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Stay humble

  
  Education
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More great lessons and trend following trading wisdom from Michael Covel’s book: ‘Trend Following – Learn to make millions in up or down markets’. I am quoting from page 282-283:

Fortune Favors the bold

Trend following, like any entrepreneurial endeavor, demands you be responsible for yourself. Charles Faulkner emphasized the point:

‘Trend trading and even trading in general isn’t for everyone. As too few people check out what the day-to-day life of a trader is like, and trend trading specifically, I strongly recommend they find out before making a life-changing commitment.’

What does ‘life-changing commitment’ involve? You commit to not wanting to be right all of the time. Most people, let’s face it, must be right. They live to have other people know they’re right. They don’t even want success. They don’t even want to win. They don’t want money. They just want to be right. The winners, on the other hand, just want to win.

What else can you do? You commit to patience and faith in a trading system that is not structured on quarterly performance or some artificial measure of the ‘mass’. You work hard to gain experience. Great experience leads to great intuition. You commit to thinking for the long term and not feeling insecure if you don’t have a steady earnings stream of 1-2 percent a month. You might have one year where you are down 10 percent. The following year you might be down 15 percent. The next year you might be up 115 percent. If you quit at the end of the second year, you will never get to the third year. That’s reality.

Just watch these 4 things to get success in Trading

  
  Education
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  1. Trust your gut If something looks like crap and smells like crap, then chances are, it is crap. Listen more to your gut to tell you when to cut a loss and move on.
  2. Keep it simple If something is working, keep doing it. There aren’t any bonus points for being clever. The money is the same color no matter how you make it. So do the simple things and chip away at the profits. I once had a client who felt he had to do complicated trades in order to make money. Bottom line was, he was wrong. Keeping it simple is the proven strategy for success.
  3. Probabilities don’t lie If you’re not carefully tracking the metrics on your trades, you might as well be gambling at a casino. Make it a point to track the data on your trades and study them. That way, you can do more of what’s working and less of what’s not.
  4. Avoid speculating and predicting I can’t begin to tell you how many times I see traders blow up their accounts because they try to speculate or predict what’s going to happen in the future. The simple fact is, no one knows. Even the best traders have a winning percentage of around 50 percent. That means successful trading is not about being right, it’s about what you do when you’re wrong. The bottom line is, trade what you see, not what you think.

Letting Winners Turn in to Losers

  
  Education
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Trading problem that I want to focus on is allowing winning trades to turn in to losers. Many of us have probably had a time when a trade was making big loot, and we started to count the profits like they were ours before we exited the trade. When the stock started to lose the ground it had gained, we avoided selling because we had built up an emotional attachment to the paper profits we had seen. Instead of selling the stock to lock in some gain, we opted to hold out for the stock to go back to where it used to be, promising to sell when it came back to the point where we felt good about the trade. The stock drifts lower, and eventually the gain turns in to a loss. We ultimately sell it at the bottom, swearing never to do it again. But without some reprogramming, we probably will.

The Solution

Like Kenny Rogers used to sing, “Don’t count your money, when you are sitting at the table, there will be time enough for counting, when the dealing’s done.” Do not calculate your profits before you lock them in. Avoiding the profit watch will help you avoid an emotional attachment to the paper profits, giving you greater clarity to take the exit door when the market tells you it is time to do so.

I hope this outline of mental problems and some solutions helps you become a better trader. The difference between those who succeed in trading and those who fail is not the system they play, but how well they play it. Your mind is a powerful thing, don’t let it beat you in the market.

TEN WAYS TO LOSE MONEY

  
  Education
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After many hours of toil and deep thought I have compiled a dependable guide for stock traders: Ten Ways to Lose Money on Wall Street. I shall not attempt to explain or qualify these precepts, realizing that my readers will doubtless follow them regardless of any advice, from any source, to the contrary.

1. Put your trust in boardroom gossip.
2. Believe everything you hear, especially tips.
3. If you don’t know—guess.
4. Follow the public.
5. Be impatient.
6. Greedily hang on for the top eighth.
7. Trade on thin margins.
8. Hold to your own opinion, right or wrong.
9. Never stay out of the market.
10. Accept small profits and large losses.

