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Risk Management Game

A random person is pulled off the street and given $10,000 to trade.  They have no prior experience which, on the bright side, means they have no bad habits, emotional baggage, or preconceived notions.  Before trading they go through a five day crash course on market basics (order entry process, chart reading, pattern recognition, etc…).  Suppose you are tasked with the responsibility of drafting a set of risk management rules which they are required to abide by.  The objective is to make them survive as long as possible in the trading arena so they can learn as much as possible through first-hand experience.

What types of rules would you set?

The ideal approach of course is to structure a set of rules which makes it as difficult as possible to blow up the account while still leaving them open to accumulating profits.  The goal isn’t so much helping them capture large gains as much as it is helping them survive.  After learning how to survive, then they can modify their approach to being more aggressive and seeking larger gains.

Here are two of my top rules: (more…)

Cutting your losses and going with the trend – emotionally

There is the famous old adage that as a trader you should cut your losses short and let your winners run. 

The best are able to do this. 

BUT it’s a very easy thing to intellectualise and yet quite another thing to execute in the real world.  After all if it was so easy there wouldn’t be all the writers, books, blogs, tweets, coaches, mentors etc in the trading world.  They would be obsolete.

HOWEVER IT ALSO APPLIES TO LIFE AWAY FROM THE CHARTS.

The ego and subconscious are often key adversaries to us gaining flow in our lives and achieving abundance.  This is true in both trading and normal life.

If you are unwilling to accept you are wrong and move on it is all too easy to not keep your losses small.    (more…)