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A Venerable Technique

  
  Education
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JL-ASROne of intelligent honest things that Livermore did was to get out of one market by selling a related market, inducing the other traders to think that there was weakness in one market which would carry over to the related market. The art of indirection and letting people use their own intelligence and inferences to come to their own conclusion. for example if he wanted to get out of cotton, he’d sell some coffee. If he wanted to get out of a common, he’s sell the preferred or a related company that owned a big chunk of it, like sell Christiana which owned general motors et al. This technique one wonders how often is it used today. When it happens, is it artful indirection or chance? How to quantify and what predictions to be made? Would the robots be smart enough to do this?

There was a moment in late 80s Energy trading, when legend has it that a great admirer of Livermore who runs a venerable hedge fund near New York was Bearish to the tune of 40,000 lots. If you think it’s not much, just remember that Exchange limit for open speculative position in any contract was 6,000. Of course, his positions were in all possible inter-month spreads and across products. So once decision to cover was made, he picked up the phone and asked for the cockiest trader in the Crude pit. “Are you a man or mouse?” Trader thought it was a prank: “Come on Paul, what do you want?” “I’ll give an order to sell 1,000 market, and I mean worst. But if I don’t see Crude print through even– they’re all yours! Do you accept?” 

20 One Liners From :The Little Book of Market Wizards by Jack Schwager

  
  Education
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  1. They have the resilience to come back from early losses and account blow ups.The_Little_Book_of_Market_Wizards_large
  2. They focus on what really matters in trading success.
  3. They have developed a trading method that fits their own personality.
  4. They trade with an edge.
  5. The harder they work at trading the luckier they get.
  6. They do the homework to develop a methodology through researching ideas.
  7. The principles they use in their trading models are simple.
  8. They have mental and emotional control is key while winning or losing.
  9. They manage the risk to avoid failure and pain.
  10. They have the discipline to follow their trading plan. (more…)

10 Things that Great Traders have Declared Independence From –

  
  Education
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  1. Great traders do not have to be right about any one trade, their success is based on winning more than they lose on a large amount of trades.
  2. Great traders do not need trade ideas from other traders, they trade a system and method independent of others opinions.
  3. The best traders are independent of holding on to losing trades stubbornly trying to prove they are right, they cut losses.
  4. The best traders are not prisoners of their emotions they can make clear headed decisions due to trading like it is a business not an ego trip.
  5. Rich traders became rich because they had systems that allowed winning trades to be free to run as far as they would go. They are independent of price targets.
  6. Rich traders trade independently from BLUE CHANNEL sentiment.
  7. Great traders trade charts independently of market sentiment.
  8. Great traders trade independently of talking heads on financial television.
  9. Winning traders are independent of market gurus they have proven systems and methods.
  10. Great traders are free from the risk of ruin because they never risk more than 1% to 2% of their total capital on any one trade.

Why Traders Keep Losing Money

  
  Education
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“Imagine a mutual fund run by several money managers. Some of these managers are relatively astute and quite attentive to market data and patterns. Others tend to take their eye off the market ball and consistently lose money. The overall performance of the fund, averaging the returns of these managers, is mediocre, as the losses of the poorly performing managers cancel out the gains of the astute ones.
 
What would you do if you were the chief executive officer (CEO) of this fund?
 
Easy, you say. You would identify the successful managers and place all the money in their hands. You would either fire the unsuccessful ones or ensure that they couldn’t make final decisions about the investment of funds.
 
Now imagine that, within yourself, there are actually several different traders, each of whom takes control of your account for a period of time each day. One or two of these traders are relatively astute; others are downright destructive. Your overall performance suffers as a result. As Chief Executive Observer of your own account, what should you do?
 
…If you harbor multiple traders within you—some careful, some impulsive, some successful, some losing—your first task is to avoid labeling these traders and instead take an Observing stance. You need to figure out why these lousy traders within you are trading! They evidently are not trading simply for the monetary reward; if that were the case, they would never overrule the successful traders within you. The chances are good that they are trading to achieve something other than a good return on equity: a sense of excitement, a feeling of self-esteem, or an imposed self-image.
 
You do not fail at trading because you are masochistic or because you love failure or feel you deserve defeat. Rather, you sabotage your trading because you have different facets to your personality, each with its own needs, each clamoring for access to the trading account. Your trading suffers because you are not always trading with the equity stake firmly in mind. In a strange way, a losing trade can be a success to that part of you that is, for example, looking for excitement—not profits—from the markets.”

3 Elements of Trading Success

  
  Education
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What all winning traders must have, regardless of timeframe and system are as follows:

Trading System

  • They trade a robust system or method that wins more money over time than it loses.
  • Their system gives them a reward to risk ratio that is in their favor.
  • Their system or method is proven to work with a live trading record over many markets, trades, or has  historical back testing.

Trading with Managed Risk

  • They manage the risk of ruin to avoid blowing up their account.
  • They risk no more than 1%-2% of total account equity on any one trade.
  • They manage risk through proper position size so they do not risk their account and their ability to trade in the future.
  • They do not risk more than 6%-12% of their capital at one time, across multiple trades.

