Respect the price action but never defer to it.
The action (or “eyes”) is a valuable tool when trading but if you defer to the flickering ticks, stocks would be “better” up and “worse” down-and that’s a losing proposition. This is a particularly pertinent point as headlines of new highs serve as sexy sirens for those on the sidelines. (more…)
As a trend develops, the reactions, or pullbacks, tend to become smaller. Traders looking to enter the trend wait for reactions to place their orders; as the move becomes more obvious, these reactions will get smaller and the increments of trend movement will become larger. When the reaction suddenly is larger, the move is ending; the change in the character of the move signals a prudent exit, even if prices continue erratically in the direction of the trend.
Trading in the markets is a process, and there is always room for self improvement. So as we start the new year, here are my 11 rules that help me navigate the markets. By no means is this list exhaustive or exclusive.
Rule #1 Be data centric in your approach : Take the time and make the effort to understand what works and what doesn’t. Trading decisions should be objective and based upon the data.
Rule #2 Be disciplined : The data should guide you in your decisions. This is the only way to navigate a potentially hostile and fearful environment. (more…)
All markets look liquid during the bubble (massive uptrend), but it’s the liquidity after the bubble ends that matters.
Markets tend to over discount the uncertainty related to identified risks. Conversely, markets tend to under discount risks that have not yet been expressly identified. Whenever the market is pointing at something and saying this is a risk to be concerned about, in my experience, most of the time, the risk ends up being not as bad as the market anticipated.
Traders focus almost entirely on where to enter a trade. In reality, the entry size is often more important than the entry price because if the size is too large, a trader will be more likely to exit a good trade on a meaningless adverse price move. The larger the position, the greater the danger that trading decisions will be driven by fear rather than by judgment and experience.
Virtually all traders experience periods when they are out of sync with the markets. When you are in a losing streak, you can’t turn the situation around by trying harder. When trading is going badly, Clark’s advice is to get out of everything and take a holiday. Liquidating positions will allow you to regain objectivity.
Staring at the screen all day is counterproductive. He believes that watching every tick will lead to both selling good positions prematurely and overtrading. He advises traders to find something else (preferably productive) to occupy part of their time to avoid the pitfalls of watching the market too closely.
When markets are trending up strongly, and there is bad news, the bad news counts for nothing. But if there is a break that reminds people what it is like to lose money in equities, then suddenly the buying is not mindless anymore. People start looking at the fundamentals, and in this case, I knew the fundamentals were very ugly indeed.
If you don’t understand why you are in a trade, you won’t understand when it is the right time to sell, which means you will only sell when the price action scares you. Most of the time when price action scares you, it is a buying opportunity, not a sell indicator.
Normally, I let winners run and cut losers. In 2009, however, as a result of the posttraumatic effects of going through the September 2008 to February 2009 period—talking to clients who are going out of business and seeing 50 percent of your fund redeemed is all very wearing—I got into the habit of snatching quick 10 to 15 percent profits in individual positions. Most of these positions then went up another 35 to 40 percent. I consider my pattern of taking quick profits in 2009 a dreadful error that I think came about because I had lost a degree of confidence due to experiencing my first down year in 2008.
As an equity trader, I learned the short-selling lessons relatively early. There is no high for a concept stock. It is always better to be long before they have already moved a lot than to try to figure out where to go short.
Now that you have switched from net long to net short, what would get you long again? – Buying. If all of a sudden stocks stopped going down on bad news that would be a positive sign.
Burton Pugh, a well known trader, market commentator, and writer in the 1930s wrote numerous books, one of which discussed his trading methodology and the psychology behind it. Even after 87 years some things never change and most likely never will. Here is a list of some of the great nuggets of wisdom found in his book A Better Way to Make Money.
1. The secret to losing money in the market is to know why. “The losers “were ‘playing the market’, not using it intelligently. The fellow at the other end of the deal, who was using it intelligently, not ‘playing the market’, is the one who got the money.”
2. “It is an undeniable fact that indiscriminate trading in a hectic market will send one to financial oblivion quicker than any other known process.”
3. “The most careful preparation-a systematic plan-is one of the essentials of success.”
