When it comes to market timing, you’ve got to UNLEARN responses that you’ve spent your whole life learning. Market timing isn’t about you. It is just a strategy that works over time. In other fields, probability plays little if any role. You put in effort, make sure you meet the expectations of the people who pay you, and you’re a success. In the traditional workplace, it makes sense to put a little ego and pride into your work. Your effort and talent often have a direct payoff. But with market timing, the odds can go against you, no matter how much work you put in. The perfect trade can go wrong. That’s hard to accept for most people because it means that being a successful (profitable) market timer or trader, to some extent, is just a matter of the odds randomly working in your favor. But there is good logic behind this randomness. And a successful timing or trading strategy uses this logic to profit. A successful timing strategy will exit losses quickly. It will not stay with a bullish or bearish position to sooth the ego of the strategy’s designer. It will also stay with a successful trade and not exit quickly to lock in a profit. That may feel good for a day, but if the profitable trend lasts two, three, five times longer, you have lost out on a huge profit. Recognizing that odds are part of trading takes some of the glory out of it. But on the other hand, understanding odds helps you cope with inevitable drawdowns.
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rssImproving Your Decision Making Skills
One of my all-around favorite quotes on trading is actually about poker.
It comes from cash game pro Tommy Angelo, who says, “The best way to get better at poker is to get better at everything and let poker rise with the tide.”
An intimidating thought for some. To REALLY up your game (be it poker, trading, or something else entirely) you have to improve as a competitor. As a human. As a thinking, acting, decision-making machine.
For others, though, this thought is not intimidating but inspiring. “Raising the game,” i.e. getting better at everything, is part of the attraction in the first place.
To that end, trading is all about making decisions.
And making good decisions is not just an art, but a skill set — an area of focus where you can learn and practice and improve. (more…)
Euro Last Support or Hope :136
Last week ,The epicenter of many of questions seems to be southern Europe, where Greece, Portugal, Spain and to a lesser extent the remainder of the so-called PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) have flamed investor concerns that burgeoning public debt may significantly weaken investor demand for sovereign debt and exacerbate an already trouble budgetary crisis.
Many investors have taken to selling the euro is as a means by which to reduce exposure to these problem areas and/or speculate on one or more of these crises spiraling out of control.
-Just look at above chart :Weekly chart includes a powerful rally of Year 2009 and more recently and two-stage selloff, starting in the first half of December and picking up steam over the course of the past 3 ½ weeks as traders looked to capitalize on weakness stemming from the problems in Greece, Portugal and Spain.
Just watch 136 level.Three consecutive close below this level+ Weekly close will take to 131.70-130 level.
-If not breaks 136 & trades above 138 level will create buying upto 140-141 level.
-Best Strategy :Sell on Rise.
-Will update more very soon.
Updated at 13:10/8th Feb/Baroda
What Kind of Person is Best Suited to Trading?
Great traders have a few personality traits that do give them a natural advantage. That’s not to say you can’t succeed without them, just that it’ll be an uphill battle and a greater degree of reflection and self-correction will be required. The trader with the best chance of success will be –
Independent. Being happy with a good deal of autonomy will allow you to confidently execute your plan without needing 25 people to concur with your analysis. Trading is a solitary game, and you need to be able to thrive on your own, to a large extent. Support is great but when it comes down to it, it’s all up to you.
Decisive. If you take hours to do something simple like choose a burger off a menu, the odds of you being able to see a trade set-up and coolly pull the trigger are greatly diminished. Especially if you trade short time-frames that can be the difference between success and failure.
Insightful. If a trader can honestly look at their skills, motivations and short-comings and actively work to rectify them, they have the tools to over-come nearly anything the market throws their way. (more…)
Donchian's 20 Trading Guides (First publication: 1934)
General Guides:
Beware of acting immediately on a widespread public opinion. Even if correct, it will usually delay the move.
From a period of dullness and inactivity, watch for and prepare to follow a move in the direction in which volume increases.
Limit losses and ride profits, irrespective of all other rules.
Light commitments are advisable when market position is not certain. Clearly defined moves are signaled frequently enough to make life interesting and concentration on these moves will prevent unprofitable whip-sawing.
Seldom take a position in the direction of an immediately preceding three-day move. Wait for a one-day reversal.
Judicious use of stop orders is a valuable aid to profitable trading. Stops may be used to protect profits, to limit losses, and from certain formations such as triangular foci to take positions. Stop orders are apt to be more valuable and less treacherous if used in proper relation the the chart formation.
In a market in which upswings are likely to equal or exceed downswings, heavier position should be taken for the upswings for percentage reasons – a decline from 50 to 25 will net only 50% profit, whereas an advance from 25 to 50 will net 100%
In taking a position, price orders are allowable. In closing a position, use market orders.”
Buy strong-acting, strong-background commodities and sell weak ones, subject to all other rules.
Moves in which rails lead or participate strongly are usually more worth following than moves in which rails lag. (more…)
Self-Control and Discipline
Cultivating discipline and self-control is vital for consistent and profitable trading. You implement proven trading strategies, over and over, so that across a series of trades, the strategies work enough to produce an overall profit. It’s like making shot after shot on the basketball court so as to accumulate a winning number of points. The more shots you take, the more likely you will amass points. But the winning player is the person who first develops the skill to make the shot consistently, so that at every possible opportunity, the ball is likely to go through the basket. To a great extent, consistency is the key. If the player uses one approach one time and a different approach at another time, performance is haphazard.
