international trade Archives - Page 3 of 5

“The secret to being successful from a trading perspective is to have an indefatigable and an undying and unquenchable thirst for information and knowledge.”
“Intellectual capital will always trump financial capital.”
“Every day I assume every position I have is wrong.”
“Losers average losers.”
“You adapt, evolve, compete or die.”
“Trading is very competitive and you have to be able to handle getting your butt kicked.”
“The whole world is simply nothing more than a flow chart for capital.”
“At the end of the day, the most important thing is how good are you at risk control.”
“Always think of your entry point as last night’s close.”
“I will keep cutting my position size down as I have losing trades. When I am trading poorly, I keep reducing my position size. That way, I will be trading my smallest position size when my trading is worst.”
“Don’t be a hero. Don’t have an ego. Always question yourself and your ability. Don’t ever feel that you are very good. The second you do, you are dead.”
“Markets trend only about 15 percent of the time; the rest of the time they move sideways.”

12 Trading Mantras from Trading Legend Mark Douglas

25-Jan-19 06:09 am

Fill the “profit gap” with the right things…

In his books and seminars, Mark Douglas often refers to something he calls the “profit gap”. What he is talking about is basically the difference or “gap” between the potential profit you could achieve if you had just followed your trading method and what your actual bottom line results are.

Traders often begin trading a method with very high hopes. They want to produce an income they can rely on and get consistent results from their trading. However, this is only possible if you are trading an effective method with discipline and consistency, which most people simply do not do and as a result, they experience the profit gap that Mark refers to.

The key point that Mr. Douglas makes about this profit gap is that traders typically try to fill the gap by learning more about the market, changing methods, spending more time in front of their computers etc. However, what they really need to learn is more about themselves and how they interact with the market. Essentially, they need to acquire the “proper mental skills” to trade their method as they should and to get the most out of it, in order to properly fill the profit gap.

Winning and being a winning trader are two different things…

Anyone, and I literally mean anyone, even a 5-year-old child, can find themselves in a winning trade. It does not require any special skill to get lucky on any particular trade and hit a winner. All you have to do is open your trading platform and push a few buttons and if you get lucky, you can make a lot of money in a short amount of time.

As a result of the above, it’s natural for a trader who has not yet developed his or her trading skills to take the leap from “it’s easy to win” to “it can’t be that much harder to make a living from this”.

This is how many traders’ careers get started. Needless to say, it is also how they get on the path to losing a whole lot of money just as fast or even faster than they made it.

A winning trader has the mental skills to realize, understand and utilize the FACT that any particular trade he or she takes has basically a random outcome. That is to say, they cannot possibly know the outcome of that trade until it is over. The winning trader knows this and they also know that they must trade in-line with this belief over a large series of trades and ignore all the temptations and feelings that get kicked up on each trade they take. They are able to do this because they keep their eyes on the bigger picture. That bigger picture is the fact that IF they execute their method flawlessly, over and over, over a long enough period of time / series of trades, they will come out profitable.

Thus, do not mistake a winning trade for you being a winning trader, yet. A very easy trap to fall into. (more…)

The Paradox: a surgeon versus a trader (Why 95% Traders Lose Money ? )

23-Jan-19 09:14 am

“Have you ever met someone who goes to a bookstore on a Friday, buys a book on surgery, read it over the weekend and attempt to go into the operating theater on Monday and start to operate like a real surgeon?”

Every single one of the audience agreed there is a zero chance that this man could perform a successful surgery just by reading a surgery textbook over the weekend.

However, Jack went on to ask the next question,

“Have you ever met someone who goes to a bookstore on a Friday, buys a book on trading, read it over the weekend and attempts to head into the market on Monday and start to trade like he is a professional trader?”

The audience giggled upon Jack’s second question, which probably suggested that this example of a aspiring trader is a common occurence.

The fact, as Jack explained, is that anyone with zero experience in surgery will almost definitely fail in his first duty as a surgeon.

But someone who has zero experience in trading could still potentially make money (sometimes a lot) on his initial trades!

This paradox gives people a general false feeling that trading is and can be very easy for any newbie.

According to Jack, the truth is that in order to be a profitable trader in the long run, you will have to put in effort in honing your trading skills.

The effort will be as much as a trainee surgeon who spend years of his life learning how to become a proficient surgeon.

When a newbie trader’s beginners luck runs out, he will start losing a lot of money, usually much more than the amount he made during his lucky winning streak.
So, if you are a amateur trade and if you want to become a proficient trader over the long run, there is simply no short cut way for you.
You will have to spend years honing your trading skills until you become one of those market wizards.

Mental Fitness Tips that Every Trader Should Know -Anirudh Sethi

22-Jan-19 02:53 pm

Mental Fitness for Traders makes no thought of your money related conditions. All material introduced inside is not to be viewed as venture exhortation, but rather for general enlightening purposes as it was. Trading stocks, fates, Forex, and choices do include chance, so alert should dependably be used. We can’t ensure benefits or flexibility from misfortune. You accept the whole cost and danger of any trading you attempt. You are exclusively in charge of settling on your own speculation choices. Trading achievement is needy more on the dealer’s enthusiastic state than on the system utilized, paying little respect to how vigorous it might be. We are people so having feelings like fear and voracity is ordinary in our everyday life yet not in trading when we are trading we need to act like machines or robots. Regardless of whether you’re a specialist trader or only a tenderfoot, a great tip can measurably affect your main concern. A couple of the world’s best Forex dealers we’re made a request to uncover the best three hints, traps, and strategies that assist them trade gainfully. The great ones are found and developed. The Bad ones… well, you see achievement is just a couple of basic orders, honed each day; while disappointment is essentially a couple of blunders in judgment, rehashed each day. Up to 75-80% of traders are, for the most parts. Make a bigger number of misfortunes than benefits. With such low achievement rates, stock trading may be among the more unsafe calling around. Be that as it may, the 20%+ that do profit reliably, appears to take after the same mental chain of considerations and we thought it may be fascinating to represent some of those musings here for the advantages of our pursuers.

Passion for Trading

The larger topic of good trading propensities is the absence of feelings. The less passionate you are, the more effective you can apply your psyche. When you put your brain to trading you have a tendency to pose more inquiries, actually! A few things that may ring a bell when you make inquiries could be:

Does this flag demonstrate a long or short position?

How is the market, in general?
How huge would a position it be advisable for me to take?
What would I be able to manage?
Are more individuals discussing my stock now, than prior?
Is the market assumption evolving? Which way?

36 Points For Traders

22-Jan-19 04:01 am

You absolutely have to find a vent to release pressure and adrenaline – sports, drinking, painting, anything that helps.
If you can manage to find a mentor in which you believe, you will make it much faster.
Your trading style has to fit your personality and your lifestyle, or cognitive dissonance will get the better of you.
Meditation sucks, doesn’t work for me.
Overtrading is your death.
Once you are comfortable missing a move, you will be able to trade profitably.
Not trading the news does not make sense at all – during news there is real liquidity and a real interest to push prices in one way or another. Let the market show its hand, then get in.
Let it turn, let price create structure, THEN get in, with the structure as protection in your back.
Don’t system hop, but adapt the system of your choosing to your needs.
Don’t trade overleveraged.
Yes, it is possible to turn a small account into a huge account, but don’t expect it to happen overnight, and don’t expect to be able to do it before your fifth (or so) year of trading.
Some are faster, some are slower, some will never get it.
Risk per trade is a function of the volatility of your strategy and your psychological ability to deal with swings in your equity.
Know exactly why you are trading, and what you want to achieve – which career path will be yours?
Daytrading is not easier than swingtrading or vice versa. They both simply require different skillsets, different abilities (yes, some people are just too slow for daytrading) and different preparation routines.
Trust your gut. Absolutely love the trade? Get in. Don’t love it? Just stay out.
No pain, no gain. Demo trading is ok, but don’t do it for too long. Risk micro amounts of money, get used to losing money. Because you will lose for the rest of your life if you want to be a trader. It’s part of the game. You “just” need to win more than you lose.
Listening to music while trading can be a good thing – just know yourself. If I listen to aggressive music in the car, I will push the pedal to the metal. The same happens when trading.
Have a trading journal and review, review, review.
Work on your psychology, but don’t underestimate the power of knowledge. Fear stems from not knowing. Work hard, know more, be more confident. Most psychological issues will dissolve into thin air.
Yes, I said: don’t system hop. But for the first year or two, try out everything you can. Every market, every strategy, every trading style. How can you know what fits your personality if you don’t know what’s out there? Finally, decide and take the leap of faith.
Screen time alone won’t help you. Again: review. REVIEW! You need an effective feedback loop or you will repeat the same mistakes again, and again, and again. There is no learning by doing in trading.
You don’t need to be hyper intelligent to be a trader. The best traders I know are “simple” minds. They do what works, they have no ego, and they disregard what does not make sense to them.
Do not have monetary goals. Have process-oriented goals.
Do not look at your P&L during your trading session or you WILL trade your P&L. Before and after a trading session, the money in your account is money, yes. During the session, however, the money in your account is ammunition that has to be spent in order to acquire more ammunition, if that makes sense.
Trading with the trend is not easier than trading against the trend. Trading with the trend is the last thing I learned and every single trader I know seems to have the hardest time following a trend.
If you want to pay for education, do your research. It is very possible to differentiate the scammers from the real traders. If something sounds too good to be true, run as fast as you can.
Never forget to be grateful at the end of the day. You are given the chance to make money by clicking a mouse from the comfort of your home. How many people on earth can say the same?
Trading fulltime is often romanticized but can quickly turn into a social nightmare. Keep up that work-life-balance.
Find other mental challenges for your brain than trading. Feeding your body McDonalds everyday will, and nothing else, will kill you. Trading every day without reading a good novel once in a while will make you braindead.
Likewise, there are lots of videos on Youtube with quite good content. You need to find a way to distinguish the goodies from the baddies.
Don’t be mistaken, trading is gambling. You want to be a professional gambler? Make up your mind.
A structured pre-trading routine is one of the best things you will ever do in your career as a trader. Take your time to create and establish it.
Learn your basic and classic price patterns such as Head & Shoulders, Wedges, Triangles, etc. It takes a week to get them all into your head and you will profit from that knowledge for years to come.
Never pick tops and bottoms. Take the middle of the moves and your results will improve.
Believe in your abilities and trust your strategy or you will be destroyed.

