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10 Typical Trading Errors

  
  Education
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1)Refusing to define a loss

2)Not Liquidating a losing trade ,even after you had acknowledged the trades’s potential is greatly diminished.

3)Getting locked into a specific opinion or belief about market direction.From a  psychological perspective this is equivalent to trying to control the market with your expectation of what it will do :”I’m right ,the market is wrong.”

4)Focussing on price and the monetary value of a trade,instead of the potential for the market to move based on its behaviour and structure.

5)Revenge-trading as if you were trying get back at the market for what it took away from you.

6) No reversing your position even when you clearly sense a change in market direction.

7)Not following the ruled of the trading system.

8)Planning for a move or feeling one building ,but then finding yourself immobilized to hit the bid or offer ,and there after denying yourself the opportunity to profit.

9)Not acting on your instincts or intuition.

10)Establishing a consistent pattern of trading success over a period of time ,and then giving your winnings back to the market in one or two trades and starting the cycle over again.

Trading Intuition

  
  Education
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I’ve heard from many traders that they often take decisions based on instincts. Actually, all non-quants use intuition in some form or another. If you are not using a program that takes all signals that your system produces, how do you decide between several equally good looking trading setups with similar risk to reward? Do you take them all or do you concentrate on only a few? The odds are that you are doing the latter and your ultimate choice for capital allocation is subconscious.

Even though we are defined by our decisions, we are often completely unaware of what’s happening inside our heads during the decision-making process.
Feelings are often an accurate shortcut, a concise expression of decades’ worth of experience.
The process of thinking requires feeling, for feelings are what let us understand all the information that we can’t directly comprehend. Reason without emotion is impotent. (more…)

Intuition Discipline Confidence Risk

  
  Education
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“Intuition although seemingly spontaneous, apparently emotional, stems from a form of “information” that has become built-in from past experience. Discipline means choosing what to do unencumbered by the fear of making a mistake. Confidence means trusting our intuition that what we “see” is what we “know.” There’s no escaping to the external, to the objective, and no standing on the shaky ground of emotions. So the question becomes, How do we create within ourselves the heroic condition of confidence wherein risk is not danger but life?

Six Rules for Traders & Investors

  
  Education
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  1. Make all your mistakes early in life. He says the more tough lessons you learn early on, the fewer errors you make later. A common mistake of all young investors is to be too trusting with brokers, analysts, and newsletters who are trying to sell you bad stocks.

  2. Always make your living doing something you enjoy. This way, you devote your full intensity to it which is required for success over the long-term.

  3. Be intellectually competitive. This involves doing constant research on subjects that make you money. The trick, he says, in plowing through such data is to be able to sense a major change coming in a situation before anyone else.

  4. Make good decisions even with incomplete information. In the real world, he argues, investors never have all the data they need before they put their money at risk. You will never have all the information you need. What matters is what you do with the information you have. Do your homework and focus on the facts that matter most in any investing situation.

  5. Always trust your intuition. For him, intuition is more than just a hunch. He says intuition resembles a hidden supercomputer in the mind that you’re not even aware is there. It can help you do the right thing at the right time if you give it a chance. In fact, over time your own trading experience will help develop your intuition so that major pitfalls can be avoided.

  6. Don’t make small investments. You only have so much time and energy so when you put your money in play. So, if you’re going to put money at risk, make sure the reward is high enough to justify it.

Wisdom Thoughts for Traders & Investors

  
  Education
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1. Make all your mistakes early in life: The more tough lessons you learn early on, the fewer (bigger) errors you make later. A common mistake of all young investors is to be too trusting with brokers, analysts, and newsletters who are trying to sell you something.

2. Always make your living doing something you enjoy: Devote your full intensity for success over the long-term.

3. Be intellectually competitive: Do constant research on subjects that make you money. Plow through the data so as to be able to sense a major change coming in the macro situation.

