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Don't be afraid to be a sheep

  1. Follow the trends. This is probably some of the hardest advice for a trader to follow because the personality of the typical futures trader is not “one of the crowd.” Futures traders (and futures brokers) are highly individualistic; the markets seem to attract those who are. Very simply, it takes a special kind of person, not “one of the crowd,” to earn enough risk capital to get involved in the futures markets. So the typical trader and the typical broker must guard against their natural instincts to be highly individualistic, to buck the trend.
  2. Know why you are trading the commodity markets. To relieve boredom? To hit it big? When you can honestly answer this question, you may be on your way to successful futures trading.
  3. Use a trading system, any system, and stick to it.
  4. Apply money management techniques to your trading.
  5. Do not overtrade.
  6. Take a position only when you know where your profit goal is and where you are going to get out if the market goes against you.
  7. Trade with the trends, rather than trying to pick tops and bottoms.
  8. Don’t trade many markets with little capital.
  9. Don’t just trade the volatile contracts.
  10. Calculate the risk/reward ratio before putting a trade on, then guard against holding it too long.
  11. Establish your trading plans before the market opening to eliminate emotional reactions. Decide on entry points, exit points, and objectives. Subject your decisions to only minor changes during the session. Profits are for those who act, not react. Don’t change during the session unless you have a very good reason.
  12. Follow your plan. Once a position is established and stops are selected, do not get out unless the stop is reached or the fundamental reason for taking the position changes.
  13. Use technical signals (charts) to maintain discipline – the vast majority of traders are not emotionally equipped to stay disciplined without some technical tools.

Expectation & Over Trading :Mistakes of Traders

Expectation-Expectations that are too high, too soon. Beginning futures traders that expect to quit their “day job” and make a good living trading futures in their first few years of trading are usually disappointed. You don’t become a successful doctor or lawyer or business owner in the first couple years of the practice. It takes hard work and perseverance to achieve success in any field of endeavor–and trading futures is no different. Futures trading is not the easy, “get-rich-quick” scheme that a few unsavory characters make it out to be.

“Over-trading.”overtrading-overeating Trading too many markets at one time is a mistake–especially if you are racking up losses. If trading losses are piling up, it’s time to cut back on trading, even though there is the temptation to make more trades to recover the recently lost trading assets. It takes keen focus and concentration to be a successful futures trader. Having “too many irons in the fire” at one time is a mistake.

Better to be Profitable Than Right

The ultimate goal of a futures trader should be to have overall trading success by being profitable. There is no single-best path one can take on the destination to trading success and profitability. However, there are a few general trading tenets to which all successful traders have subscribed. One such trading tenet is “losing your ego” when trading futures.

Mark Cook, a well-respected trader and trading educator from rural Ohio, for many years has stressed that traders need to lose their egos before getting into trading futures markets. He is also an advocate of survival in futures trading. One must survive in this challenging arena before one can succeed. I enjoyed listening to Mark at a trading seminar a few years ago. He even used to wear bib-overalls (with no shirt) at some of his trading seminars – just to drive home the point that trading futures is not easy and that ultimate success takes a lot of hard work.

My good friend and respected trader and educator Glen Ring also espouses the notion, and may have even coined the phrase, “it’s better to be profitable than right in futures trading.” Those who know or have talked to Glen know he, too, is a no-nonsense, no-hype trader who takes a yeoman’s approach to the business. When asked what direction a specific market “will” go in the future, Glen is never afraid to say, “I don’t know,” before he adds that, “successful trading is not a business of predictions but one of probabilities based on past price history.” (more…)

Schwager’s New Hedge Market Wizards Book w/ Dalio, Thorp, Woodriff

Looks like Schwager is putting out a new version of his famous Market Wizards series.  Personally I’d like to see a “where are they now” from the past few books. (His other books here.)
Hedge Fund Market Wizards
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I: Macro Men
Chapter 1 Colm O’Shea: Knowing When It’s Raining
Chapter 2 Ray Dalio: The Man Who Loves Mistakes
Chapter 3 Scott Ramsey: Low-Risk Futures Trader
Chapter 4 Jamie Mai: Seeking Asymmetry
Chapter 5 Jaffray Woodriff: The Third Way
Part II: Multi
Chapter 6 Edward Thorp: The Innovator
Chapter 7 Larry Benedict: Beyond Three Strikes
Chapter 8 Michael Platt: The Art and Science of Risk Control
Part III: Equity
Chapter 9 Steve Clark: Do more of What Works and Less of What Doesn’t
Chapter 10 Martin Taylor: The Tsar Has No Clothes
Chapter 11 Tom Claugus: A Change of Plans
Chapter 12 Joe Vidich: Harvesting Losses
Chapter 13 Kevin Daly: Who Is Warren Buffett?
Chapter 14 Jimmy Balodimas: Stepping in Front of Freight Trains
Chapter 15 Joel Greenblatt: The Magic Formula
Conclusion 40 Market Wizard Lessons
Appendix 1 The Gain to Pain Ratio
Appendix 2 TITLE TK

