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Trade Your Plan

Trading is a journey and a competitive activity. Why would you not plan your trades? Are you relying on someone else to plan them for you? Are you thinking there is something magical about the markets and all you have to do is click the mouse or call your broker and money flows into your account? If any of these are true, you are setting yourself up for failure.

Make a plan. This plan is what resonates with your brain structure, trading personality and money attitudes. Make it as simple as possible and then trade it consistently, day after day. If the plan is not working, change it until you get one that works for you. If it is working and generating profits for you, keep it. Don’t try to fatten it up, give it more bells and whistles or get greedy with it. If it’s broken, fix it and if it isn’t then leave it alone. Keep it simple and keep going with it.

Look at your plan every night after the market close. Write down how it worked for you that day and then contemplate and write down how you will use it the next day. In your nightly preparations and your preparations before the market opens, review your plan, Ensure that you are ready to execute, that you know what you are going to do, when you are going to do it, and then just do it—then execute ruthlessly. This is one way to empower yourself and grow in confidence as a trader. Winning in the markets, sports, business and life is about superior positioning, planning, reviewing, reworking, and executing over and over again until you get it right in a way that is seamlessly competent.

31 Trading Rules

 

  1. We are who we are and we start from where we start
  2. Each of us brings unique strengths to the markets
  3. Every morning we agree to play as delighted beginners
  4. Reality Pays. The more our minds model the market, the more in synch we get
  5. We build on our strengths and manage everything else.
  6. The outcome we have is the outcome we want
  7. If what you are doing isn’t working over and over again, re-examine your internal models
  8. Our internal process is more important than anything else because it drives everything else
  9. You have the resources to improve your mental trading game. Coaching just helps find them
  10. We begin our trading practice slowly and build it with flow and grace
  11. Lean into fear. Fear is a primary cause of failure
  12. If you are frustrated with the markets, that means they aren’t following the internal model you have projected on them
  13. We increase the level of our awareness rather than the intensity of trading
  14. As we expand our awareness, our interventions will happen sooner and be more creative and effective
  15. We respect ourselves and celebrate our profits no matter how large
  16. If we can experience a new behavior for a moment, we can experience it for a minute, an hour, a week, a year.
  17. Change happens when we experience a new behavior that is aligned with who we are, feels emotionally satisfying in the moment and takes us to where we want to go
  18. Avoidance is buying pain on credit with interest
  19. If self-criticism made us trade better we would all be rich
  20. We allow the markets to breathe through us
  21. The markets are messy, our information is imperfect, our systems will fail and we can still make money
  22. All trading systems are successful in some markets, all trading systems will eventually fail in all markets
  23. The markets don’t care about you or your position
  24. We seek the practice rather than the result
  25. Learn about yourself with the delight of an anthropologist finding a lost tribe
  26. We make internal maps of the market, but our maps are always distorted
  27. Our negative responses are created by our maps, not the market
  28. By changing our map, we change how we respond to the markets
  29. All our trading errors have an ultimate positive purpose or intention
  30. There is no “failure” just feedback
  31. You have all the resources you need, although some may be out of your awareness

Mera Bharat Mahan -37% population below Povery line

WHEN THE Indian Planning Commission finally accepted that the number of people living below the poverty line in India is 37.2 per cent of the total population then most of the people, who have always questioned the government claims of overall growth and development had the last laugh.

Finally the government itself has accepted its failure to bring about an all inclusive development in India. Though from time to time the government spends crores to show the middle-class Indians that it is doing the best for an all-inclusive growth but in reality still a lot needs to be accomplished to make India a true super power. A country can never rise to upper levels with a massive 37.2 per cent of its population living under the poverty line. One assumes that that is an official and conservative figure. The actual figure will cross 50 per cent quite easily.

From time to time, several schemes have been launched by the government for the development of the people living below the poverty line. But implementation has remained a big failure in case of all such schemes. Moreover, most of the BPL tagged Indians need to bribe various officials to prove that they are really poor. Such anomalies in the system will never bring good results for the country of India. That is for sure.

