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Just Avoid These 7 Words -If U Are A Trader

  
  Education
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Be careful how you use the following words and phrases as they become road blocks or worse take you down the wrong path.

Should– Phrases include: “The market should have” and “I should have”. Those phrases are often used to socialize losses. They are a strong signal something is off. They should be used to aid you in correcting your vision not make you feel better.

Must– Phrases include: “The market must…”, “I must make money”, or “I must trade”. The market does not have to do anything and either do you. When you use the word “must” it is hardly ever from a position of strength. The market knows when you are desperate and will take full advantage of you. Keeping your expenses as low as possible will make it easier to not make those statements.

Will– Phrases include: “The market will..” and “I will make money”. Once again the market does not like to be told what to do. It is the bratty kid screaming at the tops of his lungs. The word “will” relaxes your mind, similar to “should”, people use it to be lazy instead of a black background in an otherwise light picture. You can do everything right and still lose money. That is why trading is so effective at diminishing confidence. In most every activity, if you do everything right you are going to get the desired result. Doing the “right” things is bare minimum. Of course, over time you will get paid for doing the right things but it is never when you think it should be and hardly how much you anticipated. (more…)

This One Thing that Separates losing traders from the Winners

  
  Education
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Making money in the financial markets is not only challenging but just surviving an account blow up is also a win for many new traders. There is one thing that ultimately determines your success in the markets. It is not your stock picking skills, your trend following or even trading a robust method. The dividing line between the winners and the losers in trading and investing is risk management. If you trade all in and risk it all over an over you will eventually blow up your account, and the funny thing is that it will likely be on your ‘can’t miss’ trade that is just way to obvious to everyone and is a crowded trade. Traders that believe have 10 losing trades in a row are impossible will discover it is very possible. Each trade should be large enough to return enough to make it worth your while, but small enough to make it inconsequential to your results in the long term. Trading small not only eliminates the financial risk of account ruin that is ever present in a market environment that is not conducive to your methodology but small risks also keep your logical brain in control of your trading and your emotions on the side lines.Nothing is more painful in my opinion than to build up an account during a great string of wins only to give it back with a string of losses in a different market environment. Small bets and staying out when he market waves get wild is a great formula to avoid big draw downs. You can still win big when you are right by letting a winner run but always lose small when you are wrong. The bet size on each trade will make or break ever trader at some point usually sooner than later. (more…)

You Might be a Bad Trader if:

  
  Education
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You Might be a Bad Trader if:
…You are 100% sure about a trade being a winner so you have no need to manage risk.
…You go all in on one trade and  it will make you are break you.
…You like to buy deep out of the money stock options not understanding how bad the odds are on them.
…You love directly giving unsolicited advice to other traders due to not understanding they have different trading plans and time frames.
…You are so new to trading you think it is a place of easy money.
…You think traders that talk about risk management and trader psychology are silly and that you are above that.
…You brag to much about your account size and last trade, it indicates to me you do not understand the long term in the markets.
…You are very loud about your winners but never discuss your losing trades.
…You brag to much.
And You Might really be a bad trader if: If you attack trading principles that you do not even fully understand due to lack of real trading.

 

List of Common Characteristics of Great Traders -10 Points

  
  Education
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1. They all have a tested, positive expectancy system that’s proved to make money for the market type for which it was designed.

2. They all have systems that fit them and their beliefs. They understand that they make money with their systems because their systems fit them.

3. They totally understand the concepts they are trading and how those concepts generate low-risk ideas

. 4. They all understand that when they get into a trade, they must have some idea of when they are wrong and will bail out

. 5. They all evaluate the ratio of reward to risk in each trade they take. For mechanical traders, this is part of their system. For discretionary traders, this is part of their evaluation before they take the trade.

6. They all have a business plan to guide their trading. You must treat your trading like any other business

7. They all use position sizing. They have clear objectives written out, something that most traders/investors do not have. They also understand that position sizing is the key to meeting those objectives and have worked out a position sizing algorithm to meet those objectives.

8. They all understand that performance is a function of personal psychology and spend a lot of time working on themselves. You must become an efficient rather than inefficient decision maker.