4. “Market action is not complex but surprisingly simple. Yet it is often made to appear complex by newspaper forecasters and market letter writers.”
5. “Market action is human nature in action.”
6. All market movements are based on “two deep-seated and entirely natural emotions: the desire for gain and the fear of loss.”
7. “So anxious are people to find some talisman, some magic wand, that will help them secure the hidden riches of the market, that they will try anything from coin-flipping to crystal gazing to secure the desired assistance.”
8. “What marvelous results could be attained in the business of making money if those who buy stocks would take a little time to learn a few simple facts about the market in which they are blindly reposing their faith.”
9. “Market students are continually diverted from making true evaluations of securities and commodities because they study the statistics made by prices instead of the psychology of prices.”
10. “Adopt one system of trading and stick to it, just as you employ and stick to one physician in whom you learn to have confidence.”
11. “One of the most important points in your market education is to learn as early as possible that the customary and supposedly weighty market news is of very small importance. The news only looks important.”
12. “Don’t trade just because you can afford to lose.”
13. “Practice makes perfect is an old copybook adage that works well in the market place.”
14. “If a trade fails to come out right, the error will be found in the operator-not the market.”
15. “Trading is simple another form of business. Treat it as such.”
16. “Trend to the investor is like the vein of gold to the miner, who must follow the vein faithfully if he expects to get the yellow metal.”
17. “Stocks are made to buy and sell…not to be bought and held.”
18. No matter what a thing costs, stocks or otherwise, “it is worth only what you can somebody to pay for it.”
19. People will always be prone to be extravagantly optimistic or dolefully in the slumps and “in this action is unlimited wealth for the men who realize this fact and will use it with confidence and decision.”
20. “Success is the most desirable thing in the world, but it is an eliminating contest. It may trample the thoughtless trader into the dust, but it will pour large treasure into the laps of those who work in sincere harmony with its laws.”
1)Nobody is bigger than the market.
What does it take to be successful long-term? Two observations:
“The most successful market participants find a limited number of patterns that have favorable odds of success and repeat the trading of these often, with moderate risk placed in any trade. They win by acting as the house, not as the gambler. They win by taking consistent bets and harvesting returns from favorable odds. They don’t win by making the big bets and big scores. There is remarkably little drama– surprisingly little wizardry–among those who sustain success in financial markets. In the words of Lopez de Prado, their trading desks are more like laboratories than the platforms of gurus. Diversification and disciplined execution explain much of their returns.” – Brett Steenbarger
“Investing is kind of a game of connecting the dots. The nice thing about it is the longer you are in the business, as long as you are intellectually curious, your collection of data points of dots gets bigger and bigger. That is where someone like Warren is just incredible. He has had a passion for investing for well over 70 years. He started by the age of 10 or 12. He keeps building that library of data, the ability to recognize patterns in data. Being a successful investor you need to be hungry, intellectually curious, interested, and read all the time. You need a certain level of randomness in order to connect things that might give you an insight into where a business is going in five years that somebody else might not see.” – Ted Weschler
Assuming you use rules in your trading, here’s an exercise that can bring new insight into analyzing your trade metrics. The next time you review your trade history (you do review it, right?) focus on the rules of the trade. Specifically, ask yourself how you responded to the rules.
For this exercise we will use two types of rules—external and internal. An example of an external rule would be one generated from your trading system. Let’s use a simple moving average cross as a buy order. An example of an internal rule would be discretionary in nature. Usually we can find these in statements like “I told myself that I’d trade smaller ahead of my vacation so I wouldn’t have to worry about positions and truly relax.”
Take a piece of paper and divide it into two columns; one for external and one for internal. Now process your prior trades to see which types of rule you followed and didn’t follow. Take it a step further to see which type of rule had larger profits or losses over time. See if there’s a correlation between length of trade and type of rule. Perhaps there’s a common thread between losing trades and not following your internal rules. If so, this would suggest a lack of discipline on your part which can be fixed by creating an external rule to avoid or lessen losses in the future. Have fun with the exercise but approach it with the intent to improve your trading. (more…)
Ed Seykota wisdom:
