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Great -Mark Douglas Trading Quotes

In trading your mind may be the ultimate technical indicator that determines whether you persevere and win in the markets or get broken in half by fear, greed, ego, stress, and uncertainty. No matter whether you are a an investor, retail trader, prop trader, or professional money manger your success will still be determined on the management of your mind. Never underestimate the importance of keeping a cool head in rough times.

Here are ten of the best quotes from Mark Douglas, an author who verbalizes the real nature of trading as well as I have ever seen it captured. If you can absorb these teachings it will help you get through that rough period when you have 10 losing trades in a row or experience a 10% draw down in your trading capital. If you are not matching risk correctly you may have to come back from a complete wipe out of your account like many other have had to do. But do not give up, you can do this if you really want to.

“I know it may sound strange to many readers, but there is an inverse relationship between analysis and trading results. More analysis or being able to make distinctions in the market’s behavior will not produce better trading results. There are many traders who find themselves caught in this exasperating loop, thinking that more or better analysis is going to give them the confidence they need to do what needs to be done to achieve success. It’s what I call a trading paradox that most traders find difficult, if not impossible to reconcile, until they realize you can’t use analysis to overcome fear of being wrong or losing money. It just doesn’t work!”
-Mark Douglas

“There is a random distribution between wins and losses for any given set of variables that defines an edge. In other words, based on the past performance of your edge, you may know that out of the next 20 trades, 12 will be winners and 8 will be losers. What you don’t know is the sequence of wins and losses or how much money the market is going to make available on the winning trades. This truth makes trading a probability or numbers game. When you really believe that trading is simply a probability game, concepts like “right” and “wrong” or “win” and “lose” no longer have the same significance. As a result, your expectations will be in harmony with the possibilities.”
-Mark Douglas (more…)

15 Common Sense Rules For Traders

1. No matter what you read about trading, until you use an approach and test it with your money on the line you will never learn how to trade. Paper Trading is NOT Trading!

2. If it were really possible to “Buy Low Sell High” or “Cut your Losses and Let your Winners Run”, then almost everyone would be making money rather than losing it.

3. Remember that there is ALWAYS someone on the other side of your trade who is using a trading technique exactly the opposite of yours who hopes to make money with his system.

4. If 90% of all traders lose money, they must be following generally accepted trading rules. The 10% who win do not!

5. You trade your beliefs and your beliefs about your system. If you have a problem with yourself, fix yourself first.

6. Impatience, Fear and Greed will make you poor. Any need to trade is rooted in greed and impatience.

7. If you really understand the markets then YOU KNOW that there is the same opportunity on every time frame, in every market, every single day.

8. Waiting for the perfect trade is “chickening out”, and caused by your lack of faith in yourself or your system.

9. Any hardwired, automated trading system sold that truly works 70 or 80 or 90 percent of the time in every market would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars and would not be for sale at any price.

10. Asking “How small an account do I need to begin trading” is asking to be wiped out.

11. Having a series of winning trades early can be more hazardous to your account than a series of small losses.

12. Learn to trade before you trade. If you win or lose without understanding why, you will never develop a winning strategy.

13. Ninety five percent of everything you hear from everyone about the markets and the markets “reasons” for doing what it did or will do are lies. Neither you nor anyone can predict the future. You can only make educated guesses about potentialities.

14. Asking someone (such as using a service) for advice on where the market is going is a sign you should be on the sidelines until you understand the market better. If the upcoming market direction is not obvious to you, you should not be risking your money. You will lose often enough even when you are right.

15. There is NO GUARANTEED way of making money in the Markets or anywhere else. NONE, NADA, ZIP, ZERO! All you can do is increase your knowledge about yourself and how to estimate the probability of placing a winning trade. Then trade by taking controlled and measured risks.

HOPE, FEAR AND GREED

The spectator’s chief enemies are always boring from within. It is inseparable from human nature to hope and to fear. In speculation when the market goes against you, you hope that every day will be the last day and you lose more than you should had you not listened to hope. And when the market goes your way you become fearful that the next day will take away your profit, and you get out too soon. Fear keeps you from making as much money as you ought to. The successful trader has to fight these two deep-seated instincts. He has to reverse what you might call his natural impulses. Instead of hoping he must fear; instead of fearing he must hope. He must fear that his loss may develop into a much bigger loss, and hope that his profit may become a big profit.-Jesse Livermore

Anger

As traders, fear and greed are the two emotions that we commonly handle in our trading decisions.

But I believe another emotion that we also sometimes experienced would be – anger.