4 Trading Mistakes

  
  Education
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  • Don’t over-leverage yourself or have all of your money tied into one position. Keeping cash on hand is okay as a trader. These days brokers are offering extremely competitive margin requirements for day trading futures, but low margins can be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
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  • Don’t trade to trade. Understand that there are 3 positions you can take as a trader: a long position, a short position and a position to NOT be in a position. There will be plenty of trading opportunities that will come along. Don’t give money to the markets simply because you are bored!
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  • Avoid trading a strategy without having a good understanding of how the strategy works. What is the typical winning percentage? What is the largest drawdown? In general, high winning percentage strategies have smaller average profits per trade. Lower winning percentage strategies might not have as many winners, but when you are a winner, you typically win big. If you expect your strategy to bring big profits without losses, you can also expect a check made out to “REALITY” to come your way any day.

  • The market will always go higher and it will always go lower. Don’t try to pick tops and bottoms on a hunch. This is where most new traders get burned.

    • China greasing economy with $55bn in tax breaks

      
    Analysis, Education
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    China’s State Council on Wednesday approved 380 billion yuan ($55.1 billion) in tax relief that will mainly favor farmers and small businesses in a move that is seen as both economic and political.

    The second large-scale tax cut to follow last year’s comes as China’s economy is forecast to slow down in the latter half of 2017, during which the Communist Party will convene its 19th National Congress and reshuffle top leadership.

    China will modify its value-added tax this July by removing the 13% bracket while retaining the 6%, 11% and 17% tiers. The 13% rate currently applies to farm products and natural gas, but they will move to the 11% category. Farmers as well as households that purchase rice and vegetables will likely benefit from this change.

    For smaller companies, those that pay 300,000 yuan or less in annual taxable revenue qualify for preferential tax treatment. The ceiling will be lifted to 500,000 yuan. Furthermore, small businesses and startups will be allowed to deduct 75% of research and development costs, up from 50%. These tax breaks will remain in effect until the end of 2019.

    The Chinese government enacted about 500 billion yuan worth of corporate tax cuts in 2016. Helped also by a surge in infrastructure spending, the real economy grew 6.9% during the January-March period this year, marking the second quarter of economic acceleration. However, the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, has been gradually raising market interest rates in order to rein in the real estate bubble. (more…)

    Discipline

      
      Education
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    Learning to accept losses as part of the game and cutting them short is the single most important step towards becoming consistently profitable. It sounds simple, but in reality is extremely difficult for everybody. Why? Because we’ve been taught that giving up is for losers and we should fight till last breath. I certainly agree that you should not give up quickly, but only if you can influence the end result. Let me be clear, the stock doesn’t know that you own it and it doesn’t care that you cannot afford to lose the money. The market will strip your last cloth if you don’t know how to manage risk. You have to understand and accept your power. You cannot move the market. You cannot tell him where to go and how fast. This is why so many people, who are successful as entrepreneurs and engineers, have troubles breaking even in the capital markets. It takes a special kind of person. Someone, who can forget his ego and concentrate on what actually works. Very few people are able to reach that level and to distinguish their trading life from their personal life.

    Trading or investing is a skill that can be learned. There are two ways to learn a new skill in general. Through the school of hard knocks and through the mentorship of others that have the gift of teaching. To become a successful trader, you need to somehow implement both approaches. Nothing can replace personal experience. You can hire the best mentors in the world to teach you and purchase the most expensive equipment and trading software, but this is not going to help you to build a new skill. Skill building is subdued to eternal physical laws. There are a hundred billion neurons in your brain. For every skill that you possess (speaking a language or driving a car), there is a certain combination of connections between some of your neurons. To build a new skill, you need to build a new net of connections. This is why every beginning is hard, this is why big changes do not happen overnight. You have to establish new connections, which takes hard work via repetition and visualization. (more…)

    Trading Losses

      
      Education
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    Those who have chosen this very unique career of “trader” face a mountain of challenges each day based on ever-changing market conditions. Added to the market challenges are emotions, which can be 90% of the game. You can have a great method, strategy and be taught by the best, but if fear, apprehension or hesitation come up the trader won’t take the trade…..this is an emotional block. All successful and experienced traders learn quickly to become the masters of their emotions. To accept and manage their weaknesses and leverage their strengths.

