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Eleven Rules

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.

Rule #3
Be flexible.
At first glance this would seem to contradict Rule #2; however, I recognize that markets change and that trading strategies cannot account for every conceivable factor. Giving yourself some wiggle room or discretion is ok, but I would not stray too far from the data or your strategies.

Rule #4
Always question the prevailing dogma.
The markets love dogma. “Prices are above the 50 day moving average”, “prices are breaking out”, and “don’t fight the Fed” are some of the most often heard sayings. But what do they really mean for prices? Make your own observations and define your own rules. See Rule #1.

Rule #5
Understand your market edge.
My edge is my ability to use my computer to define the price action. I level the playing field by trading markets and not companies.

Rule #6
Money management.
Money management. Money management. It is so important that it is worth saying three times. There are so few factors you can control in the markets, but this is one of them. Learn to exploit it.

Rule #7
Time frame.
Know the time frame you are operating on. Don’t let a trade turn into an investment and don’t trade yourself out of an investment.

Rule #8
Confidence and conviction.
Believe in your strategies and bet wisely but with conviction. There is nothing more frustrating than having a good strategy work as you expect, yet at the end of the day, you have very little winnings to show for your efforts.

Rule #9
Persistence.
It takes persistence to operate in the markets. Success doesn’t come easy, and if it does, then I would be careful. Even the best strategies come with losses, and they always seem to come when you get the nerve to make the big bet. Stay with your plan. If you have done your home work, the winning trades will follow.

Rule #10
Passion.
In the end, trading has to be about your bottom line, but you have to love what you do and no amount of money is worth it if you aren’t passionate about the process. No matter how much success you enjoy, in the markets you can never stop learning.

Rule #11
Take care of yourself.
No amount of money is worth it if your health is failing or you have managed to alienate yourself from family and friends in the process.

12 Difference between Losers & Winners Traders

1.       Losers trade against the trend, but winners trade the impulsive wave of the current trend.

2.       Losers have no money management because they aim quick profit; but winners target steady profits by risking 2 or 3% of their investment.

3.       Losers don’t set stop loss order expecting to be faster then the market in case of reversal; winners know that any time news can make the price reacts suddenly. Therefore use protective stop loss in case of news release.

4.       Losers have no trading plan, they emotionally jump in and out of the market when the price moves; winners build solid entry and exit plans.

5.       Losers cut early their winning trades and let losses run and wipe out their account; but winner s cut quickly their losses. When the trade is positive, they set the stop loss to the break even to protecting their profit. Otherwise, they open to 2 lots to closing the first lot when the stop loss value is reached and let the second winning trade run with a trailing stop from the breakeven until it is touched.

6.       Losers do trade many strategies at the same time, but have mastered none of them; winners master one successful strategy and move to the other.

7.       Losers think the market or the broker is against them, winners don’t fight against the market they try to understand it; they know how to choose between brokers with objective criterions.

8.       Losers think Forex is gambling; but winners develop skills, discipline, self control, and patience, they work hard for being successful traders. Winners learn from their mistakes and constantly improve their main trading strategy.

9.       Losers perform emotional trading after the release of alarming news, winners respect their trading plans.

10.   Losers do overtrading, they even trade at the daily pivot point; winners trade the best opportunities at support or resistance according to the price reaction.

11.   Losers can trade a bad risk reward opportunity; winners aim good risk reward with ratio such as 1/3 or 1/4. A won trade protects their portfolio from several small losses.

12.   Losers use any strategy or expert advisor without back testing it; but winners know that long term profitability is one of the key of Forex trading success. Winners don’t focus on the percentage of winning trades.

Overtrading

Most new traders overtrade.

Overtrading is when you (hoping to receive the maximum possible profit) opens a huge position consisting of multiple lots.

Considering the typical market activity, it’s easy to lose half or even all your trading capital.

This problem is sometimes directly connected to insufficient trading capital.

But it’s more likely due to the trader lacking knowledge of money management principles, which means lack of competence to control their trading capital properly.

Your trading capital is used to earn money. You should treat each rupee is like a newborn baby.

Your first and foremost responsibility is to protect it. If you lose it, you have less to help you earn money.

13 Trading Rules

  • Let winners run. While momentum is in phase, the market can run much further than might be expected.
  • Corollary to that rule: Do not exit winners without reason!
  • Be quick to admit when wrong and get flat.
  • Sometimes a time stop is the right solution. If a position is entered, but the anticipated scenario does not develop then get out.
  • Remember: if one thing isn’t happening the other thing probably is. Historically, this has never been good for me…
  • Be careful of correlations. Several positions can often equal one large position bearing unacceptable risk. Please think.
  • I am responsible for risk management, money management, trade management, doing the analytical work and putting on every trade that comes.
  • I am not responsible for the outcome of any one trade. Markets are highly random. I do not have a crystal ball. I am not as smart as I think I am.
  • Risk management is the first and last responsibility. I can make almost any mistake and be ok as long as I do not violate my risk management parameters.
  • Opportunity comes every day. Do not neglect the work. Must do analysis every day.
  • Opportunity comes every day. Get out of poor positions. Move on.
  • I am a better countertrend trader than a trend trader. Sometimes the crowd is right, and they will run me over at those times if I’m not quick to admit I’m wrong.
  • If you’re going to do something stupid, at least do it on smaller size.

Lessons of the Legendary Traders

What do the worlds best Trading masters differently than the average investor? Can the average investor learn from the Player Legends success stories and their techniques used? What do the most famous Players have in common that can be applied by the average talented trader?

