1. You Must Have a Game Plan
2. You Should Follow the Game Plan
3. Always Trade With a Stop Loss
4. Diversify Your Trades
5. Trade the Big Moves While Filtering Out the Small
6. Trade With the Overall Trend
7. Do Not Listen to the News; Only the Market
8. Don’t Listen to Your Broker.
9. Have Money Management Rules
10. Most Important: Have the Discipline to Follow the Rules
Archives of “game plan” tag
rssLearn To Love Uncertainty
It is often said that markets hate uncertainty and it is true. We do live and trade in uncertain times. But, as traders and investors, we must all learn to love and appreciate uncertainty. With uncertainty, also brings opportunity. Understanding this concept is so very important and learning how to profit from uncertainty consistently is going to make a critical difference between your success and failure.
Traders learn through experience the importance of examining and evaluating the markets through placing percentages on various future market scenarios. For example, at the hedge fund I worked at last week, every morning traders assemble for a 30 minute premarket meeting where everyone at the firm works closely together to outline the various potential scenarios for the market that day and then place specific odds on what they think is most likely to occur and why. One trader every day is in charge of diagramming out the different market scenarios on a whiteboard which resembles a flow chart so that the firm has a structured and easy to follow game plan. That game plan is also copied and stored so that the firm can later review it to learn and prepare in future days. In fact, at the end of every trading day they have another meeting to review the game plan and what went right and wrong and why.
By having the plan in place with various market scenarios outlined and positions to profit from those scenarios, uncertainty is no longer a factor. In fact, traders learn to love uncertainty because uncertain market conditions tend to favor those who are the most prepared to handle anything and everything Mr. Market could throw their way.
When the market does something outside of that original plan (it doesn’t happen as often as you might think), there is always a Plan B, Plan C, and so on with a number of preconfigured trading ideas to profit if the market moved in a specific manner different than the most likely scenario. By having this planned structure in place, everyone can then focus on price action and trading setups as they occur instead of flying by the seat of their pants or, even worse, finding themselves held hostage or paralyzed by the ticker.
I had the distinct privilege of looking through the archive of firm’s game plans for the past year and was amazed by how well the firm positioned itself according to the plan AND more importantly how it handled itself when the market did something unusual. In fact, just reviewing past game plans would be incredibly useful as a teaching mechanism for new traders who have little understanding of how the pros plan their work and work their plan. If you’re like me, you’ll begin to respect the other side of the trade much more than you probably do already.
As you might imagine, the process of formulating a game plan based on setting percentage odds for various scenarios was very interesting and useful for me to watch and participate in. It also stressed how important it is to have a plan, but at the same time be flexible enough to adjust as market conditions change. I usually spend at least an hour of prep time before every trading day, but after last week’s experience I will be doing more prep than before. That’s how important I think this kind of exercise can be!
So, the question becomes, are you adequately prepared every trading day? In working with many traders over the years, most are not as prepared as I saw with my very own eyes last week. In fact, given the firm’s results compared with other traders I know, I have good reason to think that kind of high-level preparation frequently can separate the winners from the losers.
Yes, it is true that we call can get lucky (every trade in theory has a 50% chance of working out, correct?), but over time the market will remove that luck factor and your success will be determined primarily on consistency and how you plan and deal with uncertainty in the markets. If you spend time every morning engaged in developing your own plan, I think you’re bound to see steady and significant improvement. As Sun Tzu once said, “every battle is won before it is ever fought” and that’s true for those who engage in doing battle with the market in such uncertain times.
Why You May Never Make Money as a Trader
While there are a lot of traders out there, many of them don’t make any money. Well, it’s time for a wake-up call folks. Here are six reasons why you do not — and may not ever — make money as a trader:
You don’t put in the proper amount of effort. You don’t put in the full-time commitment it requires to be profitable in trading because you treat it like a hobby. Trading is not a part-time job. It’s serious business.
- Failure to be disciplined and consistent with your process. There’s no excuse for this. It’s all up to you.
