  
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Trade with your personality

Regardless of what has been working for other people, you have to trade a system that suits your personality. It either has to compliment your strengths, overcome your weaknesses or both. That is not to say that a system that someone else creates cannot work for you, but you have to figure our your own unique way of trading it.

You have to have an edge

You have to have a specific, definable edge over the market. Like with any other endeavor, if you are not skilled, you will not do well. The best traders understand the edge that they have over the markets and constantly exploit it for profit.

Work hard, work smart

All of the top traders worked hard to refine their technique and constantly improve themselves in order to become better traders. It is not only about putting in a lot of hours, it is also about being open to ways of improving that may seem foreign or strange at the beginning.

No loyalty to a position

Top traders know how to cut losses short and take profits when the target is hit. They don’t get too excited about a position and make a business decision to take the profit or take the loss, based on the parameters of their system.

Trading is an art

  
  Education
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Once, there were two farmers who lived in the desert.  Both desperately needed to acquire water so they could survive the desert and support their families.  After working together to search the area, they concluded there was water somewhere in the area but they were not sure where.  So, they set out to find a water well. They started digging in similar locations between their properties. After they both dug for several days, the second farmer finally struck water. As soon as this happened, the first farmer could see it from a distance and ran over to the second farmer.  Seeing that he had stuck a huge water well, he asked the farmer, “You and I had the same tools for digging and have been digging in similar locations.  How did you find water and I did not?” 

The second farmer asked him, “How did you dig for water?” 

The first farmer responded, “I went and dug 50 holes 1 foot deep trying to get maximum coverage of my area.  What did you end up doing?” 

The second farmer replies, “Oh!  That is very interesting.  I dug one hole, 50 feet deep.” 

Many traders set out on the path of trading and do exactly what the first farmer did – they dig 50 holes 1 foot deep. If you are going to strike water, gold or oil, you will have to dig one hole, 50 feet deep.  The reason for this is a matter of mastery. To be a master at anything, you have to become so familiar with it, know how it works inside and out to the point you understand every aspect of what you are doing.  (more…)

How Mistakes Can Become Baggage

  
  Education
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Those of us who don’t learn from mistakes are destined to repeat them. Most traders are busy focusing on trying to understand what moves the market, but an equally beneficial endeavor is understanding what causes you to move.

This involves knowing the underlying, often subconscious to a degree,  reasons behind your entries and exit decisions. The inner market. Understanding the connection between your internal state and your behavior is a very effective way to get a handle on repeated mistakes.

In general, P&L is an expression of how well you control your actions, not how well you analyze charts, the market, economy etc. Or more accurately, how well you control your actions when facing the discomfort of uncertainty. 

Mistakes become emotional baggage when we choose not to learn from them. Not wanting those moments where we can see the truth about our own issues ensures they return again.

Focus on You

  
  Education
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It is never the system or author writing the trading book that fails.
It is YOU! It is your lack of focus.
Focus on yourself and then you can focus on trading successfully.

Trading is at least 98% psychological. It’s a mental state of mind based upon your beliefs of what may happen. Books, systems and technical indicators can only take you so far! You must accept and understand that the market is all in your head. It is you versus the other trader. If you don’t understand YOU, how will you ever understand other traders; thus taking advantage of market moves based on their mental state of mind and their underlying beliefs.

Many investors, both novice and experienced, drift from book to book to book and system to system to system, never understanding why they produce inconsistent profits. They are confused, looking at too many things, complicating the entire process while ignoring the essentials to success.

Keep it simple.

Why complicate things when simplicity works; especially when it comes to trading? We know that trading may be the most difficult endeavor that any human may attempt to undertake.

Thousands of different systems work in the stock market so we can conclude that it is the user that ultimately fails because of lack of concentration and motivation to stay the course. Wall Street is not for drifters and most people can’t play the game profitably because they never sharpen their own mental skills while applying basic money management techniques. They focus on the wrong set of skills.

We all see people come and go every day: rags to riches to rags. They are motivated for weeks, months and sometimes years but most fizzle away after they fail and can’t figure out what they are doing wrong. Some investors copy a system from a so-called guru and may find success for a while but they don’t tailor it to their personality, integrate it with their investing style and focus on their mental state of mind, therefore, it will become obsolete and they will fail. Working hard to become successful in the market is fine but understand that working smarter will always take you further.

Our goal as traders and investors is to understand the crowd and anticipate how they will act and react based on the thoughts we had, prior to focusuing on the proper skills, when we were just one of the sheep (waiting to be slaughtered)!

Focus on what is important and the success will follow.

Stop focusing on iffy stochastics, Bollinger bands, MACD, ADX, earnings releases and bogus news stories. Yes they can aid you to success but the main focus is on you!

Personally speaking, I require specific fundamentals, price, volume and basic daily and weekly charts to succeed but they are secondary tools. They can help me make money as long as I am focusing on the overall picture which is my mental focus and my emotional balance.

I know I am getting all “Dr. Perruna” on you but it is true.

Once your conscious mind understands how the beliefs of the crowd work, your subconscious mind takes over and intuition kicks in and you start making some of the best decisions of your life by flawlessly following your system.

As Jesse Livermore said:

“Wall Street never changes, the pockets change, the stocks change, but Wall Street never changes, because human nature never changes”

Why? Because humans never change!

Once you understand this and learn to trade other humans, you will become successful. Yes, you will need some of the tools mentioned above but don’t focus your attention in this area. Focus when investing by mastering the beliefs of the crowd and you will always be one step ahead.

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