Before we should give some insights on those questions lets have a look at some of the most successful Trade jockey Legends:

Nicolas Darvas turned an $ 36000 account into $ 2000000 in 18 months!!!
Ed Seykota, a Turtle Financier, turned $ 5’000 into $ 15’000’000 in 12 years!!!
Jesse Livermore made several multi-million USD fortunes in the early 1900’s
Richard Dennis, another Turtle Player, made between $ 100 and $ 200 000.000
George Soros is believed to be one of the greatest Trade jockey of all time!!!

The results are quite impressive and some different amazing Financiers should be added easily to the list above. Why do these guys have such tremendous results?

There are common factors, that can be observed through most of the successful Pitbull Legends:

They have a Strategy that they strictly follow.
Most of them have a trend-following average trading style.
Most of them have a mid- to long-term approach. Some of them burned their fingers over the preceding 3 years and some even lost a fortune. Here are some examples of observed behaviour patterns:

Losses are not slice early enough.
Investment with a short-term horizon become long-term horizon in hope of raising asking prices.
People listen to the advise of their invested $ Trade facilitators and Analysts.
People risk coin in hot issues recommended by colleagues of their colleagues.
People have no plan for their investments.
Money Management is not considered at all.
Greed and fear is omnipresent.

What can average talented trading insiders learn from the above and how can the mistakes listed above be avoided? The after key notches can be learned from some of the most successful Trading expert Legends:

Each investor has its own personality. Some of the investor have a very aggressive paper trading style and are stockmarket trading very frequently. Some prefer shares as different are increased risk oriented and speculate in contracts. Other players want only spend a minimum of effort. An investor need to reflect on his outline and choose a note trading approach that fits his personality.

A trade needs to be completely planned in advance. g. when they go on holiday, when they move house etc. But do they have a plan when they invest? An investor needs to have a method that helps him to be prepared for all scenarios of a exchange. One needs to know in advance when to buy, how much to buy, when to exit. Once a buy / sell is executed the bottom line of the instrument (stock, promise note, fixed interest paper etc.

The most important component of a stock trading method is Cash Management? Surprised? Lots of pitbulls and super traders spend most of their time developing a very advanced trade entry strategy. But the entry methodology contributes only approximately 15% to the success of a Note trading Method based on academic studies.
The most important question of a Paper trading Technique is how much to risk bucks and how many deals to trade at the same time.

A can do attitude is required to buy / sell successfully. Why? Because with phrases like it should be great, but I cant or one day perhaps I should succeed in the lottery, but until then I must work hard they have already lost.

Five Fatal Flaws

If you’ve been trading for a long time, you no doubt have felt that a monstrous, invisible hand sometimes reaches into your trading account and takes out money. It doesn’t seem to matter how many books you buy, how many seminars you attend or how many hours you spend analyzing price charts, you just can’t seem to prevent that invisible hand from depleting your trading account funds.

Which brings us to the question: Why do traders lose? Or maybe we should ask, ‘How do you stop the Hand?’ Whether you are a seasoned professional or just thinking about opening your first trading account, the ability to stop the Hand is proportional to how well you understand and overcome the Five Fatal Flaws of trading. For each fatal flaw represents a finger on the invisible hand that wreaks havoc with your trading account.

The killer flaws? They are:

Fatal Flaw No. 1 – Lack of Methodology
Fatal Flaw No. 2 – Lack of Discipline
Fatal Flaw No. 3 – Unrealistic Expectations
Fatal Flaw No. 4 – Lack of Patience
Fatal Flaw No. 5 – Lack of Money Management

STOP TRADING until you can answer YES to all QUESTIONS

Managing Risk as a trader is the most important consideration and if you answer NO to any of the following questions, then STOP TRADING until you can answer YES to all of them:

  • Do you have a written trading plan that deals with risk management?
  • Have you calculated the risk that you are comfortable with in every trade?
  • Will you not place a trade, even though you have a healthy balance in your trading account, when you know that your risk exposure goes beyond the risk outlined in your trading plan?
  • Have you identified what your maximum position size will be?
  • Do you have a stop in place every time you trade?
  • Are you aware that risk management is not just about where you place your stop?
  • Will you be able to stick to your risk management rules under ALL trading conditions?

There are many ways to manage your risk but until you have a risk management process written into your trading plan and you stick to these risk management rules on EVERY occasion, then you have more work to do until you are on your way to being a successful trader. (more…)

What's the difference between winning traders and losing traders?

Well, first, there are a few similarities. Both are completely consumed by the idea of trading. The winners as well as losers have committed to doing this, and have no intention of ‘going back’. This same black-and-white mentality was evident in their personal lives too. But what about the differences? Here’s what Williams observed:

The losing traders have unrealistic expectations about the kind of profits they can make, typically shooting too high. They also debate with themselves before taking a trade, and even dwell on a trade well after it’s closed out. But the one big thing Williams noticed about this group was that they paid little attention to money management (i.e. defense).And the winners? This group has an intense focus on money management, and will voluntarily exit a trade if it’s not moving – even if it’s not losing money at that time! There is also very little internal dialogue about trade selection and trade management; this group just takes action instead of suffering analysis paralysis. Finally, the winning traders focused their attention on a small niche in the market or a few techniques, rather than trying to be able to do everything. Hopefully the second description fits you a little better, but if the first one seems a little too familiar, you now at least know how to start getting past that barrier.

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