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25 Trading Lessons From Jesse Livermore

  
  Education
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1. 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. 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. The market will often go contrary to what speculators have predicted. At these times, successful speculators must abandon their predictions and follow the action of the market. Prudent speculators never argue with the tape. (more…)

6 Universal principles of successful traders

  
  Education
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1). Preparation

Author Brent Penfold is in the minority believing risk management is the #1 priority in trading. Brent believes that once you get your trading system and position size in place you must use the amount you will risk on each trade to determine your risk of ruin. The book shows exactly how to figure this out using Excel. His point is that if your risk of ruin is not zero then you will eventually blow out your account. Risking 1% to 2% of your capital in any one trade usually gives you a zero percent risk of ruin but it also depends on your systems win/loss ratio. But the point is to test any system with 30 trades first then determine your risk of ruin.

2). Enlightenment

Your most important goal is to lower your risk ruin to zero. In trading, the trader with the best ability to cut losses short wins. Simple trading strategies work the best based on traditional support and resistance while trading with the trend on either retracements of break outs. The 10% of winners in the market win by treading where others fear, buying on break outs when they first occur and going short when a new low is made, or buying into the abyss when a security finds support or resistance and reverses at the end of a monster trend.

3). Developing a trading style (more…)

5 Obstacles For Traders ,Just Cross Them & See Great Results

  
  Education
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  1. YOUR EGO: It wants you to PROVE you are right, it wants you to trade big, the ego wants you to be confident in your ability to trade before you are competent in your trading through the right education and experience.
  2. YOUR FEARS: Fear makes you afraid to take your entry when it is triggered and afraid to let a winner run thinking it will turn into a loser. Fear comes from a lack of faith and lack of faith arises from lack of the proper study before you start trading.
  3. YOUR GREED: It makes you trade too big and too much. Greed makes you want to risk too it all to get rich quick. Greed usually leads to get broke quick trades. Greed wants to take a short cut to success and you have to travel the full road to get to where you really want to go. You have to go through the work and experiences to get to success.
  4. NO TRADING PLAN: If you do not have a map it does not matter where you want to go you will end up somewhere else. Every trade should be planned when the market is closed and then executed reacting to prices when the market is open. With no plan long term results are virtually impossible.
  5. YOU: The weakest part of any trading system is the trader that is suppose to follow it. If you do not put in the work to develop a trading plan that fits you, develop and keep discipline, manage your risk, and stick to the plan regardless of how you feel then no trading system will work for you.

Winning Traders Must Have These Three Elements

  
  Education
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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 and 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 ability to trade int eh future on any one trade.
  • They do not risk more than 6%-12% of their capital at one time across multiple trades.

The Mind of the Trader

  • They have faith in their system or method and continue to trade it even when they are losing so they capture the wins when they start again.
  • Almost all winning traders have come back from blowing up their accounts or losing a lot of money, they persevered while many others quit before they won. You will have to do the same if you do not understand the risk of ruin .
  • Most winning traders have learned to separate their trading from their self worth and ego. They treat it like a business not an ego trip.

Your focus in your trading career should be like a laser on finding the right system & method, learning why it is so important to manage risk then doing it, and having the right mind set to stay disciplined, passionate, and focused to get into the winning circle. With these three elements incorporated into a trading plan you will eventually win big. If you are missing any one of these three elements in your trading the odds are that you will be out of the game quicklyeither after a string of losses, loss of faith in yourself or system, or loss of belief that winning at trading is even possible for you.

Commitment

  
  Education
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Becoming a successful investor/trader requires hard work. You must get to know yourself intimately because you are the source of your trading performance. You must develop a business plan to guide your trading. You must develop and test three or four strategies that fit within the big picture (as you see it) and then become part of your business plan. You must do your homework every evening. You must follow certain disciplines during the day that we call the ten tasks of trading. And all of this requires a lot of time and energy. And in my experience, it is only the people who are really committed who will put in the work necessary to become successful.

STRATEGY -For Traders

  
  Education
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Who Makes Money Consistently

  • Aside from the small number of professional operators, who scalp in large volume and pay only negligible commissions or clearing fees, the traders who make the big money on a consistent basis are the longer-term position traders. They tend to be trend followers.
  • I have been fortunate to have been on the right side of some big positions and big profits, some of them held for as long as eight or ten months and, as related later, one actually held long for five years.

Go For the Big Move, Even If You Know Most Moves Are Small

  • Every time you assume a market position in the direction of the major trend, you should premise that the market could have major profit potential and you should play your strategy accordingly. By doing so, you will be encouraged to hold the position and not look for short-term trades.
  • Your perception tells you to hold every with-the-trend position, looking for the big move. Your sense of reality tells you that most trades are not destined for the big move. But, since you don’t know in advance which trade will be wildly successful and since you know that some of them will be, the strategy of choice is to assume each with-the-trend trade can be the ‘big one’; and let your stops take you out of those trades which fizzle.
  • The annals of financial markets are replete with real time examples of markets that started most unimpressively, but then developed into full scale mega-moves. Meanwhile, most of the original participants who may have climbed on board at the very inception of the move, got out at the first profit opportunity and then watched as the market continued to move very substantially, but certainly without them.

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7 Points For Traders

  
  Education
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1. Hope is not a strategy.TRADING-7
2. Plan your entry and exit before you make a trade.
3. If you are unsure of what to do, get out.
4. Only trade when you have an edge.
5. Track all your trades. If a strategy loses money, abandon it.
6. Do not focus only on potential gains but also on potential losses. Trade only when the risk/reward ratio is favorable.
7. Don’t let a very good profit disappear or turn into a loss because you want an even bigger profit.

Trading Strategies for Success

  
  Education
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A great excerpt from “Trading Rules: Strategies for Success” by William Eng. It’s a great reminder that market prediction is a fool’s errand:

When you buy something, you want it to go up. When you sell something, you want it to go down. The chance of entering the trade correctly is small, but the chance of exiting the trade correctly is smaller. The chance of being right on both entering and exiting is the smallest. With such diminishing odds of coming through with a completely correct and, therefore, profitable trading campaign, the fewer decisions you make in the markets, the more profitable your trading should be. How many people actually get to sell at the top or buy at the bottom? At most, a handful in each reversal area. First, you must be a market follower, once the market has told you want it wants to do. If the market is a raging bull, you have no alternative but to buy. If it is bearish, you have no alternative but to sell every time you get the opportunity. Let the market tell you what to do. To do otherwise is to try to control the markets-something that is only reserved for God and natural disasters. Secondly, selling at the top and buying at the bottom does not guarantee profits. How many times have you heard of traders who managed to sell near the highs or buy near the bottoms, only to miss the ensuing move completely.

A Trading Psychology Lesson :Know Who You Are

  
  Education
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A good analyst is someone who can figure out that markets are going from Point A to Point B;

A good trader is someone who can navigate the path from Point A to Point B;
A good investor is someone who can weather the path from Point A to Point B;
Good analysts often are not good traders.
Good traders often are not good investors.
Good investors often are not good traders.
Good traders and investors often need to hire good analysts.
So much of success boils down to knowing who you are and accepting that.Doll-ASR

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.

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