Most traders have learned to be calm and sensible during trading. But there would certainly be times times when we fumed at missing out a fantastic trade, for not buying more contracts of a great trade, or frustrated for committing that same trading blunder again.

We would blame just about anything or anyone when our trading suffered. Somehow we didn’t realize that the anger have originated from us.

I recently read a book called “Zero Limits” co-written by Dr Joe Vitale & Dr Hew Len. The book was quite an eye-opening read. It mentioned that we are the one who are fully responsible for any circumstances which are happening within & around us.

When we encountered another person pouring out his or her frustrations, whether they were meant for us or not, we should accept that we were partly responsible for that happening, since his or her frustrations had come into our lives.

Naturally, we are responsible for our own anger too.

The way to resolve this would be, strange it may sound, is to keep cleansing ourselves by constantly repeating the phrases “I love you”, “I’m sorry”, “Please forgive me” and “Thank you” to ourselves.

According to the book, these are simple but powerful words that we convey to the Divine. We connect to the Divine by expressing our love and gratitude to him. At the same time, we seek the Divine’s forgiveness of our wrong doings.

Saying these 4 phrases will cleanse the memories of greed, fear and anger associated with anything (including trading) as we give in to the Divine to handle the situation for us.

We would experience a peace of mind that the Divine is taking care of us. Another positive outcome of cleansing ourselves is that we are now open to receive the inspirations from the Divine for us to act upon.

I encourage you to read more about this ancient Hawaiian practice called Ho’oponopono from “Zero Limits” to experience this positive feeling.

I hope that in time you will gradually banish your anger not only in your trading but also in other parts of your life.

“I love you”, “I’m sorry”, “Please forgive me”, “Thank you”.

Never turn a winner into a loser.

015254790We have all violated this rule. However, it should be our goal to try harder not to violate it in the future. What we are really talking about here is the greed factor. The market has rewarded you by moving in the direction of your position, however, you are not satisfied with a small winner. Thus you hold onto the trade in the hopes of a larger gain, only to watch the market turn and move against you. Of course, inevitably you now hesitate and the trade further deteriorates into a substantial loss.

 There’s no need to be greedy. It’s only one trade. You’ll make many more trades throughout the session and many more throughout the next trading sessions. Opportunity exists in the marketplace all of the time. Remember: No one trade should make or break your performance for the day. Don’t be greedy.

Today I know that …

mylessonsMy lessons may have been costly ,but they brought with them a kind of undertstanding more precious than gold.

😆 Playing the market is much different from being an investor.

😆 Pride is another word for stupidity if you claim credit for profits temporarily created by a bull market run wild.

😆 Paper profits are the illision of wealth created by the myopia of greed.

😆 Margin is a secuctive temptress more enticing than Delilah-and far more dangerous.

😆 Money doesn’t make people better ;it just allows them to become kinder and more charitable.

😆 Losing money doesn’t mean you’re a fool ,just as making a fortune doesn’t prove you’re a genius.

😆 Maturity means knowing how to cope with failure-and with sucess.

😆 The market respects those who treat is seriously and research it thoroughly ;it mocks those who think its rewards are freely granted to the followers of friendly tips and exicted phone calls from “helpful” strangers.

😆 Just as in every other game of chance ,all of your winning should never be left on the table.

😆 The law of gravity was not repealed for the sake of Dalal street ;even there the rule still holds that “whatever goes up must come down .”

😆 Forgiveness is a virtue even to myself ;I can forgive the fact that I failed-because I know that Iam not a failure.

 

The Right frame of Mind

The psychology of the trader plays a very important role in his trading decisions and style. The best traders keep their sentiments (greed and fear) out of their analysis and decide to trade with clear mind. Follow the advices below and you will notice a great deal of improvement in your trading style.

Never trade when your mind is occupied with other things. Try to be concentrated on the market. Try to feel the market, that is the Market Sentiment. When you feel overwhelmed of the information in your head, take a break. Then come back with clearer mind. Do not be trigger happy with your trades and always have a trading plan. Follow your Forex system with discipline. Apply the rules of Money Management with care. Always mind your loses! Then let the profits come. Stop loss orders are there to save you by yourself. Always use them and never stay on a false trade just to feed your ego. Ego never makes money! Even the best traders are often wrong. But market is always right!

The best traders have the vigilance to realize the market sentiment quickly and ride the market in the right position. Even when they are wrong at first, they quickly change their posiotions when they realize it!

d your ego. Ego never makes money! Even the best traders are often wrong. But market is always right!

The best traders have the vigilance to realize the market sentiment quickly and ride the market in the right position. Even when they are wrong at first, they quickly change their posiotions when they realize it!

 

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