- Trading like a gambler instead of a trader. You’re taking irresponsible risks rather than thinking in terms of probabilities and trading when you have an edge.
- Actually putting on trades without a solid game plan. What are you thinking? You must know your game plan and execute it.
- You over think things. Trading is a simple game — up, down, sideways. Keep it simple and make money.
- Not trusting yourself to do what you know you need to do. You spend too much time listening to other people. Trust yourself and execute what you know.
The good news: every one of these things is entirely in your control. All you have to do is choose to make things happen.
The Traders Mindset
So far the Apprenticed Investor series has discussed a lot of don’ts. Don’t do this, don’t do that; avoid talking to these kinds of traders; don’t say or think these kinds of things.
Well, it’s time to shift gears, and since trading is an active enterprise, I’ll discuss some things you should do. I plan to expand on these ideas significantly in future episodes.
Taken together, the following 10 rules will not only help you with the philosophical grounding necessary for thoughtful — and successful — investing, they will help you avoid some of the more common mistakes made by investors and traders early in their careers.
This is the “Zen of Trading;” It is more than an overview — it’s an investment philosophy that can help you develop an investing framework of your own.
1. Have a Comprehensive Plan: Whether you are an investor or active trader, you must have a plan. Too many investors have no strategy at all — they merely react to each twitch of the market on the fly. If you fail to plan, goes the saying, then you plan to fail.
Consider how Roger Clemens approaches a game. He studies his opponent, constructs his game plan and goes to work.
Investors should write up a business plan, as if they were asking a Venture Capitalist for start-up money; just because you are the angel investor doesn’t mean you should skip the planning stages.
2. Expect to Be Wrong: We’ve discussed this previously, but it is such a key aspect of successful investing that it bears repeating. You will be wrong, you will be wrong often and, occasionally, you will be spectacularly wrong.
Michael Jordan has a fabulous perspective on the subject: “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Jordan was the greatest ball player of all time, and not only because of his superb physical skills: He understood the nature and importance of failure, and placed it appropriately within a larger framework of the game.
The best investors have no ego tied up in a trade. Those who refuse to recognize the simple truism of “being wrong often” end up giving away unacceptable amounts of capital. Stubborn pride and lack of risk management allow egotists to stay in stocks down 30%, 40% or 50% — or worse.
3. Predetermine Stops Before Opening Any Position: Sign a “prenuptial agreement” with every stock you participate in: When it hits some point you have determined before you purchased it, that’s it, you’re out, end of story. Once you have come to understand that you will be frequently wrong, it becomes much easier to use stop-losses and sell targets.
This is true regardless of your methodology: It may be below support or beneath a moving average, or perhaps you prefer a specific percentage amount. Some people use the prior month’s low. But whatever your stop-loss method is, stick to it religiously. Why? The prenup means you are making the exit decision before you are in a trade — while you are still neutral and objective.
4. Follow Discipline Religiously: The greatest rules in the world are worthless if you do not have the personal discipline to see them through. I can recall every single time I broke a trading rule of my own, and it invariably cost me money.
RealMoney’s Chartman, Gary B. Smith, slavishly follows his discipline, and he notes that every time some hedge fund — chock full of Nobel Laureates and Ivy League whiz kids — blows up, the mea culpa is the same: If only we hadn’t overrode the system.
In Jack Schwager’s seminal book Market Wizards, the single most important theme repeated by each of the wizards was the importance of discipline. (more…)
The 7 Essential Trading Rules
1) Begin each trade with the end in mind (have a game plan)
2) Always maintain a “P.M.A.” (Positive Mental Attitude)
3) Avoid falling in love with investments and positions
4) Only invest when you have an “EDGE”
5) The market does not know your position or how much you are up or down
6) Manage Your Risk: H + W + P = E
(Hoping + Wishing + Praying = Exit the Trade)
7) Play the game “One Trade at a Time”
(The most important investment is the one you have right now – not the one you had in the past or the one you want to do in the future)
The Zen of Trading
So far the Apprenticed Investor series has discussed a lot of don’ts. Don’t do this, don’t do that; avoid talking to these kinds of traders; don’t say or think these kinds of things.
