rss

A trader is the weakest link of any trading system

So true. Tony Robbins also said “Success for anything is 80% of psychology and 20% of mechanics”. A trading system is mechanics of trading. If a trader has an absolutely winning trading system, but he/she has failed to execute it. This system is failure. For who can follow it consistently, it is a great system. So who is more important? It is the trader or the system?

Some people say it is hard to design a winning system. Or I don’t know how to do? Does it really true? Read what Richard Dennis said.

The key is consistency and discipline. Almost anybody can make up a list of rules that are 80% as good as what we taught. What they can’t do is give (people) the confidence to stick to those rules even when things are going bad.

Richard Dennis has also proved that trading is a skill not talent. Tony Robbins also said “Every skill is learnable”

 

Zero is Bottom

The markets have a clearly defined Zero-value. This has several important implications. First, traders often discount the possibility of something becoming absolutely worthless (i.e. going to zero), so the more the price goes down, the greater the traders’ tendency is to believe that it has a higher probability of going up again; therefore the temptation to catch the bottom and go long becomes compelling (despite its irrationality). Traders must realize that how they are hardwired to think as people is not necessarily the way they should think as a trader. There is a reason why 90% of people who attempt to make a living as a trader end up failing and it is not because of intelligence, information, technology or effort. In a nutshell, I believe failure in trading is because of a lack of self-awareness. The solution is to compartmentalize your thinking. When you are interacting in society or at home, let yourself think like a person; but when you sit down to trade, you need to think objectively by evaluating risk/reward as a trader should.

Ego and Impatience

Ego: I never feel the need to prove myself to anyone by saying that I am always right, or that I am some trading genius that has it all figured out, nobody is. But I have one friend in particular that thinks he can trade in stocks, yet every trade he has ever made has been a complete failure, but you could never get him to admit it. He has more excuses and more reasons why he thinks he is still right, even though he constantly losing money. Leave your ego out of the markets, admit when you’re wrong, and stay humble when you’re right.

Impatience: Not having enough patience has forced me to put on some horrible trades, having patience has lead to some of my most profitable ones. Pretty self explanatory.

Trading Wisdom – Larry Hite

Larry Hite – Turned a $2 million managed account into $800 million in 8 years.
LarryHite

Throughout my financial career, I have continually witnessed examples of other people that I have known being ruined by a failure to respect risk. If you don’t take a hard look at risk, it will take you. If you argue with the market, you will lose. It is incredible how rich you can get by not being perfect. Never risk more than 1% of your total equity in any one trade. By risking 1%, I am indifferent to any individual trade. Keeping your risk small and constant is absolutely critical. I have two basic rules about winning in trading as well as in life:

  1. If you don’t bet, you can’t win. 
  2. If you lose all your chips, you can’t bet. Frankly, I don’t see markets. I see risks, rewards, and money.

 

Positive awareness trumps negative self talk

The language you use as a trader can provide either positive reinforcement through honest self awareness or negative results through demeaning self talk.  In other words, when discussing your trading with others or in your journal become aware of how you view yourself.  Do you see yourself as an amateur, a whipping post, a loser?  Do you blame an indicator or the market or an advisor for your failures and lack of discipline?  When you are with others do you brag about your winners and hide your losers?  All of this talk is based on fear:  fear of being wrong, fear of what others might think of you and your decisions; fear of the market; fear of being afraid.  When you practice positive self awareness  you create a fertile learning environment that allows you to grow and progress as a BETTER trader, not focus on BECOMING a GOOD trader (implying that you are a bad one).  When I work with individuals I often hear the following:  “If I would just do this I would become a good trader” or “If I had your discipline I would be a able to make money.”  These statements are grounded in a sense of doubt and fear.  Instead, these statements should be replaced with “I am becoming a BETTER trader because I know the market cannot hurt me” AND “I am becoming a BETTER trader the more I stick with my rules.”  See the difference between the two?  One is focused on the joy of progress; the other on the fear of not being good enough.  Are you focused on progress or failure? Listen to yourself and you will quickly figure it out.  It is EASY to get down on yourself and much HARDER to remain positive in the face of adversity.