There are a;sp some allegations that it is pretty easy to get a BPL card in India just by bribing corrupt officials. Such a process deprives the original or genuinely poor Indians from getting their dues. So, the government must do something in order to identify the real persons, who fall in the below poverty line segment. Otherwise, no all-inclusive growth is possible without the correct measure of the real BPL community. Moreover, the various people’s groups must also take some initiatives to force the government to take action against the corrupt officials and make the system clean.

 
Don’t miss to read this article too –Click here

Sentiment Cycle

RETURNING CONFIDENCE
On the upside, the area where churning takes place is in between the Returning Confidence phase and the Subtle Warning phase, after a significant advance has already taken place. This often appears in the form of a head and shoulders top on weekly or monthly charts. By the time confidence returns, the market has already been going up for ages while the retracement patterns become ever larger, each one scarier than the last.
To technical traders, this type of price action tells us that the market is getting tired. Perceived bull market volatility excites investors. They waited forever on the sidelines for fundamentals to confirm that the move up was ‘real’. The coast is finally clear and they jump in with both feet. This phase typically ends with a failure on test of top, and the big, super scary ‘buy the dip’ pullback begins.
BUY THE BIG DIP
The public continues to pour money in, lured by glowing good news and economic data. After the long move up, finding attractive stocks becomes difficult for technical traders and market veterans. Traders chase momentum where they find it. Investors believe that the game is back on, and they are willing to take big risk and buy big dips. This Big Dip usually comes after a failed test of top in the Returning Confidence phase. The Big Dip typically takes price below the 50-day simple moving average and quite often, to the 200-day moving average. This is where ABC Corrections are typically found.
ENTHUSIASM
Once it is widely accepted that economic and corporate fundamentals are supporting higher prices, a bell goes off. The bull survived The Big Dip. Those who had previously been afraid now have plenty of reasons – and proof – that it is safe to go back into the market and buy again.  (more…)

The secret to trading success: You.

The secret to trading success: You.

You are the weakest part of your system. It is a defeatist statement. It makes your expectation to fail easier to accomplish and more importantly it makes failure easier to handle. It shifts the pressure away from you and unto fate.

Would you fly on an airline if their motto was “Our pilots are the weakest part.” I do not think so. You are your system. Even if your system is automated you added the inputs, parameters.

Taking responsibility for your action is not easy. Taking control of the outcomes of trading or life is a huge responsibility. You will have moments of weakness, but you are not weak. The market does not go straight up and either does the road to success.

Tips to stop the self-destruction

1. Take a Break

When you have experienced successive losses, you should quit trading for a day. Some traders even have a “punishment” that is assumed by a trading plan: had loss, no trading for a week! Market will not disappear and tomorrow have even more opportunities for you. Do not do anger trades, just take a breath and give yourself a break.

2. Shorten Size

Shorten the size of amount traded considerably. In such a way you will be able to distract your mind of trading for a while and become sensible again. Give yourself time and get back to the right size trading only when you are really ready.

3. Add Money You Didn’t Win

Put the amount equal to the winning trade you didn’t take in your forex account. When you see money in your account, it will make you feel better and take wise decisions.

4. Add Amount You Lost

If you experienced a loss, you can add to the amount you have lost back to the account. You will be surprised at how easy it can become normal again when you do not see your account with losses.

5. Use Visual Effects!

Create a poster or make a note which can remind you of not making unreasonable decisions after bad trades. The note will help you to stay sensible and take only the trades that you can completely understand and pass on all the rest.

6. Trade With Reason

Psychology is a critical factor that influences success or failure in trading. You should have the right psychological reasons to do trades.

7. Be Precise

You should be disciplined. Actually, you should become army disciplined. Bear in mind that emotions should have nothing to do with your decision taken as for the trades.

