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12 Things Traders Should Not Do at all

  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.

10+1 Rules If You USE Charts

Rule 1 – If you cannot see trends and patterns almost instantly when you look at a chart then they are not there. The longer you stare, the more your brain will try to apply order where there is none.

If you have to justify exceptions, stray data points and conflicting evidence then it is safe to say the market is not showing you what you think it is.

Rule 2 – If you cannot figure out if something is bullish or bearish after three indicators then move on. The more studies you apply to any chart the more likely one of them will say “something.” That something is probably not correct.

When I look at a chart and cannot form an opinion after applying three or four different types of indicators – volume, momentum, trend, even Fibonacci – I  must conclude that the market has not decided what it wants to do at that time. Who am I to tell it what it thinks?

Rule 3 – You can torture a chart to say anything you want. Don’t do it.

This is very similar to Rule 2 but it there is an important point to drive home. You can cherry pick indicators to justify whatever biases you bring to the table and that attempts to impose your will on the market. You cannot tell the market what to do – ever. (more…)

Our 10 Trading Resolutions for 2015

  1. We will only take the very best trade set ups in 2015 discarding the average and mediocre ones.We want each trade to have an excellent risk/reward ratio.
  2. We will position size based on the worse case scenario for volatility and range expansion not what I think is a safe bet.
  3. We will use more option contracts when their volume permits in my trades to limit my risk to the size of the option contract instead of using so much capital to trade equities.
  4. We will limit my total risk exposure to only two trades on at a time.
  5. We will focus on limiting my losses and drawdowns in 2015 to in return maximize my gains.
  6. We will be looking to structure trades for a more consistent monthly return by trading stock indexes primarily.
  7. We will focus on understanding the emotions  that arise during my trades, each trade will be made with a clean slate focused exclusively on current price action.
  8. We will be in absolutely no hurry to place trades. I will be waiting for trades to come to me.
  9. We will flow with the patterns and price action of the markets and restrain from bias and options. Signals will be my guide.
  10. We will double my efforts in backtests and chart pattern studies of historical charts.

10 One Liner Rules for Traders

Risk management- Plan your loss before planning your profit.
Diversification- Be bullish, be bearish, be involved in various groups/markets.
Proper Position Sizing- Trade small, trade safe.
Effective Trading Plan- Make sure your plan works, and/or makes money.
Cutting Losses Short- Enter a trade that offers a small loss.
Letting Winners Run- Don’t kill your winners.
Curbing Your Emotion- This is a bi product of trading small.

Recommendation: Give your account the same foundation so you can participate in the activity above.
Long: My rules
Short: My emotion

10 points -Risk Managment

1.    Never enter a trade before you know where you will exit if proven wrong.
2.    First find the right stop loss level that will show you that you’re wrong about a trade then set your positions size based on that price level.
3.    Focus like a laser on how much capital can be lost on any trade first before you enter not on how much profit you could make.
4.    Structure your trades through position sizing and stop losses so you never lose more than 1% of your trading capital on one losing trade.
5.    Never expose your trading account to more than 5% total risk at any one time.
6.    Understand the nature of volatility and adjust your position size for the increased risk with volatility spikes.
7.    Never, ever, ever, add to a losing trade. Eventually that will destroy your trading account when you eventually fight the wrong trend.
8.    All your trades should end in one of four ways: a small win, a big win, a small loss, or break even, but never a big loss. If you can get rid of big losses you have a great chance of eventually trading success.
9.    Be incredibly stubborn in your risk management rules don’t give up an inch. Defense wins championships in sports and profits in trading.
10.    Most of the time trailing stops are more profitable than profit targets. We need the big wins to pay for the losing trades. Trends tend to go farther than anyone anticipates.

The Bible of Technical Analysis Edwards & Magee- Some Things Never Change

“It has often been pointed out that any of several different plans of operation, if followed consistently over a number of years, would have produced consistently a net gain on market operations. The fact is, however, that many traders, having not set up a basic strategy and having no sound philosophy of what the market is doing and why, are at the mercy of every panic, boom, rumor, tip, in fact, of every wind that blows. And since the market, by its very nature, is a meeting place of conflicting and competing forces, they are constantly torn by worry, uncertainty, and doubt. As a result, they often drop their good holdings for a loss on a sudden dip or shakeout; they can be scared out of their short commitments by a wave of optimistic news; they spend their days picking up gossip, passing on rumors, trying to confirm their beliefs or alleviate their fears; and they spend their nights weighing and balancing, checking and questioning, in a welter of bright hopes and dark fears.