Well, it’s time to shift gears, and since trading is an active enterprise, I’ll discuss some things you should do. I plan to expand on these ideas significantly in future episodes.
Taken together, the following 10 rules will not only help you with the philosophical grounding necessary for thoughtful — and successful — investing, they will help you avoid some of the more common mistakes made by investors and traders early in their careers.
This is the “Zen of Trading;” It is more than an overview — it’s an investment philosophy that can help you develop an investing framework of your own.
1. Have a Comprehensive Plan: Whether you are an investor or active trader, you must have a plan. Too many investors have no strategy at all — they merely react to each twitch of the market on the fly. If you fail to plan, goes the saying, then you plan to fail.
Consider how Roger Clemens approaches a game. He studies his opponent, constructs his game plan and goes to work.
Investors should write up a business plan, as if they were asking a Venture Capitalist for start-up money; just because you are the angel investor doesn’t mean you should skip the planning stages.
2. Expect to Be Wrong: We’ve discussed this previously, but it is such a key aspect of successful investing that it bears repeating. You will be wrong, you will be wrong often and, occasionally, you will be spectacularly wrong.
Michael Jordan has a fabulous perspective on the subject: “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Jordan was the greatest ball player of all time, and not only because of his superb physical skills: He understood the nature and importance of failure, and placed it appropriately within a larger framework of the game.
The best investors have no ego tied up in a trade. Those who refuse to recognize the simple truism of “being wrong often” end up giving away unacceptable amounts of capital. Stubborn pride and lack of risk management allow egotists to stay in stocks down 30%, 40% or 50% — or worse.
3. Predetermine Stops Before Opening Any Position: Sign a “prenuptial agreement” with every stock you participate in: When it hits some point you have determined before you purchased it, that’s it, you’re out, end of story. Once you have come to understand that you will be frequently wrong, it becomes much easier to use stop-losses and sell targets.
This is true regardless of your methodology: It may be below support or beneath a moving average, or perhaps you prefer a specific percentage amount. Some people use the prior month’s low. But whatever your stop-loss method is, stick to it religiously. Why? The prenup means you are making the exit decision before you are in a trade — while you are still neutral and objective.
4. Follow Discipline Religiously: The greatest rules in the world are worthless if you do not have the personal discipline to see them through. I can recall every single time I broke a trading rule of my own, and it invariably cost me money.
RealMoney’s Chartman, Gary B. Smith, slavishly follows his discipline, and he notes that every time some hedge fund — chock full of Nobel Laureates and Ivy League whiz kids — blows up, the mea culpa is the same: If only we hadn’t overrode the system.
In Jack Schwager’s seminal book Market Wizards, the single most important theme repeated by each of the wizards was the importance of discipline.
5. Keep Your Emotion In Check: Emotion is the enemy of investors, and that’s why you must have a methodology that relies on objective data points, and not gut instinct. The purpose of Rules 1, 2 and 3 is to eliminate the impact of the natural human response to stress — fear and panic — and to avoid the flip side of the coin — greed.
Remember, we, as a species, were never “hard-wired” for the capital markets. Our instinctive “fight or flight response” did not evolve to deal with crossing moving averages or CEOs resigning or restated earnings.
This evolutionary emotional baggage is why we want to sell at the bottom and chase stocks at the top. The money-making trade — buying when there’s blood in the streets, and selling when everyone else is clamoring to buy — goes against every instinct you have. It requires a detached objectivity simply not possible when trading on emotion.
6. Take Responsibility: Many folks believe “the game is fixed.” To them, I say: get over it. Stop whining and take the proper responsibility for your trades, your losses and yourself.
Your knowledge of the game-rigging gives you an edge. So use your hard-won knowledge to make money.
