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Hesitation

  
  Education
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Hesitation-You are watching a stock that has all the signals you look for in an opportunity. The proper point to enter comes, but you wait. You second guess the opportunity and don’t buy the stock. Or, you bid for the stock at a price that is not likely to get filled if the opportunity does pan out the way you anticipate it will. As a result, you get left behind while the market pushes the stock higher. A short while after the initial entry signal, when the stock has made a decent gain, you decide to finally enter the trade. After all, the market has proven your analysis correct, so you must be smart, and right! Not long after you enter, the stock turns south and you end up with a losing trade. If only you had bought when you first thought about it.

The Solution

This is really just a confidence issue. You are either not confident in your ability to analyze stocks, or you are not confident in the methodology that you are using to pick trades. (more…)

Hesitation

  
  Education
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Hesitation-1You are watching a stock that has all the signals you look for in an opportunity. The proper point to enter comes, but you wait. You second guess the opportunity and don’t buy the stock. Or, you bid for the stock at a price that is not likely to get filled if the opportunity does pan out the way you anticipate it will. As a result, you get left behind while the market pushes the stock higher. A short while after the initial entry signal, when the stock has made a decent gain, you decide to finally enter the trade. After all, the market has proven your analysis correct, so you must be smart, and right! Not long after you enter, the stock turns south and you end up with a losing trade. If only you had bought when you first thought about it.

The Solution

This is really just a confidence issue. You are either not confident in your ability to analyze stocks, or you are not confident in the methodology that you are using to pick trades. (more…)

Lessons from Hedge Fund Market Wizards

  
  Education
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1. Steve Clark was “brutally honest” in his interview with Schwager. In the opening, Clark describes his background; raised in a council house on the outskirts of London, no father in sight, no university degree, and no initial trading experience. Clark was installing stereo systems when a friend told him about trading jobs in the City.  Sometimes interest and motivation are more important than “pedigree”.
2. He worked a series of back-office jobs and assistant roles before getting a shot at running a market-making book. He got his first chance to trade the book while filling in for a trader on holiday…during the week of the October 1987 crash. Trial by fire situation.
3. Steve learned a valuable lesson making prices on October 19, 1987: the price is where anyone is prepared to deal, and it can be anything. Steve found he had to quote prices so low until sell orders dried up. He still lost several million pounds on his book that day.
4. Eventually he became the most profitable trader in his group. Steve credits this shift to his ability to cut positions that were down or “wrong”. He also traded around news to orientate himself on “the right side of the market”. Plus, he was inexperienced and didn’t have the fear that cripples people who’ve been in the business for a long time. 
5. Traded on order flow info and screened for stocks making moves on big volume. He also used charts to see what happened when stocks reached certain levels in prior periods. Clark cautions that he is not a big believer in predictive chart analysis.  (more…)

Trading psychology

  
  Education
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  • Trading psychologyStop trying to outsmart the market. NO ONE knows exactly where it will go.
  • With each decision you make comes stress:
    • The more decisions you make, the more likely you are to be wrong.
    • The more decisions you are used to making, the more pressure you’ll put on yourself to make even more decisions.
    • No one can be that right.
  • Forget about the “whys’ of the market. After all is said and done, the reasons will be known.
  • Don’t apply logic. Markets move on emotions — period!
  • Plan your trade and trade your plan.
  • Reduce the amount of decisions you make.
  • Make decisions and live with them (also a life lesson!).
    • Good decisions come from experience.
    • Experience comes from bad decisions.

    • Two Trading related Films

      
      Education
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    Question. Have you seen the new Wall Street film, Money Never Sleeps? If so, what did you think?

    http://www.wallstreetmoneyneversleeps.com/

    The original film is, of course, a classic. I have no idea how many times I’ve seen it over the years, and no doubt will see it again several times in the future. I haven’t, as yet, seen the new one, but I fully expect to do so. 

    It seems like the box office figures haven’t held up very well, but that’s not necessarily a reflection of the quality of the film where someone from a markets background is concerned. This doesn’t strike me as being one that requires the big screen experience, however, so I can see myself waiting for it to come out on DVD.

    Should I not do that? I’d love to hear from folks who been. If so, leave a comment below with your thoughts.

    A film I did see recently is Floored, the documentary about the decline of pit trading in the Chicago futures exchange arena. It was screened at the Vegas Futures & Forex expo, with the director in attendance. There were some interesting elements, but I’m not going to sing its praises from the rooftops or anything like that. Basically, it’s a tale of a disappearing business, which is part of they way things work in a free enterprise society. New, better ways replace older ones and folks who cannot adopt are left behind.

    One of the most amazing scenes in Floored is one where a guy who clearly has embraced computer assisted trading is facing off against a floor trader. The latter is ranting about how computers are evil. It’s sad, really.

    Hesitation

      
      Education
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    You are watching a stock that has all the signals you look for in an opportunity. The proper point to enter comes, but you wait. You second guess the opportunity and don’t buy the stock. Or, you bid for the stock at a price that is not likely to get filled if the opportunity does pan out the way you anticipate it will. As a result, you get left behind while the market pushes the stock higher. A short while after the initial entry signal, when the stock has made a decent gain, you decide to finally enter the trade. After all, the market has proven your analysis correct, so you must be smart, and right! Not long after you enter, the stock turns south and you end up with a losing trade. If only you had bought when you first thought about it.

    The Solution

    This is really just a confidence issue. You are either not confident in your ability to analyze stocks, or you are not confident in the methodology that you are using to pick trades. Therefore, you have to research your method so that you have the confidence that it works. Then, you have to start small, making trades that have a potential loss that you are comfortable with. As you gain confidence in your method and your ability, increase the trade size. With your new found confidence, stand in a crowded room and scream, “I am great!” Well, maybe don’t carry it that far.

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