That’s it for now. I have plenty more of these in my tattered and very, very old notebook. Which do you agree with, which not? Do you want more of my wartime wisdoms? Let me know in the comments below!

Fifteen truths about options trading

14-Jan-19 02:49 pm

I believe that successful options trading requires a different mindset from the traditional “rules of success” for most directional traders in stocks and futures products.
First and foremost, I believe you need to take profits early and often. We’ve all been hit over the head ad nausem about the old maxim “cut your losers short and let your winners run.” This is a truth I believe holds true for most directional traders, but I don’t believe it holds any currency with consistently successful options traders.
Speaking of direction, I believe nobody knows the next direction the instrument you trade will move. Nobody. Plenty have ideas and hunches, and often they’ll be right. But the truth is, a coin flip has nearly identical odds. This is why I trade options positions that either don’t require me to guess a direction, or provide me with plenty of opportunity to make money even when I’m leaning in the wrong direction.
Immediately contradicting the item above, I believe in fading moves (especially, violent down moves). The best traders and investors are willing to put on positions the majority of market participants find hard to put on due to fear. Since the majority of market participants are net losers, I’ve got to find more opportunities to join the minority.
I believe in contradictions. I believe in breaking the rules. Rules are guidelines, nothing more. Nobody got ahead in this world by following the rulebook and not daring to make mistakes or look like an ass from time to time.
I believe in getting paid to wait. Time is money. Wherever possible, I want to have positive theta on my side. The odds are with me whenever this is the case.
Speaking of odds, I believe in frequent trading. Common wisdom wants you to believe that “over-trading” is the common cause of death for most retail trading accounts as commissions steadily drain your account. In many cases this is true (especially if your commission rate is obnoxious). But for me, I’m putting on trades with the probabilities in my favor. The more instances of opportunity I can get myself into, the more the law of large numbers and favorable probabilities will materialize to my bottom line.
In order to trade frequently, I believe in trading incredibly small so that I can spread my opportunity across as many instruments as possible, diversifying my risk. Call me “One-lot Seany.” I’ll proudly wear that name tag.
I believe that volatility retraces from spikes or reverts to the mean much quicker and predictably than most would have you believe. Thus, I believe in selling fear. Fear subsides.
I don’t believe in stop losses. I believe in adjustments. Options trading gives you, um…. options. When positions go against me, all is not lost. Often times, there will be plenty of opportunity to roll strikes to collect additional credit which improves my odds of success, or roll positions out in time to in effect “buy myself more time” for the trade to play out.
The reason adjustments work: I seek to enter credit spreads when volatility is elevated (see #9 above). Therefore, if my position is getting tested on the upside, volatility will likely be shrinking which further aids my short volatility position. If I’m getting tested on the downside, volatility is likely remaining high (or increasing!) which gives me more juicy premium to sell into, which then results in collecting more cash and effectively lowers my breakeven points on the downside, thus improving my odds of success.
I believe in net market neutral exposure for my portfolio.
To help achieve neutral exposure, I believe I should always have a short delta (but positive theta — paid to wait) position in the general indexes. Since the majority of my individual positions will be short volatility and benefit from a stable or slowly rising market, I need to have short index positions which will benefit when markets are receding and volatilities are rising.
I believe in making stocks and markets work to beat me. They will win from time to time, but they will have to earn it with outsized moves. If the stock or market is too lazy to come get me, I’ll gladly collect its coin and move on to the next trade.
I believe the only true edge in any marketplace is Buying Power.*

16 +1 Differences Between Good Trades & Bad Trades

13-Jan-19 05:09 am

Good Trades are made by managing the mind, ego, and emotions.