We have a national culture of blame-passing, and it infected investing long ago. Enron did not cause your losses, and neither did stock-touting analysts, or talking heads on CNBC. You did, and the sooner you accept this, the better off you will be.
A Chinese proverb is particularly insightful as applied to trading: “He who blames others has a long way to go on his journey. He who blames himself is halfway there. He who blames no one has arrived.”
7. Constantly Improve: Investing is so competitive that you cannot afford to stand still. Investors should constantly seek to raise their skill level by learning as much as possible about the markets, the economy, trading technologies and various schools of investing thought. But whatever you read, you must do so with a keenly skeptical eye, while retaining an open mind (‘taint easy to do).
One way to constantly improve is to find something for which you have a peculiar natural proclivity for and develop that gift. It may be moving averages, or position sizing, or MACD, or Bollinger Bands or the Arms index. Perhaps you have an expertise in some aspect of technology, or a particular sector.
This is essential because a developed expertise yields ancillary benefits. It bleeds over into everything else, with net positive results. The specific area of expertise you own does not matter as much as having one. Those of you who have been trading for a while will know exactly what I am referring to.
8. Change Is Constant: Heraclitus was a Greek philosopher best known for his “Doctrine of Flux”: “The only constant is change.”
That doctrine is especially true in the markets. Therefore, as you constantly upgrade your skills, you must remain supple enough to adapt to an ever-changing field of play.
Human nature — especially in herds — is unchanging. But these behaviors must be contemplated within their larger context. Add a new element — PCs, lower trading costs, the Internet, vast amounts of cheap data, even CNBC — and you introduce a new factor that impacts all the players on the field.
As conditions change, you must decipher how they impact your strategy, your emotions and your trading — and adjust accordingly.
9. Learn to Short/Hedge Stocks: Short is not a four-letter word. Successful traders learn to play both sides of the fence. That’s less controversial today than it was as the market was first falling apart, but it is no less true.
When a particular strategy isn’t working, the market is telling you something. Thoughtful traders must consider whether there are bigger issues than their own trading mechanics when they enter a losing streak.
In Law School, students learn they have to be ready to argue either side of a case. You never truly knew a case until you could argue both for and against it. Only when you were able to see its warts could you truly appreciate the beauty.
The trading corollary is that you should never own a stock unless you know what makes it an attractive short. Each buy and sell decision should be an argument pro and con.
The market is cyclical; count on a bear market every four years or so. Unless you plan on sitting out for 18 to 24 months once or twice each decade — as much as four years out of 10 — you better learn to either short stocks or hedge long positions.
10. Understand Sector Strength and Market Trend: This rule generates the most “pushback” of any on the list, because it’s so counter-intuitive: Stock selection matters less than you think.
Studies have convincingly demonstrated that about 30% of a stock’s progress is determined by the company itself; a stock’s sector is equal to at least another 30% (if not more). The overall direction of the market is an even bigger factor, counting for some 40%.
If you own the best company in the wrong sector, or buy the greatest stock when the broader market is going the other way — both positions are likely to be losers. But if you see a strong sector, the market trend will help out even the weakest stock in the bunch.
So that’s the 10 rules I call the “Zen of Trading.”
Investing skills are worthless without a broader framework in which to practice them. The above rules will provide you with that frame of reference. They were as true 100 years ago as they will be true 100 years from now. Those who develop a plan and an investment philosophy are on the path to achieving trading success.
Have a Goal
There is no reward without risk, and there should be no risk without reward. Knowing this, there’s absolutely no reason why each trade shouldn’t have some favorable objective associated with it, so set a goal for each trade. A realistic one that could quite feasibly be reached during the course of the trade.
Perhaps you’ll set a hard target and book profits once that level is reached regardless of how strong the momentum seems at the time. Or perhaps you’ll plan to book partial profits at intervals along the way.