It’s the same for trading. One must trade consistently, following a specific trading plan on each and every single trade. This allows the law of averages to work in your favor, so that across the series of trades, you will make an overall profit. If you follow the plan sometimes and abandon it at other times, you throw off the probabilities. Suppose you used a strategy that had a track record of 80%. Under the best-case scenario, you could only expect to win 80% of the time. But since history doesn’t always repeat itself, it’s likely that you will win less than 80% of the time. If you don’t execute the trading strategy the same way each time, you will decrease your winning odds. And fewer winning trades may mean an overall loss. That’s why discipline and self-control are so important. (more…)
Think Less & Keep It Simple
Every once in awhile I read something from another trader who I respect that I really wish I wrote myself. Here’s one such example:
“One of the most difficult things to get investors and traders to understand is that no matter how much they investigate an investment, they will probably do better if they did less. This is certainly counter-intuitive, but the way that our brains function almost guarantees that this will happen. This kind of failure also happens to those investors frequently regarded as the smartest. In essence, the more information that investors have, the more opportunity that they have to choose the misinformation that suits their emotional purposes.
Speculation is observation, pure and experiential. Thinking isn’t necessary and often just gets in the way. Yet everywhere we turn, we read and hear opinion after opinion and explanation on top of explanation which claim to connect the dots between economic cause and market effect. Most of the marketplace is long on rationale and explanation and short on methods. (more…)
An Hour With Arnold Palmer
“It is deceptively simple, endlessly complicated, a child can play it well, and a grown man can never master it. Any single round of it is full of unexpected triumphs and perfect shots that end in disaster. It is almost a science, yet it is a puzzle without an answer. It is gratifying and tantalizing, precise and unpredictable. It requires complete concentration and total relaxation. It satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time, rewarding and maddening and it is without doubt, the greatest game mankind has ever invented.” – Arnold Palmer
What a wonderful quote about the game of golf. Although to a lesser extent, the same things can be said about trading as anyone who trades every day in the trenches will tell you.
I was reminded about this perspective this weekend when watching an hour interview Charlie Rose recently conducted with Mr. Palmer. Many people don’t know this, but it was an biography of Arnold Palmer that I read as a child which originally sparked my interest in taking up the game. So, all of these years of both frustration and incredible enjoyment, I owe directly to Mr. Palmer.
Now in the twilight of his years, I found this recent interview really enjoyable particularly after the 30 minute mark. If you have an opportunity to watch this, I thinkhis advice about developing a system is so very important especially for new traders and investors as well as what the discussion after that about what it takes to win. Much like the quote above, the perspectives are priceless. Even if you don’t play golf or even hate the game, don’t miss this interview!
Click Below Link and Enjoy
Trade imbalance worries FM
The Union finance minister, Mr Pranab Mukh-erjee, on Sunday expressed concern over the spiralling inflation, the country’s increasing current account deficit and trade imbalances. “These are the issues which raise concerns. Inflationary pressures are there and non-oil imports are rising,” he told reporters on the sidelines of an event here on Sunday. He said that imports of capital goods, raw materials and intermediaries are rising, widening the trade gap. Though financing the trade gap was now manageable, he cautioned that if the situation continued to be like this, the scenario would be uncertain. The finance minister said the import bill would rise further due to high oil prices. “I do not know to what extent we will be able to control import of petroleum products,” he said. |
Richard Donchian's 20 trading guides
General Guides:
- Beware of acting immediately on a widespread public opinion. Even if correct, it will usually delay the move.
- From a period of dullness and inactivity, watch for and prepare to follow a move in the direction in which volume increases.
- Limit losses and ride profits, irrespective of all other rules.
- Light commitments are advisable when market position is not certain. Clearly defined moves are signaled frequently enough to make life interesting and concentration on these moves will prevent unprofitable whip-sawing.
- Seldom take a position in the direction of an immediately preceding three-day move. Wait for a one-day reversal.
- Judicious use of stop orders is a valuable aid to profitable trading. Stops may be used to protect profits, to limit losses, and from certain formations such as triangular foci to take positions. Stop orders are apt to be more valuable and less treacherous if used in proper relation the the chart formation.
- In a market in which upswings are likely to equal or exceed downswings, heavier position should be taken for the upswings for percentage reasons – a decline from 50 to 25 will net only 50% profit, whereas an advance from 25 to 50 will net 100%.
- In taking a position, price orders are allowable. In closing a position, use market orders.
- Buy strong-acting, strong-background commodities and sell weak ones, subject to all other rules.
- Moves in which rails lead or participate strongly are usually more worth following than moves in which rails lag.
- A study of the capitalization of a company, the degree of activity of an issue, and whether an issue is a lethargic truck horse or a spirited race horse is fully as important as a study of statistical reports.
Technical Guides:
- A move followed by a sideways range often precedes another move of almost equal extent in the same direction as the original move. Generally, when the second move from the sideways range has run its course, a counter move approaching the sideways range may be expected. (more…)