1. A good trade is taken with complete confidence and follows your trading method; a bad trade is taken on an opinion.
2. A good trade is taken with a disciplined entry and position size; a bad trade is taken to win back losses the market owes you.
3. A good trade is taken when your entry parameters line up; a bad trade is taken out of fear of missing a move.
4. A good trade is taken to be profitable in the context of your trading plan; a bad trade is taken out of greed to make a lot of money quickly.
5. A good trade is taken according to your trading plan; a bad trade is taken to inflate the ego.
6. A good trade is taken without regret or internal conflict; a bad trade is taken when a trader is double-minded.

Good trades are just one trade inside a robust methodology that gives the traders an advantage int eh long term.

7. A good trade is based on your trading plan; a bad trade is based on emotions and beliefs.
8. A good trade is based on your own personal edge; a bad trade is based on your opinion.
9. A good trade is made using your own timeframe; a bad trade changes timeframe due to a loss.
10. A good trade is made in reaction to current price reality; a bad trade is made based on personal judgment.
11. A good trade is made after identifying and trading with the trend; a bad trade fights the trend.
12. A good trade is made using the trading vehicles you are an expert in; a bad trade is when you trade unfamiliar markets. (more…)

Sun Tzu and Trading -Anirudh Sethi

12-Jan-19 09:53 pm

Image result for Sun Tzu and Trading The money market is a considered to be a wrangle amongst purchasers and vendors on the estimations of organizations. That is the pleasant clarification. To outline it in another light – the share trading system is a war amongst purchasers and vendors, who each need to take the others cash. Money markets are harsh, and in the event that you don’t approach it with the manner of a disturbed general, you will lose. In the share trading system, pleasant folks complete last. Sun Tzu’s, The Art of War serves to highlight numerous parts of trading since trading the market is much similar to fighting. Sun Tzu’s Art of War is an exemplary bit of work that is broadly perused and connected to many fields, because of its major nature that is exceptionally versatile to numerous parts of our lives. In this post, I separated parts of the work and connected to trading and in doing as such plan to acquaint the critical trading ideas with you. I have likewise assembled and classified them for simple comprehension.

War as Art and So as Trade

The first Art of War is an assemblage of lessons composed and instructed by Sun Tzu, a 6th century B.C. Chinese General/Philosopher. Its insight is immortal and has developed in prominence. It is, truth be told, required perusing at each military foundation on the planet and can be found in most corporate meeting rooms. In this adjustment of the ace’s work of art, super trader Dean Lundell applies Sun Tzu’s lessons to the specialty of contributing – from outlining an individual trading plan to timing market moves, to gathering information from a worldwide data organize. Each wonderfully composed spread opens with a section from Sun Tzu and is then translated and clarified for its vital pertinence to trading stocks, bonds, fates, and items. Guided by Sun Tzu’s old shrewdness, tenderfoot, and expert traders can utilize these great military methodologies to overcome the market! Understudies of the market are continually fighting the feelings of dread and avarice. The Art of War can enable you to cut a way between these two feelings and lead you to a mental place that will always enable you to put your best foot forward. In this arrangement, I will address different poor trading propensities by excerpting and deciphering different sections. While my understandings are not intended to be authoritative by any extent of the creative energy I will likely make them think. They say the round of golf is not played on the green. It’s played between your two ears. Trading fates, Forex, alternatives, or stocks are similarly. Your psychological distraction must be adequate. If not, disappointment is unavoidable. At last, I trust you observe the teaching to be a theorist and not only your standard speculator.

6 Elements of Trading

12-Jan-19 05:21 pm

1) What you’re trading – Why are you selecting one instrument to trade (one stock, one index) versus others? Which instruments maximize reward relative to risk?

2) How much you’re trading – How much of your capital are you going to allocate to the trade idea versus other ideas?

3) Why you’re trading – What is the rationale for the trade? Why does the trade idea provide you with an “edge”?

4) What will take you out of the trade – What would lead you to determine that your trade idea is wrong? What would tell you that the trade has reached its profit potential?

5) Where you will enter the trade – Given the criteria that would take you out of the trade, where will you execute your idea to maximize the reward you’ll obtain relative to the risk you’ll be taking?

6) How you will manage the trade – What would have to happen to convince you to add to the trade, scale out of it, and/or tighten your stop loss?

A beginning trader will take time to answer these questions, much as a new driver will need time to properly steer and brake a car. With experience, however, planning can occur very quickly, as much of a trader’s homework is accomplished before the market opens. For instance, before the open, I already have identified the short- and intermediate-term trend of the market; pivot points that will serve as profit targets; and volatility that will guide my position sizing. From there, much of the trade is a function of pattern recognition and execution–seeing selling or buying dry up in a rising or falling market and entering the trade at a level in which I’ll make more by hitting my target than by hitting my stop.