9. They take total responsibility for the results they get. They don’t blame someone else or something else. They don’t justify their results. They don’t feel guilty or ashamed about their results. They simply assume that they created them and that they can create better results by eliminating mistakes.

10. They understand that not following their system and business plan rules is a mistake. If you make even one mistake per month, you can turn a profitable system into a disaster. Thus, the key to becoming efficient is to eliminate such mistakes.

What elements from the above list do you need to work on more than any other? Yes, take a moment to think about this today. As you set your top priorities for this new second quarter, I recommend focusing on just one of these elements by outlining specific steps you need to take this quarter to improve. For some, this will require further study. For others, it only requires just some minor behavior modification, refocus and attitude adjustment. Many times the difference between being great and mediocre

Use losers to learn a lesson and strengthen your trade execution

  
  Education
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Losing trades can be the best ‘teacher’ you’ll ever have. However, just as with winning trades, it’s important to note that there will be a normal statistical variance of losing trades within any trading edge. So, you should not fall into the mental trap of thinking that EVERY losing trade you have was a major failure or that it means something is ‘wrong’ with your trading method or trading ability. Sometimes, perfectly good trade setups will fail, as that is just part of the game we call trading, so you just have to accept these trades and move on…assuming that you stuck to your trading strategy and the trade wasn’t taken out of greed, revenge or fear (over-trading).

The losing trades that you NEED to learn from and that you can learn a lot from, are those ‘stupid’ losing trades that you unfortunately did take out of greed, revenge or fear…and I know you know what I’m talking about here. After the trade is finished, you can record in your trading journal what you did wrong and why the trade was a failure; use these types of losing trades as a lesson and dissect what went wrong, you can then use this information to strengthen commitment to sticking to your trading strategy and plan.

The aim here, is to hopefully not make the same ‘stupid’ trading mistake twice, after all, your hard-earned money IS on the line every time you enter a trade. As you learn from ‘stupid trades’ it should help build your confidence because you will begin to see the power of remaining disciplined and consistent in trading, and you will start to see that you CAN trade successfully if you just stop making stupid trades.

Trading Mathematics and Trend Following

  
  Education
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Some quick points, to be making money, Profit Factor must be greater than 1.

  • Profit Factor (PF)
  • = Gross Gains / Gross Losses
  • = (Average win * number of wins) / (Average loss * number of losses)
  • = R * w / (1-w)
    • where R = Average win / Average loss
    • w = win rate, i.e. % number of winners compared to total number of trades

Re-arranging, we have

  • w = PF / (PF + R)
  • R = PF * (1 – w) / w

Sample numbers showing the minimum R required to break-even (i.e. PF = 1, assuming no transaction costs) for varying win rates.

  • w = 90% >> R = 0.11
  • w = 80% >> R = 0.25
  • w = 70% >> R = 0.43
  • w = 60% >> R = 0.67
  • w = 50% >> R = 1
  • w = 40% >> R = 1.5
  • w = 30% >> R = 2.33
  • w = 20% >> R = 4
  • w = 10% >> R = 9

The style of trading strongly influences the win rate and R (average winner / average loser). For example, (more…)

Traders-Are You Guilty?

  
  Education
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  1. re you trading without a plan? Trading without a plan makes you emotional and a gambler.
  2. Do you ever trade too big for your trading account size? Big trades are bad trades for the emotional engagement and risk of ruin that they entail over the long term.
  3. Do you risk losing more if you are wrong than you will make if you are right? The biggest driver of profitability in your trading will be big wins and small losses. Big losses and small wins is a sure path to losing your trading capital.
  4. Have you traded without studying charts to see what has happened historically with similiar price patterns? If you do your homework you can make money understanding possibilities and probabilities from past patterns. Trading your own opinions will usually put you on the wrong side of the market. 
  5. Did you trade a system before you back-tested it?Or are you just trading blindly?
  6. Have you ever exited a trade due to fear instead of due to hitting your stop loss or trailing stop? The right exit is what determines your profitability and whether your win is a big one or your loss is a big one.
  7. Have you ever entered a trade becasue of greed without an entry signal? Chasing a trade after the trend is over is a great way to lose money consistently and quickly.
  8. Have you ever copied someone else’s trade not knowing their time frame or position size? Ultimately you have to trade your own system and your own method that matches your own personality and risk tolerance. Only you can make yourself profitable with faith in yourself and your method.
  9. Are you that person that loves to short during market up trends and miss a whole up move?The easy money is on the side of the trend in your time frame going against the trend is a great way to lose money.
  10. Are you that knife catcher that keeps going long at the worn time in a down trend? When everyone is exiting a market that is the worst time to be getting long as wave after wave of holders are leaving. 

