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Speculation has always been a part of the market and always will be.

  
  Education
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It was the spring of 1976. Investors were still licking their wounds from the severe bear market of 1973-74. Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, an investment bank, was hosting a conference that matched two investing legends onstage at the same time — Ben Graham and Charles Ellis.

Ellis, moderating a Q&A, asked Graham why the mid-1970s were such a disaster in the stock market for most investors. Graham replied that, “most investment professionals, although possessing above average intelligence, lacked an overall understanding of common stocks.”

As told by Robert Hagstrom in his book Latticework: The New Investing, here’s where Ellis and Graham picked up after the conference:

After the seminar, Graham and Ellis spent some time together, and the conversation continued. The problem with our industry, Graham insisted, is not speculation per se; speculation has always been a part of the market and always will be. Our failure as professionals, he went on, is our continuing inability to distinguish between investment and speculation. If professionals can’t make that distinction, how can individuals investors? The greatest danger investors face, Graham warned, is acquiring speculative habits without realizing they have done so. Then they will end up with a speculator’s return — not a wise move for someone’s life savings. (more…)

12 Truths-Traders Should Know

  
  Education
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1. Stock prices run in cycles. Periods of re-pricing are usually quick and powerful and then they are followed by trendless consolidation.

2. Stocks are very highly correlated during drastic selloffs and during the initial stage of the recovery. In general, correlation is high during bear markets.

3. Bull markets are markets of stocks, where there are both winners and losers. When the market averages consolidate, there are stocks that will break out or down, revealing the intentions of institutional buyers.

4. In the first and last stage of a new bull market, the best performers are small cap, low float, low-priced stocks.

5. Try to trade in the direction of the trend. It is not only the path of least resistance, but also provides the best profit opportunities. Have a simple method to define the direction of the trend.

6. Traders’ attention (and market volume) is attracted by unusual price moves. Sudden price range expansion from a consolidaiton is often the beginning of a powerful new trend.

7. Opportunity cost matters a lot. Be in stocks that move. Stocks in a range are dead money. (more…)

In Trading If You are Losing Money Then You Are Doing….

  
  Education
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  1. You consistently trade huge position sizes in volatile trading vehicles.
  2. You enter a trade with no exit strategy.
  3. You care more about being right than making money.
  4. Your emotions fluctuate wildly with your trading capital equity curve.
  5. You are trading your opinions instead of a robust trading method.
  6. Your ego is tied to your trading results. (more…)

The 7 Psychological Mistakes Traders make

  
  Education
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  1. Trading too big to “get back to even”.

  2. Going “all in” on one trade that they believe they just can’t lose.

  3. Being on the wrong side of an asymmetric trade.  Being short options for possible small gains if right but big losses if wrong.  In the long term eventually this blows up.

  4. Fighting a trend over and over again, a trend that a trader or investor can not even believe is very dangerous because shorts look better the higher a stock goes and longs look like they are getting a bargain the lower the stock sinks.

  5. In a losing trade the trader starts thinking “add more to a losing position” instead of “I need to cut my loss short”.

  6. The trader believes they are right and the market is wrong.

  7. Traders are trading markets they do not even fully understand and a trader must fully understand the risk and leverage involved  in currencies, futures, options, and commodities to prevent possible blow ups due from ignorance.

If a trader can tightly control risk and position sizes this will get them closer to getting in the club with the 10% of winning traders.

Don’t blame the market for your losses- A Thought

  
  Education
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1.) It is highly possible that you will never really make it.  Honestly, trading is a difficult game.  Anyone who said so, was not truthful.  It IS VERY HARD. Trading is not a themepark.  I always stress this out.  Check (How I Started).  I have only come to this realization after losing so much money.  Sigh.  I hope I can spare some of you of the losses.  Make sure that when you trade, you have a mentor, a peer, or a community who have the intention of educating you properly, who’ll look at what you’re doing.  Chances are, the losses come from two most common trading mistakes – Fear and Greed.

Fear of losing money – (You cannot cut the losses)

Fear of losing out – Overtrading.  Chasing unplanned trades.

Greed- Your money management is wrong.  You want to revenge trade. No risk management.

4 Type of Market Cycles

  
  Education
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1)  Bottoming process – At market lows, we tend to see an elevation of volume and volatility and a high level of market correlation, as stocks are dumped across the board.  Selling pressure far exceeds buying pressure and sentiment becomes quite bearish.  At important market bottoms, we see price lows that are not confirmed by market breadth, as strong stocks begin to diverge from the pack and attract buying interest.  At those bottoms, we also find a rise in buying pressure and a reduction of selling pressure, as fresh market lows fail to attract new selling interest.  

2)  Market rise – With the drying up of selling, low prices attract buying from longer timeframe participants as well as shorter-term opportunistic ones.  The market rises on strong buying pressure and low selling pressure, and the rise generates sufficient thrust to generate a good degree of upside momentum.  Volatility and correlation remain relatively high during the initial lift off from the lows and breadth is strong.  Dips are bought and the rise is sustained.

3)  Topping process – The market hits a momentum peak, often identifiable by a peak in the number of shares registering fresh highs.  Selling from this peak generally exceeds the level of selling seen during the market rise, but ultimately attracts buyers.  Weak stocks begin to diverge from the pack and fresh price highs typically occur with breadth divergences and lower levels of correlation.  New buying lacks the thrust of the earlier move from the lows and volatility wanes.  By the time we hit a price peak for the cycle, divergences are clear, volatility is low, both buying pressure and selling pressure are low, and sentiment remains bullish.  