    At first most traders start by researching and determining a method to trade. They do little to emotionally prepare for what’s to come. Yet they quickly find out that their emotions come into play early on, especially if they experience immediate losses. Losing money coupled with one’s own emotional “baggage” can impact the minds thought process and outcome.
    My work focuses on the power of the mind and in particular the power of thought. These three problems and solutions do too. Nothing happens without the some form of thought, be it sub-conscience or conscience. After all, isn’t this what we’re left with when sitting in front of our monitors trading? What comes into our minds, as we trade can be avalanches of different thoughts. These thoughts then have the ability to assist us and add to our success or become our worst nightmares resulting in multiple losses.

    Traders over time, come to the realization that trading will force them to face ALL their old and current emotional baggage and blocks. And that NOT being able to manage or “dump” the baggage, can hit the bottom line quickly.
    When a trader’s plan doesn’t work they tend to blame it on the method, when in reality it usually comes down to an emotion causing them to react inappropriately. We can pick up automatic emotional blocks that prevent us from implementing a method effectively. Many try to get over these emotions on their own, but few master the changes needed.

    But lets get specific and to the heart of these three trading problems. The first reason traders lose may seem obvious but in reality it stems from long term social conditioning. It’s their inability to ACCEPT LOSS. Losing generates powerful emotions, such as fear, uncertainty, apprehension, and self-doubt especially with men. And while women today can also be as affected, the data is supported mostly by men as they represent a larger portion of the client base.

    Men are socially conditioned to succeed from the time they enter the world. From little boys being read, “The Little Train That Could” to the environments that surround them as they grow up. They are guided to be become achievers. Influenced by family, friends, education, and career environments they are encouraged to seek professions of Doctors, Lawyers, and Bankers. Images and social metaphors reinforce them. Striving to be right, number one, the breadwinner, and the best, always seeking perfectionism. They are socially conditioned to be the family providers. Add to this various cultural pressures and demands and men have a built-in fundamental obligation to succeed. (more…)

    HOW TO LOSE MONEY IN THE STOCK MARKET

      
      Education
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    According to Mark Douglas…

    In any particular trade you never really know how far prices will travel from any given point. If you never really know where the market may stop, it is very easy to believe there are no limits to how much you can make on any given trade. From a psychological perspective this characteristic will allow you to indulge yourself in the illusion that each trade has the potential of fulfilling your wildest dream of financial independence. Based on the consistency of market participants and their potential to act as a force great enough to move prices in your direction, the possibility of having your dreams fulfilled may not even remotely exist. However, if you believe it does, then you will have the tendency to gather only the kind of market information that will confirm and reinforce your belief, all the while denying vital information that may be telling you the best opportunity may be in the opposite direction.

    There are several psychological factors that go into being able to assess accurately the market’s potential for movement in any given direction. One of them is releasing yourself from the notion that each trade has the potential to fulfill all your dreams. At the very least this illusion will be a major obstacle keeping you from learning how to perceive market action from an objective perspective. Otherwise, if you continually filter market information in such a way as to confirm this belief, learning to be objective won’t be a concern because you probably won’t have any money left to trade with (italics mine).

    Psychological

      
      Education
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    The goal of any trader is to turn profits on a regular basis, yet so few people ever really make consistent money as traders. What accounts for the small percentage of traders who are consistently successful is psychological—the consistent winners think differently from everyone else.
    The defining characteristic that separates the consistent winners from everyone else is this: The winners have attained a mind-set—aunique set of attitudes—that allows them to remain disciplined, focused,and, above all, confident in spite of the adverse conditions.
    Those traders who have confidence in their own trades, who trust themselves to do what needs to be done without hesitation, are the ones who become successful.They
    no longer fear the erratic behavior of the market. They learn to focus on the information that helps them spot opportunities to make a profit, rather than focusing on the information that reinforces their fears.
    You don’t need to know what’s going to happen next to make money; anything can happen, and every moment is unique, meaning every edge and outcome is truly a unique experience.
    The trader that it’s his attitude and “state of mind” that determine his results.

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