8. Confess and Talk It All Out

Confess about your losses to somebody nearby or even over the internet, a fellow trader or somebody who can understand your pain. Talking will free your mind from negative thoughts and will bring you back to real life.

Jim Rogers' Keys to Success

JimRogerJim Rogers’ Keys to Success (taken from the titles and sub headings of each chapter of the new book, “A Gift to My Children: A Father’s Lessons for Life and Investing“)
1. Do not let others do your thinking for you
2. Focus on what you like
3. Good habits for life & investing
4. Common sense? not so common
5. Attention to details is what separates success from failure
6. Let the world be a part of your perspective
7. Learn philosophy & learn to think
8. Learn history
9. Learn languages (make sure Mandarin is one of them) (more…)

The Confident Trader

Confidence overcomes fear. Confidence also overcomes greed because a component of greed is an underlying sense of scarcity. To be confident doesn’t mean that every trade or trading day will be profitable. What it does mean is that when you look to where you want to go, you know that you can figure out a strategy that will get you there. And you know you can execute that strategy in a consistent manner. A successful strategy doesn’t mean anything if you don’t or can’t or won’t employ it.

Theoretically we should be as successful at trading and investing as our trading and investing strategies. Unfortunately the vast majority of traders and investors fall far short of the results of their strategies. They trip over themselves again and again on the way to employing their methods. My work as a trading coach is to enable traders around the world to become as good as their methods.

Confidence need not waver when you have dips and troughs and plateaus in your trading. Confidence is developed when you realize you can correct mistakes and learn from failures. You don’t persist in failing. You learn and move on. You don’t fear repeating the failure either, you simply anticipate correcting it.

Self esteem is basically the sum total of all the thoughts we have about ourselves. This is quite important because we do tend to become what we think about ourselves. The noted philosopher and psychologist, William James, said, “People, in general, become what they think of themselves.” Not only did he say this but he added that this was the essence of all we had learned in psychology in the prior 100 years. (more…)

Keys for Successful Traders

mentalstrengthThe biggest obstacle to successful trading is failing to recognize that losses are part of the game, and, further, that they must be accommodated. The perfect trading system that allows for only gains does not exist. Expecting, or even hoping for, perfection is a guarantee of failure. Trading is akin to batting in baseball. A player hitting .300 is good. A player hitting .400 is great. But even the great player fails to hit 60% of the time! Remember, you don’t have to be perfect to win in the markets. Practically speaking, this is why you also need an objective money management system.

experience

It takes experience to succeed. Now, some people advocate “paper trading” as a learning tool. Paper trading is useful for testing methodologies, but it has no real value in learning about trading. In fact, it can be detrimental, because it imbues the novice with a false sense of security. “Knowing” that he has successfully paper-traded during the past six months, he believes that the next six months trading with real money will be no different. In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth. Why? Because the markets are not merely an intellectual exercise, they are an emotional one as well. Think about it, just because you are mechanically inclined and like to drive fast doesn’t mean you have the necessary skills to win the Daytona 500.

 

Market Volatility

Many, many times traders are quite conscientious and self-controlled in most areas of their lives, but experience lapses of discipline specific to trading. When this happens, it’s often the case that the trading itself–*how* they’re trading–is artificially creating the failure to follow trading rules. A key culprit in all this is market volatility. Volatility changes from day to day and week to week. It also varies as a function of time of day. Frequently, traders trade a fixed size and set fixed targets and stops, heedless of the underlying market volatility. In a low volatility environment, they fail to hit their targets and get stopped out, criticizing themselves for leaving money on the table. In an environment of enhanced volatility, the market will blow through their stops or exceed their targets, leaving them feeling that they did not trade well. This is especially true when traders find themselves unable to take what is normal heat in an environment of raised volatility. In such cases, it really isn’t a lapse of discipline causing the problem. Rather, the trader is not adapting to market conditions. Adhering to fixed rules in a variable environment is not necessarily a virtue. Changing markets can prevent us from enacting those fixed rules.