Meet the market with an empty mind

empty_mindYou know you are a daytrader when you go to the movies with loved ones and a line in the movie becomes you next daytrading blog post.

The movie was 2012. A movie about the end of the world and the preservation of the human race. the entire movie is filled with moments of natural disasters, crashing buildings, people meeting their end, and people who are trying to survive and perserve the human race.

Amongst the mass destruction where the south pole becomes located someplace in Wisconsin, it is not surprising that religion comes into play. Once scene includes a wise old monk speaking with a young monk who obviously has not attained the wisdom of the old man. As they are speaking the wise old man pours a cup of brown tea until it is overflowing. The young monk tells him to stop as the cup is overflowing. The old man stops pouring and explains,

 ”like this cup a man’s mind is overflowing with opinions and speculation.

You must empty  the cup in order to fill it with wisdom” (more…)

Get Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable

“In the trading world, you will either make money or lose money on any given trade. All that matters in the end is making more money when you’re right than you lose when you’re wrong.  Knowing this, traders have learned to accept failure as part of the game, but they also use the information they acquire from their mistakes as a learning tool.  Frequently, what they learn from losing money is more valuable than what they learn when they make money”

Felix Dennis on Mistaking Desire for Compulsion

  • Wishing for or desiring something is futile without an inner compulsion to achieve it. Such lack of compulsion, if not frankly acknowledged, can lead to great personal unhappiness. We have all met deeply unhappy souls muddling along in professions or careers for which they are patently unsuited.
  • Worse still, by continually wishing and never delivering, you risk denting your confidence, beginning a vicious downward spiral that appears to draw misfortune like a magnet. The assumption that you might be able to achieve some goal if you only wish hard enough is not just a f***-up. It’s a potential personal tragedy.
  • Consider very carefully whether you are truly driven by inner demons to be rich. If you are not, then my earnest and heartfelt advice to you is: do not on any account make the attempt. What are riches anyway, compared to health or the peace of mind that even a modicum of contentment brings in its wake? In and of itself,great wealth very rarely, if ever, breeds contentment.
  • But no condescension is intended whatever when I ask you to quietly turn over in your mind whether or not you are fit to be rich. Whether the sacrifices involved — not only your own, but those you will ask of your family, present or future — are worth the tyranny that such ambition, by its very nature, exacts.
  • ‘Better to have tried and failed than not to have tried at all,’ drones the old saw. But in this instance, the cliche is wrong, utterly wrong. Better to have chosen a different life, a quite different path, than have placed yourself and those you love in harm’s way when early reflection and thought could have advised you differently. I repeat: do not mistake desire for compulsion. Those that do nearly always fail, at great cost to themselves and those around them.

Psychology by Michael Jordan

Hi,

I like these commercials, because it very similar with trading. Commercials are not new, but i hope, that it can somebody give some more motivation.

1st one: YouTube – Michael Jordan “Simple Math” Nike Commercial
It says – stop looking for holy grail, there is no math formula, there is only training!

2nd one: YouTube – Maybe – New Michael Jordan Commercial
It says – stop looking for excuses!

3rd one: YouTube – Michael Jordan “Failure” Nike Commercial
It says – Success it not about winning, it is about loosing and deal with it!

4th one: YouTube – Look Me In The Eyes – Jordan Commercial – Become Legendary
It says – very nice courage and patience… I am scared what i wont become, you are scared what you could become..

5th one: YouTube – Michael Jordan “Become Legendary #1” Nike Commercial
It says – It is not about indicator/shoes/etc!!

Good luck, goal is closer, than you think..

 

Don't be a mouse.

mouseI want to share with you an old fable that I’m sure you already know. It is about the mouse that roared.
Once up on a time, there lived a little mouse. He lived in constant fear of a cat that lived in the village. One day, a powerful space alien magician came to town. “M’lord,” the mouse begged of him, “thou art wise and powerful, and my life is most miserable because of a cat. Woudst thou return joy into my life by making me into a cat? Then I would no longer live in fear.”
The magician smiled, raised his wand, said some magical words, drew some lines on a chart, and the mouse found himself a cat as he wished. But, he was the most frightened (more…)

Go to top