Stock Market Wisdom :Benjamin Lee

  
  Education
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Benjamin Lee

“There are laws governing the financial markets just as there is gravity law to keep all things together on the earth.”

  • “Stock market is a battlefield. Always remember to survive in the game first. Only those that survive the battle can enjoy the spoils of the war.”
  • “Never revenge for your losses in share market. It will get you killed.”
  • “It is better to be late, and catch the right worm, than catching the snake’s tail.”
  • “The stock market is always there. It has been there for centuries, and it lives longer than anyone of us here. Therefore, don’t rush and trade all your capital like there is no tomorrow.”
  • “Human is always subject to his own emotion. How many of us can break free from the greed, fear, and unfounded hope that are so common in stock market?”

“Do not underestimate the power of a raging bull, and the strength of a bear in stock market. Both have the power to trample you to death if you fight against them.”

“The secret recipe for success in stock market is simple. 30% in market analysis skills, 30% in risks management, 30% in emotion control, and 10% in luck.”

“Time is the cause, Volume is the fuel, and Price is the result. Of all these three, Time is the greatest factor in determining stock market direction.”

“The worst enemy to any stock traders and investors are Greed, Fear, and unfounded Hope.”

3 Hard Questions

  
  Education
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Markets are highly random and are very, very close to being efficient.

If you are a new trader, trading is probably harder than you think it can be. If you’ve been trading a while, you know this. Financial markets are one of the most competitive environments in the modern world. New information is quickly processed and incorporated into prices. This means that you cannot outsmart the market consistently. You cannot invest based on what you think makes sense or should happen because you are up against investors with superior access to information, knowledge, experience, capital and other resources. Most of the time, markets move in a more or less random fashion; you can’t make money if market movements are random. (“Efficient”, in this context, is an academic term that basically means that all available information is reflected in prices.)

It is impossible to make money trading without an edge.

There are many ways to create an edge in the markets, but one this is true—it is very, very hard to do so. Most things that people say work in the market do not actually work. Treat claims of success and performance with healthy skepticism. I can tell you, based on my experience of nearly twenty years as a trader, most people who say they are making substantial profits are not. This is a very hard business.

Every edge we have is driven by an imbalance of buying and selling pressure.

The world divides into two large groups of traders and investors: fundamental traders who base decisions off of financial analysis, understanding of the industry and a company’s competitive position, growth rates, assessment of management, etc. Technical traders base decisions off of patterns in prices, volume or related data. From a technical perspective, every edge we have is generated by a disagreement between buyers and sellers. When they are in balance (equilibrium), market movements are random.

Trading Should Be Effortless

  
  Education
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  • Money comes in bunches.

That one says it all. You can’t force trades. You can’t simply work harder in order to be ‘in sync’. Sometimes you are, sometimes you are not. You simply have to accept that as being part of the trading business. What you can do, is to closely monitor if your performance is in sync with the market’s performance. If the markets make new highs and your overall portfolio is going down something is wrong. You need to address that issue. Fast. The best way is to step aside and drastically reduce exposure and risk. That’s what I did.

  • Trading should be effortless.

A true piece of wisdom. In my experience when I trade well it is like shooting fish in a barrel. Almost everything works. I don’t need to be overly patient with positions. The money comes in very fast. That’s exactly how trading should be. The exact opposite was the case during the first 2 months of this year. So I did what I had to do. I recognized the situation for what it was and admitted my efforts were not leading my portfolio anywhere. It was like folding when you are dealt a bad hand in poker. So I folded. Now I am waiting for the next hand. If it is a bad one I fold again. If a series of trades start to really go my way I push it hard and increase exposure and trade aggressively. (more…)

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