4. Make good decisions even with incomplete information: Investors never have all the data they need before they put their money at risk. Investing is all about decision-making with imperfect information. You will never have all the info you need. What matters is what you do with the information you have. Do your homework and focus on the facts that matter most in any investing situation.

5. Always trust your intuition: Intuition is more than just a hunch — it resembles a hidden supercomputer in the mind that you’re not even aware is there. It can help you do the right thing at the right time if you give it a chance. Over time, your own trading experience will help develop your intuition so that major pitfalls can be avoided.

6. Don’t make small investments: You only have so much time and energy so when you put your money in play. So, if you’re going to put money at risk, make sure the reward is high enough to justify it.

Six Rules of Michael Steinhardt

  
  Education
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Michael Steinhardt was one of the most successful hedge fund managers of all time. A dollar invested with Steinhardt Partners LP in 1967 was worth $481 when Steinhardt retired in 1995.

The following six rules were pulled out from a speech he gave:

1. Make all your mistakes early in life: The more tough lessons you learn early on, the fewer (bigger) errors you make later. A common mistake of all young investors is to be too trusting with brokers, analysts, and newsletters who are trying to sell you something.

2. Always make your living doing something you enjoy: Devote your full intensity for success over the long-term.

3. Be intellectually competitive: Do constant research on subjects that make you money. Plow through the data so as to be able to sense a major change coming in the macro situation.

4. Make good decisions even with incomplete information: Investors never have all the data they need before they put their money at risk. Investing is all about decision-making with imperfect information. You will never have all the info you need. What matters is what you do with the information you have. Do your homework and focus on the facts that matter most in any investing situation.

5. Always trust your intuition:  Intuition is more than just a hunch — it resembles a hidden supercomputer in the mind that you’re not even aware is there. It can help you do the right thing at the right time if you give it a chance. Over time, your own trading experience will help develop your intuition so that major pitfalls can be avoided.

6. Don’t make small investments: You only have so much time and energy so when you put your money in play. So, if you’re going to put money at risk, make sure the reward is high enough to justify it.

The Ten Best Things Ed Seykota Ever Said.

  
  Education
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Arguably one of the greatest traders of all time with his trend following system.

Charles Faulkner tells a story about Seykota’s finely honed intuition when it comes to trading: I am reminded of an experience that Ed Seykota shared with a group. He said that when he looks at a market, that everyone else thinks has exhausted its up trend, that is often when he likes to get in. When I asked him how he made this determination, he said he just puts the chart on the other side of the room and if it looked like it was going up, then he would buy it… Of course this trade was seen through the eyes of someone with deep insight into the market behavior

The Ten Best Things Ed Seykota Ever Said:

Psychology

“To avoid whipsaw losses, stop trading.”

“It can be very expensive to try to convince the markets you are right.”

“A fish at one with the water sees nothing between himself and his prey. A trader at one with his feelings feels nothing between himself and executing his method.”

Risk Management

“The elements of good trading are cutting losses, cutting losses, and cutting losses.”

“Here’s the essence of risk management: Risk no more than you can afford to lose, and also risk enough so that a win is meaningful. If there is no such amount, don’t play.”

“In your recipe for success, don’t forget commitment – and a deep belief in the inevitability of your success.”

Trading System

“The trend is your friend except at the end when it bends.”

“If you want to know everything about the market, go to the beach. Push and pull your hands with the waves. Some are bigger waves, some are smaller. But if you try to push the wave out when it’s coming in, it’ll never happen. The market is always right.”

“Systems don’t need to be changed. The trick is for a trader to develop a system with which he is compatible.”

“I don’t predict a nonexisting future.”

Ed Seykota is a legend in the trend following community and has returns that would make Bernie Madoff  jealous, because his are real. If you can fully grasp what Ed is saying in these quotes it will improve your trading dramatically.