4)  Market decline – Fresh selling creates a pickup in correlation and volatility, as short-term support levels are violated and selling pressure exceeds buying pressure.  Breadth turns negative and the bulk of stocks now move lower.

Hope & Fear in Trading

  
  Education
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In trading most new traders allow hope and fear to dictate their trading. They have a losing trade and instead of selling it and getting out they instead hope it will come back to even allowing the loss to grow. Another error  for new traders is that when they have a winning trade they fear that the profit will disappear so they sell for a small gain and miss the big trend in their favor. When hope and fear controls the trader they end up with big losses and small gains. A formula for ruin.

Instead the rich trader is fearful of losses getting bigger so they sell quickly when losing, risking a maximum of 1% of their capital on any one trade. Rich traders are able to think clearly and trade rationally knowing exactly what they are risking, when their stop is hit, they get out. This enables them to keep all their losses small.

When a trade is immediately a winner for a rich trader they hope it will run 100 points in their favor. Rich traders enable this to be possible with a trailing stop, they do not get out of a winning trade until a key price reversal has happened that tells them that the trend is actually reversing.

Rich traders are fearful of losses growing bigger and hope that their winners will continue on a monster trend. This mindset allows  them to be on the right side of trends and avoid any huge losses. This is why the best traders in the world are trend followers and win consistently. Do you want to join their club? Then do not let fear and hope dictate your trading decisions use them correctly.

10 Keys For Traders

  
  Education
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  1. First Things First
    You sure you really want to trade ? It is common for people who think they want to trade to discover that they really don’t.
  2. Examine Your Motives
    Why do you really want to trade ? Did you say excitement ? Then don’t waste your money in market, you might be better off riding a roller coaster or taking up hand gliding.
    The market is a stern master. You need to do almost everything right to win. If parts of you are pulling in opposite directions, the game is lost before you start.
  3. Match The Trading Method To Your Personality
    It is critical to choose a method that is consistent with your your own personality and conflict level.
  4. It Is Absolutely Necessary To Have An Edge
    You cant win without an edge, even with the world’s greatest discipline and money management skills. If you don’t have an edge, all that money management and discipline will do for you is to guarantee that you will gradually bleed to death. Incidentally, if you don’t know what your edge is, you don’t have one.
  5. Derive A Method
    To have an edge, you must have a method. The type of method is not important, but having one is critical-and, of course, the method must have an edge.
  6. Developing A Method Is Hard Work
    Shortcuts rarely lead to trading success. Developing your own approach requires research, observation, and thought. Expect the process to take lots of time and hard work. Expect many dead ends and multiple failures before you find a successful trading approach that is right for you. Remember that you are playing against tens of thousands of professionals. Why should you be any better ? If it were that easy, there would be a lot more millionaire traders.
  7. Skill Versus Hard Work
    The general rule is that exceptional performance requires both natural talent and hard work to realize its potential. If the innate skill is lacking, hard work may provide proficiency, but not excellence.
    Virtually anyone can become a net profitable trader, but only a few have the inborn talent to become supertraders ! For this reason, it may be possible to teach trading success, but only upto a point. Be realistic in your goals.
  8. Good Trading Should Be Effortless
    Hard work refers to the preparatory process – the research and observation necessary to become a good trader – not to the trading itself.
    “In trading, just as in archery, whenever there is effort, force, straining, struggling, or trying, it’s wrong. You’re out of sync; you’re out of harmony with the market. The perfect trade is one that requires no effort.”
  9. Money Management and Risk Control
    Money management is even more important than the trading method.      
    The Trading Plan

    • Never risk more than 5% of your capital on any trade.
    • Predetermine your exit point before you get in a trade.
    • If you lose a certain predetermined amount of your starting capital (say 10 to 20%), take a breather, analyze what went wrong, and wait till you feel confident and have a high-probability idea before you begin trading again.
  10. Trying to win in the markets without a trading plan is like trying to build a house without blue prints – costly (and avoidable) mistakes are virtually inevitable. A trading plan simply requires a personal trading method with specific money management and trade entry rules.

Jeff Greenblatt, Breakthrough Strategies for Predicting Any Market-Book Review

  
  Education
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JEFFThe first edition of Jeff Greenblatt’s Breakthrough Strategies for Predicting Any Market: Charting Elliott Wave, Lucas, Fibonacci, Gann, and Time for Profit appeared in 2007. Since that time Greenblatt came to embrace the work of W. D. Gann. He also found that Alan Andrews’ median lines served as “an excellent GPS system in order to understand how trends evolve.” The second edition (Wiley, 2013) thus includes new chapters on Gann, Andrews, and median channels. It also addresses market sentiment/psychology.
Greenblatt is the director of Lucas Wave International and editor ofThe Fibonacci Forecaster. And who was Lucas, you might ask. (Well, at least I did.) Edouard Lucas (1842-1891) was a French mathematician who invented the famous (some might say infamous) Tower of Hanoi puzzle. He also studied number sequences, most notably the Fibonacci sequence. The closely related number sequence (2, 1, 3, 4, 7, 11, 18, 29, …) is named after Lucas.
But back to the book. (more…)

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