Furthermore, a trader of this type is in continual danger of getting caught in a situation that may be truly ruinous. Since he has no fixed guides or danger points to tell him when a commitment has gone bad and it is time to get out with a small loss, he is prone to let stocks run entirely past the red light, hoping that the adverse move will soon be over, and there will be a ‘chance to get out even,’ a chance that often never comes. And, even should stocks be moving in the right direction and showing him a profit, he is not in a much happier position, since he has no guide as to the point at which to take profits. The result is he is likely to get out too soon and lose most of his possible gain, or overstay the market and lose part of the expected profits. (more…)

Trader Types and Personalities

  • Scalpers
    • High energy, short attention spans.
    • Usually former athletes, tennis and hockey players make the best traders.
    • Able to play both offense and defense simultaneously, and able to think a few steps ahead of the game.
  • Spreaders / Option Traders
    • Quick and flexible thinkers, able to look at numbers and figure risk and value instantaneously.
    • Not in the market to take risk, methodically search for mathematical anomalies and lock in profits immediately.
  • Position Traders
    • Energy level almost nonexistent.
    • Put on passive positions, ride the winners, cut losers.
    • As a position trader, your brains are working all the time, and you keep looking for an informational edge that might drive the market one way or the other.

The Difference Between A Good And A Bad Trader: What Brain Imaging Reveals

The age old question: what is the difference between a good trader and a bad trader… aside from the P&L at the end of the day of course.

While luck has always been a major component of the equation, figuring out just what makes one trader successful, while another blows all his funds on a trade gone horribly bad has always been the holy grail of behavioral finance. Because if one can isolate what makes a good trader “ticks, that something can then be bottled, packaged and resold at a massive markup (and thus, another good trade) in the process making everyone the functional equivalent of Warren Buffett.

Or so the myth goes. Alas, the distinction between the world’s only two types of traders has been a very vague one.

Until now. (more…)

Peter Lynch’s Rules

Find your edge and put it to work by adhering to the following rules:

  • With every stock you own, keep track of its story in a logbook. Note any new developments and pay close attention to earnings. Is this a growth play, a cyclical play, or a value play? Stocks do well for a reason and do poorly for a reason. Make sure you know the reasons.
  • Pay attention to facts, not forecasts.
  • Ask yourself: What will I make if I’m right, and what could I lose if I’m wrong? Look for a risk-reward ratio of three to one or better.
  • Before you invest, check the balance sheet to see if the company is financially sound.
  • Don’t buy options, and don’t invest on margin. With options, time works against you, and if you’re on margin, a drop in the market can wipe you out.
  • When several insiders are buying the company’s stock at the same time, it’s a positive.
  • Average investors should be able to monitor five to ten companies at a time, but nobody is forcing you to own any of them. If you like seven, buy seven. If you like three, buy three. If you like zero, buy zero.
  • Be patient. The stocks that have been most rewarding to me have made their greatest gains in the third or fourth year I owned them. A few took ten years.
  • Enter early — but not too early. I often think of investing in growth companies in terms of baseball. Try to join the game in the third inning, because a company has proved itself by then. If you buy before the lineup is announced, you’re taking an unnecessary risk. There’s plenty of time (10 to 15 years in some cases) between the third and the seventh innings, which is where the 10- to 50-baggers are made. If you buy in the late innings, you may be too late.
  • Don’t buy “cheap” stocks just because they’re cheap. Buy them because the fundamentals are improving.
  • Buy small companies after they’ve had a chance to prove they can make a profit.
  • Long shots usually backfire or become “no shots.”
  • If you buy a stock for the dividend, make sure the company can comfortably afford to pay the dividend out of its earnings, even in an economic slump.
  • Investigate ten companies and you’re likely to find one with bright prospects that aren’t reflected in the price. Investigate 50 and you’re likely to find 5.

Nassim Taleb’s Risk Management Rules of Thumb

Rule No. 1- Do not venture in markets and products you do not understand. You will be a sitting duck.

Rule No. 2- The large hit you will take next will not resemble the one you took last. Do not listen to the consensus as to where the risks are (that is, risks shown by VAR). What will hurt you is what you expect the least.

Rule No. 3- Believe half of what you read, none of what you hear. Never study a theory before doing your own observation and thinking. Read every piece of theoretical research you can-but stay a trader. An unguarded study of lower quantitative methods will rob you of your insight.

Rule No. 4- Beware of the nonmarket-making traders who make a steady income-they tend to blow up. Traders with frequent losses might hurt you, but they are not likely to blow you up. Long volatility traders lose money most days of the week.

Rule No. 5- The markets will follow the path to hurt the highest number of hedgers. The best hedges are those you alone put on. (more…)