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Techniques of Tape Reading

technique-animatedThis (Trading) is not a job where you get paid by the hour.
You get paid for doing the right thing.
Forget that your money is at stake. Money in trading account is just a tool for making money. Preserve your tool. You need it to make money.
Don’t let the outcome of one trade alter your trading discipline. One trade doesn’t make a system…
Trading is a game of probabilities. You don’t have to be right every time. You just have to follow your rules.
You decide your fate; the market doesn’t.
Pure followers of stock pickers will never be around… Learn or you are bankrupt.
Be aggressive in trending market and conservative in choppy market.
Take home runs when you can, but don’t beat yourself up about missing a few.
One trade should never make or break your account.

Trading is a business

Trading can be mastered if you concentrate your efforts on how you will react to price rather than desiring to predict it. Reacting is a business decision, predicting is an ego play.

Traders want to make money. Losses in the long run don’t matter. Forecasters (prophets) want to be right (ego). And that’s all that they are concerned about.

Don’t decide anything (ego), let the market do that job for you (business).

Like any other business you have a business plan and the financial portion of that plan is the most important.

In this business your inventory is stocks, bonds, futures or options. Like any other business you define what an acceptable loss is on an item and what is an acceptable profit for the risk undertaken. Like any other business if the item of inventory doesn’t do what you expected it to do, you put it on sale and liquidate it to raise capital to purchase inventory that will do what you want it to do. Your acceptable loss is your stop. Your money management system tells you how much that is. Your mark up is dependent upon your trading system and trading style. It doesn’t make any difference if you are a day trader or an investor. Like any business, some turn their inventory 10 times a day, some 20 times a year and some only twice a year. Your trading style and inventory volatility will tell you what your turnover rate will be.

Trading is a business and if you treat it as anything else you will be a loser.

Four Phases of Traders

1. Being unconsciously incompetent. That’s when you don’t know anything about the markets. Unfortunately most people get in the markets, on the last wave of a bull market. The only thing required is to be in the markets. Everything is going up.
2.Consciously incompetent. That’s when you’ve realised that making money in the markets has nothing to do with buying low and sell it higher. So you start learning technical analysis. But you still loose money. 
3. Consciously competent. If you haven’t given up by now. You have started to gain experience. You can read the markets and feel the pulse. You’re discovering that there are more advanced things that you can use;Indicators. But unfortunately you still lose money. 
4. Unconsciously competent. That’s the zone guys. That’s where you’ve managed to put all the pieces together. You’ve been through it all. You’ve learned to master yourself, and you’ve done such a great job, that you’re trading without forcing yourself to do it. You’re relaxed, and all the pieces, are there. Think of the way you guys drive your cars. You don’t think of it, you just do it!

Kung Fu vs. Trading

You can learn a lot on trading by watching Kung Fu. Sounds crazy? Let me explain by the following video.

The first scene is where the market offers you an opportunity for a duel. Your opponent seems strong and fierce, but it’s not just about muscles and brute force.

– Bruce Lee shows respect for his opponent in the first scene. This is very important. Never understimate the market and always be nimble.

– When his opponent tries to scare him by breaking a wooden board, Bruce Lee does not show fear. You should never fear the market. Always have a clear mind but be watchful at all times. The market will test you. It will find your weak spots.

– It is okay to test the waters with small positions if you are not sure. As Bruce Lee shows by striking the first two blows, he is just testing his opponent’s speed. Checking to see if the water is safe to jump into.

– When Bruce Lee does a backflip kick, he shows his flexibility. The market might sneak up on you with a move you did not expect. It is your job to be prepared for anything and move as flexible as you can.

– Sometimes the market will go bezerk on you, trying to grab you by the balls. Again, you have to play tight defense at all times so you will not get hurt.

– Bruce Lee shows his amazing talent by performing a backturn kick onto his opponent. This is a highly effective and powerful strategy. Once you have developed a system that works for you, don’t try to change it for the sake of entertainment. It if works, it works! And that is great!

– From time to time you will make a great trade. Like when Bruce Lee kicks his opponent into the crowd. Don’t let this get into your head by thinking you own the market! Always stay nimble and be ready to strike again.

– You may think a fight is over. You may turn your back on a position thinking you have won. If you are up nice on a position and trade without a stop, you can still get hurt. Always play with stops. The market may sneak up from behind and pull a big gap down on you! Don’t let this happen. Always stay watchful and never trade without stops.

– Bruce Lee decides to end the fight finally. Don’t overstay your welcome in a trade. If you are up nicely and can take profits do so. We are not investors. We are traders. Finish the fight now and then and take profits. If you never finish a fight you will never take profits. If you never take profits you will never make money.

Trading Mistakes

If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything. I’m positive that a doer makes mistakes.
–John Wooden

We had our first losing day in quite awhile last Wednesday. And that’s not to say that we are loss free intraday everyday…quite the contrary in fact. We take intraday risk management losses almost daily. However, we do not often suffer overall losses for the day. Wednesday was an exception.