Gambling vs. Trading

  
  Education
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“Gambling is taking a risk when the odds are against you.  Speculating is taking a risk when the odds are in your favor.”  Victor Sperandeo

“the only difference between gambling and trading is that your amount at risk and amount of potential reward varies with trading.”  I agree, but there’s more to it.  The parallels are obvious, from the lack of control over outcome to the illusion of knowledge to the physiological effects of having a stake in the outcome.  However, the differences are substantial…and mostly mathematical.

The expectancy in gambling is ALWAYS terrible, while market speculation at times offers outstanding opportunities.  To get a 2:1 or 3:1 opportunity in gambling, one needs to accept incredibly low odds of victory.  In financial markets, those 2:1 or above opportunities come around like clockwork and offer high enough probability that long-term positive expectancy is possible.  Not only that, but the market speculator has the opportunity to adjust his or her position after the game begins…when was the last horse race where you could take a little off the table after the first turn?  Or reclaim most of your bet when your horse stumbles out of the gate?

I’ll leave the neuroscience to the experts, but it seems to me that we need to coordinate our left brain(rational) and right brain(experiential) in laying out the role of each.  We want to allow our intuition to shine through, but within the overall structure of positive expectancy.  No matter how hard one tries, the math of gambling can’t come close to touching the opportunities for building a business out of the markets.

Ed Seykota-Quotes

  
  Education
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(So you didn’t have a clear exit point) In other words, the only way you could stop trading was by losing.

If you can’t take a small loss, sooner or later you will take the mother of all losses.

There are old traders and there are bold traders, but there are very few old, bold traders.

Dramatic and emotional trading experiences tend to be negative. Pride is a great banana peel, as are hope, fear, and greed. My biggest slip-ups occurred shortly after I got emotionally involved with positions.

I prefer not to dwell on past situations. I tend to cut bad trades as soon as possible, forget them, and then move on to new opportunities.

The elements of good trading are: 1. Cutting losses, 2. Cutting losses, and 3. Cutting losses. If you can follow these three rules, you may have a chance.

Trying to trade during a losing streak is emotionally devastating. Trying to play “catch up” is lethal. (more…)

Some Suggestions for Traders

  
  Education
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Have you written down your trading rules? Do you have rules for entry and for exit with a profit and with a loss? Do you have a rule telling you whether a market is trending and what the trend is? Do you have rules stating when the market is in a trading range and what that range is? Do you have rules saying what markets you will trade and what has to happen to trade them?

Or do you simply shoot from the hip and call it artistry or intuition? Does this work for you?

Do you follow your rules rigidly without flexibility or discretion? Does this serve you over time?

Do you abandon your rules in the heat of trading, only to regret it? Do you stubbornly go against your rules thinking this time you know better? What would happen if you didn’t do this?

Some people don’t like rules. They don’t want to be told what to do even if it’s themselves telling themselves what to do. They even more don’t like following rules that came with a system for which they paid good (any or excessive) money. They have a polarity response to direction even after it becomes apparent that they’d be more profitable simply following the rules.

Others like to be told what to do, but somehow their rules are conflicting, obscure, or so bound up with discretion as to be meaningless. These traders may not even be aware that in essence they have no rules.

Whatever your situation turns out to be, it may be helpful to think in terms of commandments or suggestions. You may think in terms of absolute rules or simple guidelines.

Do you like clear directions as to what to do? In this case you can think in terms of commandments. For example, when The Ten Commandments says, “Thou shalt not kill,” it doesn’t leave much discretion. Reword your rules as commandments that are precise and clear and easy to follow.

Do you resist being dictated to and bossed around by outside forces? In this case, reformulate your rules as guidelines or suggestions. Give yourself some leeway in certain situations. Reword it so that when you read it, it sounds like a good idea and not a demand.

However, be certain in advance that whether you choose a suggestion or command, the results will be profitable if followed consistently or even most of the time. There’s nothing worse than a bad idea or a rule that doesn’t work. Remember the basics: Find out what works. Verify that it works. And do it.

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