Six steps for Traders

  • Define the question
  • gather information and resources
  • form hypothesis
  • perform experiment and collect data
  • analyze data
  • interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for a new hypothesis.

1. Define the question: What is it exactly that you are trying to achieve? Are you shooting for high returns with high risk, long term gains with minimal risk, day trading, swing trading, position trading? Are you trying to make enough money to buy a new car or enough to buy a yacht? First define what it is that you want out of your trading!

2. Gather information and resources: What will be the best route to achieve your trading goals? Are you going to be a stock trader, a futures trader, a forex trader? Maybe everything? Doing the necessary research and taking the time to really get to know your market/markets is absolutely key to successful trading. Some people make great futures traders but horrible stock traders and vice-versa, while others are able to dabble in a little bit of everything and be successful. One way to see what fits you best is to try trading a little bit of everything and see where you feel the most comfortable. Start with small accounts and see what fit is a good one for you.

3. Form hypothesis: This is the fun part and where you get to design your “system” or “rules” by which to trade. Does your trading hypothesis revolve around chart patterns, trendlines, support and resistance, or are you more of a numbers kind of person that trades strictly off price? Do you use indicators? Maybe you are a programmer that has developed an algorithm. Whatever it is I believe it is important to form a hypothesis and then… (more…)

Words of Wisdom from :Kroll's book

The Professional Commodity Trader (reprinted in 1995 by Traders Press) to follow him as he traded between July 1971 and January 1974, during which time for the 39 accounts that he managed he turned $664,379 into $2,985,138. He funded his own account in July 1971 with $18,000; eighteen months later it had appreciated to $130,000. Apparently before he “retired,” he was sitting on a $1 million account. What was the secret of his success?

Kroll was a discretionary trend trader in the tradition of Jesse Livermore. He had simple entry and exit rules. To initiate a position he would trade in the direction of the major trend, against the minor trend. “For example, if the major trend is clearly up, trade the market from the long side, or not at all, buying when: a. the minor trend has turned down, and b. prices are ‘digging’ into support, and c. the market has made a 35-50 percent retracement of the previous up leg.” To close out a long position at a profit, liquidate one-third at a logical price objective into overhead resistance, another third at a long-term price objective into major resistance, and trail stop the remaining third. There are three approaches to closing out a position at a loss. First, enter an arbitrary “money” stop-loss such as 40-50% of the requisite margin; second, enter a chart stop-loss “to close out the position when the major trend reverses against your position—not when the minor trend reverses (that’s just the point where you should be initiating the position, not closing it out).” Finally, “maintain the position until you are convinced that you are wrong (the major trend has reversed against you) and then close out on the first technical correction.” (pp. 27-28) He admits that the last alternative can be potentially lethal; the technical correction may not come in a timely fashion.

Kroll offers some advice to the would-be futures trader. He urges the wannabe to play only for the major moves—not for scalps. As he writes, “Riding a winning commodity position is a lot like riding a bucking bronco. Once you manage to get aboard, you know what you have to do—hang on and stay hung on; not get bumped or knocked off till the end of the ride. And you know that if you can just manage to stay in the saddle, you’re a winner. Sounds simple? Well, that’s the essence of successful trading.” (p. 44)

Put another way, when ahead, “play for the big score and don’t settle for a minor profit.” On the other hand, when a trade isn’t working out, “spend your constructive effort in calculating how to close out the losing position with a minimum loss or perhaps a modest profit—and if such an opportunity is offered, take it.” Contrary to a lot of the literature, he also advocates striving for a high winning percentage. The problem with accepting a small fraction of winning trades is that “the winningest accounts . . . still manage to chalk up some mighty big losses—it seems just about impossible to always keep losses small, no matter how hard you try.” (p. 153)

I’ve extracted some words of wisdom from Kroll’s book, but what makes the book so enjoyable is that Kroll takes the reader through actual trades, some winners and others losers, and shows the courage it took to ride the bronco and the acute pain he felt when he was bucked off. It’s a book that you read in one sitting, fully engrossed.