(more…)

10 Enemies of Trader

  
  Education
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  1. Stubbornness: Not cutting losses short and sticking with a trading method that does not work.
  2. Arrogance: Believing that you are far smarter than the majority of market participants before their is any evidence that you really are is very dangerous.
  3. Opinions: The only opinion a good trader should hold is what they believe the price action is telling them after they have done the research of historical prices. Opinions about the future are useless unless you posses a fully functional crystal ball or time machine.Trading the price action in the present moment is what leads to success and profits.
  4. Bias: Getting stuck in bull mode or bear mode is dangerous and can lead to losses if you keep playing on a team that is losing day after day. Stay flexible in your trading and go with the flow you can spend both bull and bear sided profits the same way. (more…)

Avoid the pitfalls of ‘over trading’ and ‘under trading.’

  
  Education
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* There are basically two types of over trading. Trading too often and trading too many shares/contracts.

* Remember that there really is no good reason to trade constantly, since extreme over-trading creates stress, produces high commissions and can often lead to more losses.

* Market forces do not last forever and time has shown various examples of the law of gravity in the trading market- that whatever comes up must go down. – and vice versa.

* Instead of grabbing every opportunity that comes along (or thinking that it is an opportunity) make sure each trade setup meets the criteria of your trading plan, don’t be over confident or scared of making trades.

* Utilizing a risk calculator to determine the appropriate position size before you enter a trade can help you determine how many shares/contracts you initially buy. You can start off with a small position and add as the trade continues in your favor. It relieves stress to know that the amount at risk for each position you hold is well proportioned to the size of your entire account and this is great asset management.

* Whenever you feel that you did not stick to your trading plan and made a mistake, quickly learn from that and let it go.

12 Things Traders Should Not Do at all

  
  Education
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  1. A big ego that wants to prove they are right by stubbornly staying with a position that is wrong becasue they want to be right eventually so bad.12-Number
  2. A trader that want to prove he is a hot shot by trading big position sizes especially in options or futures.
  3. Not wanting to take a stop loss and instead just hope the trade comes back.
  4. Trading with emotions instead of a trading plan can get very expensive very fast.
  5. Being a bear in a bull market.
  6. Being a bull in a bear market.
  7. Being overly eager to start trading with real money before fully testing out a trading system.
  8. Trading without doing adequate homework on how to win.
  9. Dollar cost averaging down in a trade is many time expensive to fight that trend.
  10. Ignoring the charts and just trading your opinion.
  11. Ignoring the probability of the risk of ruin based on your current position sizing.
  12. Not really understanding the true danger of  ‘Black Swan’ and ‘Fat Tail’ events.

5 Great Quotes From Jesse Livermore

  
Analysis, Education
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1. The only leading indicator that matters

Watch the market leaders, the stocks that have led the charge upward in a bull market. That is where the action is and where the money is to be made. As the leaders go, so goes the entire market. If you cannot make money in the leaders, you are not going to make money in the stock market. Watching the leaders keeps your universe of stocks limited, focused, and more easily controlled.

2. Patterns repeat because human nature hasn’t changed for thousand of years

There is nothing new on Wall Street or in stock speculation. What has happened in the past will happen again, and again, and again. This is because human nature does not change, and it is human emotion, solidly build into human nature, that always gets in the way of human intelligence. Of this I am sure.
All through time, people have basically acted the same way in the market as a result of greed, fear, ignorance, and hope. This is why the numerical formations and patterns recur on a constant basis.
I absolutely believe that price movement patterns are being repeated. They are recurring patterns that appear over and over, with slight variations. This is because markets are driven by humans — and human nature never changes.

3. Your first loss is your best loss. (more…)

Rules for Bear Market

  
  Education
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1. Good news in a bear market is like smoke in the breeze (i.e., soon dispersed). Don’t buy into upgrades or analyst recommendations. Analyst “upgrades” or recommendations can kill you.Every person reading this has access to some kind of trading platform, trading tools or systems that afford instant access to the financial markets. Good news like upgrades in bear markets typically has about five minutes of fame.

 

2. Bear markets are not a time to learn how to “day trade” in an effort to recoup losses (no matter how many times you hear that “this is a traders’ market”).

 

3. Accumulation days (there may be three or more in a row) are shorting opportunities, but resist being aggressive until the S&P 500 shows a 3- and 5-day moving average bearish cross. (Remember that it’s 50% market, 25% sector and 25% stock as far as direction, but some could argue in markets it’s 75% index, 15% sector and 10% stock.)

 

4. Chart patterns (unlike ice cream) come in just two flavors: continuations and reversals. Reversal patterns mostly form in weak trends. If the trend that the market or stock you are watching has been strong, then chances are that any pause is just a consolidation before the next leg down.

 

5. There is no such thing as “safe sectors.” Sure, each bear market brings sector rotation. But make sure if you are playing this game that you don’t have the flexibility of wood. And when the music stops, quickly find a chair!

That is, you must keep a flexible mindset so that you are able to change with the markets. The best traders are those who are nimble and approach the markets without bias.

 

6. Your stop-losses are YOUR stop-losses. The pain of being down 8% in a bull market is no different than being 8% wrong in a bear. If your risk tolerance requires you stopping out at 8%, then be consistent in any market you trade, but trade “with the primary trend.”

It takes greater emotional balance to trade a bear than a bull. So, always manage your risk — just remember that, in the markets, your money is always at risk.

Great traders manage emotions and risk. This makes them great. YOU know your risk tolerance and YOU control what happens between the “keyboard and chair.”

 

7. Bear markets are generally slow-moving affairs. However, stocks in bear markets can move much faster than you think (hence the reason that volatility rises drastically). But the “time” we spend in a bear is what everyone needs to keep in perspective. Bear markets last much longer than most are willing to wait. (more…)

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