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Probability and reward-to Risk Assessment -Traders Must Read

  • Never open a position without knowing the initial risk.
  • Define your profits and losses as a multiple of your initial risk (R-multiples).
  • Limit your losses to 1R or less.
  • Make sure your profits on the average are bigger than 1R.
  • Never take a trade unless the reward-to-risk ratio of that trade is at least 2:1 and perhaps even 3:1.
  • Your trading system is a distribution of R-multiples.
  • When you understand #6, you should be able to hear/see a description of a system and know the kind of R-multiple distribution it would generate.
  • The mean of that distribution is the expectancy, and it tells you what you’ll make on the average trade. It should be a positive number.
  • The mean, standard deviation, and number of trades determine the SQN score for your system.
  • Your SQN score tells you how easy it will be to meet your objectives using position sizing strategies. Other than that, your system has nothing to do with meeting your objectives.
  • Systems are usually named after their setups, which are usually based on some attempt to predict future prices. Prediction has nothing to do with trading well.
  • System performance has to do with controlling risk and managing the position through your exits.

20 Points of Successful Traders

  • They have the resilience to come back from early losses and account blow ups.
  • They focus on what really matters in trading success.
  • They have developed a trading method that fits their own personality.
  • They trade with an edge.
  • The harder they work at trading the luckier they get.
  • They do the homework to develop a methodology through researching ideas.
  • The principles they use in their trading models are simple.
  • They have mental and emotional control is key while winning or losing.
  • They manage the risk to avoid failure and pain.
  • They have the discipline to follow their trading plan.
  • Market wizards have confidence and independence in themselves as traders
  • They are patient with winning trades and impatient with losing trades.
  • Emotions are dangerous masters to the trader; they know how to manage their own emotions.
  • Market wizards evolve as a trader to avoid eventually failing in a method that has lost its edge over time.
  • It is not the news but how the market reacts to that news is what they watch for.
  • The fully understand the right way to position size for their goals of returns and drawdowns based on their risk/reward and winning percentage.
  • Market wizards understand comfortable trades are usually losing trades while the more uncomfortable trades are usually the winners.
  • They are good losers. Cutting losses when proven wrong and even reversing the direction of their trades when the price action dictates it.
  • The best traders are always learning through their own mistakes.
  • Passion for trading was the fuel for their eventual success.

Trade base on Facts, Not on Hope -Anirudh Sethi

Knowledge is the key to winning and gain in the Stock, Commodity and Futures, and Forex markets.

Trading on trust is a fools game.

Do not attempt to place a trade. If the market triggers the exit signal you had predefined, without emotion follow it immediately. Many traders enter the market with more ‘hope’ than understanding. You have to take complete charge of your trading. The best way to do this is to get knowledge and all of the information you can about the market you wish to trade and then form a plan.

You plan should include not only the entry parameters but also the exit parameters. The departure is the most important. Your trade should be protected. Failure to admit that you’re wrong when the trade is moving south is one of the reasons.

Learn to trade on knowledge. There isn’t any need for fear and hope that get in your way. When you’re able to trade on knowledge, you’ll have the ability to react to trading opportunities when it’s time to do 31 and to exit out.

Your best friend needs to be the Stop Loss order. (more…)

These 7 Things -Traders Must Avoid

  • Trading with no stop losses. You can’t control how big your profits are, the market will trend as far as it does. However, you can control and limit the size of your losses with a stop loss and a carefully managed positions size. Not having an exit plan if you are wrong can be very expensive when a trend takes off against your position and you start hoping instead of just cutting your losses and moving on.
  • Your opinion can cost you money. Trading your opinion against all other market participants can be very expensive. The market goes where it wants and when you disagree with where it is going it will cost you. Going with the flow in your time frame is the best way to make money. Fighting the flow of the market can be expensive.
  • Egos are expensive things. Inflated egos cause a trader’s #1 priority to be proving they are right and refusing to admit when they are wrong. It is very expensive for ego gratification to be higher on a trader’s list than making money.
  • Trading off predictions can cost a lot of money when they are wrong. There is more to be made by reacting to what the market is doing instead of predicting what you think it will do later. The future does not exist and it is expensive to pretend like it does.
  • Stubbornness causes small losses to become big losses. It causes a trader to make the same mistake over and over because they do not assimilate feedback. Instead they keep doing the same thing over and over and expect different results but keep getting the same results. Stubbornness is expensive.
  • Not having an exit strategy for a winning trade can be very expensive. It is possible to ride a big winning trade back to even. If there is no plan to lock in profits while they are there a winning trade can even turn into a big loser. Trailing stops and targets can put the profits in the bank.
  • Trading too big of position sizes for your account can be very costly because no manner how good your winning trades are you are set up to give back the profits with a few big losing trades in a row,

15 Trading Rules For Day Traders

Trading rule No 1. Never chase. Forget about the Rupee loss for a moment as the real damage comes from the distraction it creates.

Trading rule No 2. Wait for the break. Most traders buy inside the range, get impatient and as a result they sell on first sign of strength which ends up being the breakout.

Trading rule No 3. Don’t ride the ticks and Rupee profits. It creates emotional turmoil and is draining. Prevention is best cure. Takes the fun out of the game.

Trading rule No 4. Price action trumps everything. Management lie or mislead but price action (money flow) never lies.

Trading rule No 5. Sell the news or a least sell partials. Markets discount everything and over the long run you will be better off.

Trading rule No 6. Always stay in control. Do NOT put yourself in news related coin toss trades, where the risk cannot be managed.

Trading rule No 7. Mind your own business, avoid conflict. If you take offence because someone has disagreed with your trade, then you are such a precious little petal.

Trading rule No 8. Do NOT set targets as all this creates is a premature EXIT. Run a trailer and let that take you out.