At the very least, having some idea of a level where your stock could move to is still going to help you formulate a game plan, even if you don’t choose to leave a resting order in that zone to book profits.
If you know your stop and you have some kind of upside expectation, then you’ll have a far better grasp of just what your risk is on a given trade and whether or not it should be taken.
Trading Wisdom – Paul Tudor Jones
Paul Tudor Jones
Turned $1.5 million into $300 million in five years
“That cotton trade was almost the deal breaker for me. It was at that point that I said, “Mr. Stupid, why risk everything on one trade? Why not make your life a pursuit of happiness rather than pain?”
I had to learn discipline and money management. I decided that I was going to become very disciplined and businesslike about my trading. I spend my day trying to make myself as happy and relaxed as I can be.
If I have positions going against me, I get right out; if they are going for me, I keep them. I am always thinking about losing money as opposed to making money. Risk control is the most important thing in trading. I keep cutting my position size down as I have losing trades. (more…)
During and After the Trade
1. What’s your game plan if it goes against you and threatens your survival?
2. Will you be able to get out? Did you take that into account in your workout?
3. More typically, what will you do if it goes way against you and then meanders back to give you a breakeven? Or if it immediately goes for you or aginst you?
4. Would you be willing to take a ½% profit if you get it in the first 10 minutes?
5. Did you test whether taking small opportunistic profits turns a winning system into a bad one?
6. How will unexpected cardinal events affect you like the “regrettably,” or the pre-annnouncement of something you expected for the next open? And what happens if you’re trading an individual stock and the market goes up or down a few percent during the day, or what’s the impact of a related move in oil or interest rates?
7. Are you sure that you have to monitor the trade during the day? If you’re using stops, then you probably don’t have to but then your position size would have to be reduced so much that your chances of a reasonable profit taking account of vig are close to zero. If you’re using 10% of your capital on a trade, they you’ll have to monitor it for survival. But, but, but. Are you sure you won’t be called away by phone calls, or the others?
8. Are you at equilibrium in your personal life? You’re not as talented as Tiger Woods, and you probably won’t be able to handle distressed calls for money or leaks on the home front. Are you sure that if you’re losing you won’t get hit on the head with a 7-iron, or berated until you have to give up at the worst possible time?
9. After the trade did you learn anything from the trade?
10. Are you organized sufficiently to have a record of all your trades for your accounting and learning?
11. Should you modify your existing systems based on it?
12. How does recency and frequency and value affect your future?
13. Did you fit your after activities to your mojo?
14. If you made a good profit, did you take some capital out of the fray for a rainy day?
15. Have you learned to say “fair” whenevever anyone asks you how you’re doing and are you sure that you don’t spend a fortune after a good trade, and dissipate your profits with non-economic activities?
16. Is there a better use for your time than monitoring the ticks or the market every minute of the day if you do, and if you don’t, do those who do so and have much faster and better equipment than you have an insurmountable advantage against you?
Confidence: How to Apply the Goldilocks Principle as a Trader Read more
An absolutely crucial characteristic all successful traders share is confidence. Success is only achieved when a trader has the confidence to execute his ideas without being overcome by emotional fears. I believe that creating a game plan and sticking to it will foster confidence in the long run because the trader defines all aspects of his trade that he can control; the rest is left to the market. Confidence based on winning trades is fleeting, but confidence based on the ability to objectively execute ideas leads to long-term, unbreakable confidence.
Yet I often see two primary psychological problems that traders experience with regard to confidence. There is overconfidence and underconfidence, both of which lead to very serious complications in one’s trading. Overconfidence occurs when the trader has had a string of winners and feels indestructible. A common statement of reflection once destruction occurs is usually something like: “I thought I knew more than the markets” or “I thought I had trading all figured out.” The trader usually begins to get sloppy in their trading and takes poor risk/reward trades, believing it will just work out for them. Hard-earned profits can disappear in a very short time if overconfidence is present — unless the trader has learned the techniques to recognize this and nip it in the bud quickly. (more…)