The loss was related to trying to force the market to give us our Daily Goal when it was not being offered. The loss was within our risk parameters, so it was not a big deal…except it was a big deal. We were annoyed. We were angry. We wanted revenge. Worse, we were up on the day only to gave it all back and then some. Worse still, the loss was due solely to a trading mistake we made as we approached the end of the day. A MENTAL mistake. Worst of all? We KNEW it was not prudent when we were doing it. (more…)

9 Trading Lessons for Traders

  1. You have to be able to lose in order to win.
  2. Always be realistic with your monthly target.
  3. It is absolutely OK, and most of time, helpful to shutdown all social networking such as twitter, stocktwits, facebook. Think about it, if your friend is affecting your work, tell him to come back later. Trading is about concentration, and definitely a personal and lonely business. To be a successful trader, we must walk alone in our days and do it alone.
  4. If you are really seriously addicted to twitter, try to challenge tweets who call trade, instead of following them.
  5. When your position is right, you have to do nothing instead of doing nothing when you are wrong! [constantly taking early profit will do you more harm than good]
  6. You must keep your losses small and take more small losses than small winners to come out ahead. You will become the best trader you can be by being wrong small, not right small.
  7. It is your job to know your are wrong and not the market’s job.
  8. You have to press your winners if you really consider yourself to have the ability to make a living or extra income from trading.
  9. When you place a trade, don’t ever think this is the only trade to make. There are thousands of trades you can make. You aren’t going to miss a move for long if you trade correctly. You aren’t going to chase markets if you trade correctly. You must have a plan to enter positions based on each market’s criteria.

Nuggets

Price — The Truth, The Light, The Way

  • Work to understand price
  • Price does not move in a straight line
  • Big moves take time
  • Volatility is your friend and helps to compress time
  • Although volatility is your pal, it can cut both ways
  • If a stock moves 30% a day, then you can’t trade with a 5% stop
  • Don’t expect a volatile stock to stop behaving as it has been and only move in your favor just because you’re now in it. Unless you’re Bill Clinton, what is, IS.

Random Thoughts:

  • Observe but be slow to shift gears — we are trend followers, not predictors
  • It’s the market’s “job” to shake you out
    • The market will do what it has to do to create the most pain (for the most people)
    • The market will often do the obvious in the most un-obvious manner
  • Err on the side of the longer-term trend
    • DO wait for entries
    • DO use protective stops
    • DO trail and scale as offered

6 Trading Rules

6 TRADING RULES1.IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE TRADE YOU’RE HOLDING, GET OUT.

2.AFTER TWO HOURS OF TRADING, ASK YOURSELF: “DO I FEEL GOOD ABOUT MYTRADING TODAY?” Once two hours have passed, A day trader should have made at least two, or perhaps more, trades, “but enough to evaluate what you have done.” If the trader feels good about the day’s trading, continue. If not, stop trading that day.

3.ALL CYLINDERS OF THE ENGINE MUST BE RUNNING EFFICIENTLY. “Day-trading is a job, and your paycheck is determined by your ability. You can only maximize your ability if you have all the information you need to make trading decisions. “If a piece of equipment that one uses for trading is not working, stop trading.

4.HAVE COMPLETE FAITH IN YOUR INDICATORS.This is a must for success.Many times your indicators give you a buy or sell signal, and you don’t follow it because you don’t have the confidence the signal is right this time. Successful day traders believe in their indicators, but also are aware that nothing is 100% foolproof.

5. TO ANYONE WHO ASPIRES TO BECOME A DAY TRADER, OBSERVE THOSE WHO ARE SUCCESSFUL. “Any information you can procure on the trading philosophies, mechanics and techniques is well worth your while.”

6.DAY-TRADING IS A LONG-TERM COMMITMENT. “I fervently believe it takes several years to become a true professional”

Julian Robertson: Obama Is Doing A Terrible Job

Former star hedge fund manager and billionaire Julian Robertson thinks that President Obama is doing a terrible job. Robertson said:

“I’ve made a pretty good living over the years by never hiring anyone that wasn’t a lot smarter than I am. So when I go in a room, I know I’m not the smartest person in the room, not even approaching it. Now Obama, from all I read, thinks that on every occasion that he is the smartest person in the room. And I think he often probably is, but you can’t run the biggest business in the world having never run even a country store. And he’s running into that and he’s just doing an awful job and people see it. He’s enough of a politician to see it – although he’s so cocky maybe he doesn’t see it”

Getting Comfortable with Uncertainty

A trader who is comfortable with uncertainty has the capacity to stay relaxed in unclear situations and make high probability decisions with a strong degree of conviction.

As a trader, how many times have you asked yourself “Is this the right call?”
If you are like most other traders, the answer should be “nearly all the time.”
How about we break this down and think about it from a different angle.

New Perspective:
Let’s consider the possibility that it is NOT your job to make “The Right Call” but rather to make an intelligent, data-point-supported guestimate of what “The Right Call” could be and then monitor, adjust, and possibly liquidate that decision as it develops over time.

Viewing it this way takes the pressure off, doesn’t it? In fact, it may even get you more Comfortable with Making Decisions during Uncertainty.

My point is, like golf, trading is not a game of perfect. Successful traders just don’t waste their time trying to be “RIGHT;” instead they are focused on MAKING MONEY.

Top performers in any field practice their game, establish a plan and TRAIN themselves to execute when the widow of opportunity appears. So why would we think trading should be any different? In the end, winning is not about being right, it is about getting the job done.

Keep your eye on the ball and your head in the game!