Trading rule No 9. Minimise whipsaw at all costs. It’s a trader killer. The root cause of trading failure more often than not, starts with whipsaw.

Trading rule No 10. Do NOT buy stretched breakouts. More often than not they recoil back into the range to flush traders out.

Trading rule No 11. Start will longterm charts and look to catch major breaks/moves. These tend to follow through and it makes it easier to run with winners.

Trading rule No 12.  Turn trading rules into habit. There is no point in having trading rules if you dont apply them!

Trading rule No 13. And the most important; only tell your wife about your losers. 🙂

Trading rule No 14. Hit those stops, no questions asked. Hitting your stop and watching a stock rally hurts but not htting your stop and watching the stock fall hurts a hell of alot more.

Trading rule No 15. Avoid Blue Channels during trading hrs.Never Trade on TV Flashes ,Don’t trade on Result day -Untill u are having sure Result with u.Don’t trade on  Data flashes about Options -Everything is leaked and known by few Top people 

5 Reasons Traders Lose Money

  1. Your method or system doesn’t work. This is a big one, and one of the hardest to fix. If you’re buying random stocks based on chatroom tips, that won’t work. If you’re buying based on what you think about the news, that won’t work. If you’re using some untested technical pattern, that won’t work. The only way you can build enduring success is to have a system that is your own and in which you fully understand the edge and variability of the system results. The only way (that I know) to do this is either to be taught such a system in enough detail that you own it, or do develop your own. Finding a system that works is not easy. I think most traders who fail probably failed because they were doing something that didn’t work and couldn’t work.
  2. You are impatient and take impulse trades. So, you have a system and it works, but if you don’t have the patience to wait for setups, then you essentially don’t have a system at all! Too many traders force trades or execute trades out of boredom. Don’t do this—it will destroy whatever edge you have in your system.
  3. You take trades on the wrong size. Any trading methodology depends on the balance of a large number of winners and losers. If you are randomly doing some trades bigger and some smaller, you can easily wipe out that edge. (On the other hand, some traders do make good, disciplined use of varying position sizes, but this is also a well-developed and tested part of their methodology.) Be consistent and disciplined in everything you do; that’s why the market pays you.
  4. You ignore stops. What do you do when a trade hits your stop? You get out. End of story. If you can’t develop this one skill, you can’t be a trader. You cannot afford, even once, to ignore your stop. Maybe the trade will work out this one time; maybe your prayers will be heard and the bad loss will turn around and become a winner? Ok, great, now what? Now you’ve just had a serious break of discipline and have had a bad learning experience as well because you got paid to do something wrong! The ongoing impact of a mistake like this and the false learning will ripple through your trading career for months or years. Don’t do this—respect your stops.
  5. You get out of winning trades without any reason. I think this is one of the great, underappreciated problems of learning to trade. Many people can develop the discipline to respect their stops, but then cave under the pressure of a winning trade. The thought of a winning trade reversing and giving back profit, the pressure of knowing the open winning trade would cover many losing trades, or the simple greed of wanting to ring the cash register—these can be overwhelming psychological pressures. It’s just as important to manage your winners with discipline, and that your trading plan has clear rules for when and how you get out of winning trades as well as losers.

The solution to most of these problems is not exciting: have a plan that works and execute that plan with discipline. Of course, there’s a lot more we can do at each step, but being aware of these errors will help protect against some of the worst, and most avoidable, mistakes that wait for the developing trader.

13 Things :5 % of Successful Traders Do Differently

  1. They pursue realistic goals as their returns.
  2. They take decisive and immediate action when their buy or sell signal is hit.
  3. They focus on winning trades and not quantity of trades.
  4. They make logical, informed trading decisions within their system, based on the probabilities.
  5. They avoid the trap of trying to make perfect trades, and instead focus on being profitable in the long term.
  6. They trade the right position size that is within their comfort zone.
  7. They keep things simple and focus on winning trades, not complexity in their trading.
  8. They focus on learning and making small continuous improvements in their trading system.
  9. They measure and track their progress with a trading journal.
  10. They maintain a positive outlook as they learn from their mistakes, and focus on trading with discipline.
  11. They spend time learning from better traders.
  12. They maintain balance in their life by spending time with family and friends.
  13. They love what they do and their passion keeps them going through the rough times.

7 Trading Wisdom of Paul Tudor Jones

paultudorDon’t ever average losers.”

When a trade is going against you it means you are wrong. Adding to a loser just usually makes it bigger and your stress overwhelming.

“Never trade in situations where you don’t have control.”

Getting into a trade that you can’t easily get out of is a dangerous trade in itself. Liquidity risk, headline risk, and volatility can be dangerous when you are at their mercy.

“If you have a losing position that is making you uncomfortable, the solution is very simple, Get out.”

Many times exiting a trade is the easiest way to stop a losing trade from getting worse, managing stress, or freeing up capital for other uses. You can always get back in.

“Don’t be too concerned about where you got into a position.”

All that matters about your current positions is what you should do now based on the current price action not your cost basis or entry level. (more…)

Trading Wisdom – Larry Hite

Larry Hite – Turned a $2 million managed account into $800 million in 8 years.


Throughout my financial career, I have continually witnessed examples of other people that I have known being ruined by a failure to respect risk. If you don’t take a hard look at risk, it will take you. If you argue with the market, you will lose. It is incredible how rich you can get by not being perfect. Never risk more than 1% of your total equity in any one trade. By risking 1%, I am indifferent to any individual trade. Keeping your risk small and constant is absolutely critical. I have two basic rules about winning in trading as well as in life:
  1. If you don’t bet, you can’t win. 
  2. If you lose all your chips, you can’t bet. Frankly, I don’t see markets. I see risks, rewards, and money.