Archives of “motivation” tag

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Passive Investing Propaganda

  
Education, Video
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My points to consider:

1. If you have an investment that is not working, or one that is beating you with heavy fees, then you have made a choice. If you don’t want that–stop. If you don’t stop you can always watch a video like this, blame someone else, and refuse to take any personal responsibility. Ignorance is no excuse. It’s your life. Take control.

2. Passive investing (i.e. indexes, buy and hold, etc.) might appear as an option, but how would you feel if you have been buying and holding the Japanese Nikkei 225 since 1989? Not very good is my bet.

3. I teach trend following. The trend following traders in my work illustrate trend following success, but my work is not an advertisement for anyone except me. Can trend following funds charge fees? Yes. However, in their defense the trend following performance numbers in all of my books are ‘after fees’.

4. Brokers are bullshit. If you like bullshit then you get what you want out of life by listening to brokers.

5. This video promotes the efficient-market hypothesis (EMH). Academics promote EMH like there is no tomorrow. Two big reasons? Many of these academics have rock solid tenure at the best universities and also make millions selling EMH text books. Everyone has a motivation, but I will hold my books up against this video every day of the week.

The Battle is With Yourself

  
  Education
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Years of experience eventually teach you that your main battle, always, is with yourself — your propensity for errors, for rationalizing marginal hands into good hands, lack of concentration, misreading other players, emotional eruptions, impatience, and so on. Your opponents are merely dim outlines that come and go. Few of them ever reach the exalted heights of damage that you can inflict on yourself.”

– Larry Phillips, Zen and the Art of Poker

Many great traders have expressed some version of the opinion, “Your greatest opponent is yourself.” Do you agree?

If so, what are the implications?

On the positive side, if “we have met the enemy and he is us,” as Pogo once said, what does that say about growth opportunity?

If you had perfect discipline, perfect motivation, and perfect emotional control, how good (or great) a trader could you be? 

Trading Advice

  
  Education
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1) Cut Risk – It’s that “above all else, do no harm” principle. If you don’t have a feel for the market, trade small while you regain your feel. Preserve as much of your capital as possible to lay the foundation for your recovery; 

2) Focus on Your Strengths – It’s not unusual for frustrated traders to try to make all kinds of changes in their trading in a frantic effort to gain some traction. These efforts can compound difficulties by getting traders further and further from their strengths. During rebuilding periods, you want to focus on the markets and strategies that you know most about, that represent your strengths. 

3) Reach Out – It’s especially helpful to reach out to traders who trade markets and strategies similar to yours. Are they also struggling? If so, this suggests that market changes, indeed, may be at the root of the problem. If the traders you contact are succeeding, try to find out what they’re doing differently from you. It may well be that a simple tweaking of execution, holding times, and risk management could turn your performance around.  (more…)

10 Characteristics of Successful Traders

  
  Education
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1) The amount of time spent on their trading outside of trading hours (preparation, reading, etc.);
2) Dedicated periods to reviewing trading performance and making adjustments to shifting market conditions;
3) The ability to stop trading when not trading well to institute reviews and when conviction is lacking;
4) The ability to become more aggressive and risk taking when trading well and with conviction;
5) A keen awareness of risk management in the sizing of positions and in daily, weekly, and monthly loss limits, as well as loss limits per position;
6) Ongoing ability to learn new skills, markets, and strategies; (more…)

Five qualities for Successful Traders

  
  Education
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secrets_successful_trader

  1. 1)Capacity for Prudent Risk-taking.The young successful trader is not afraid to go after markets aggressively when the opportunity presents itself.
  2. 2)Capacity for Rule Governance. The young successful trader has the self-control to follow rules in the heat of battle, such as rules of position sizing and risk management.
  3. 3)Capacity for Sustained Effort.The trader uses productive time to do research, preparation, work on himself, outside of market hours.
  4. 4)Capacity for Emotional Resilience. All young traders will lose money early in their development and experience multiple frustrations. The successful ones will not lose self-confidence and motivation in the face of loss and frustrations.

5)Capacity for Sound reasoning. The successful young trader exhibits an ability to synthesize data and generate market and trading scenarios.

The Probability of Self-awareness

  
  Education
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With 20 years of trying different things and hearing from others I made an important discovery that has shaped me as a trader and a coach.  What I found is that more people will improve using an approach to change that emphasizes expanding self-awareness and emotional intelligence.

(With so many different approaches advertised as a ‘change process’, I think its important to share what I’ve found to work. That’s really what we have to do, right?  Doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t.)

Very briefly, what I mean by expanded self-awareness is:

1) the recognition that our thinking and our emotions are intertwined and both influence our perception and judgment that leads to our decisions and actions (this view also happens to be consistent what the leading brain scientists are now saying)

2) much of our motivation – the intertwined thinking/emotion that drives our behavior – is actually subconscious, e.g. we assume we are trading the market but on other levels we are also trading our P&L and our feelings about our P&L  (and what our P&L represents to us) is just one example. (more…)

6 Effective Ways to Trading Success

  
  Education
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1.  Identify if you really want to be a trader. Is this truly your desire?

Before you can develop persistence and eventually achieve success in the tough trading game, you need to first identify if this is truly what you want to do. If you are only doing this for the money then the odds of you making it through the learning process is very slim. You have to be ‘foolish’ enough through your initial losses to believe that you can rise to the top 10% of profitable traders. Most traders learning curves are measured in years not weeks so trading is more like getting a degree than reading a book over the weekend.

2. Determine your motivation. Why do you want to be a trader?

Motivation comes from a deep reason why we want to achieve or have something.  If you know why you’re doing what you’re doing, it gives you more energy to keep moving forward in learning and getting experience. If you are trading to make a quick buck, then you do not make that buck quickly you will join the quitters. If you are trading to have enough money to pay off your house in 5 years that will create the energy to drive you forward against the odds.

You can get through this first learning stage by writing down specifically all the things you want to have or accomplish through your trading.  List all your desires and wants, all the rewards that will come through you not quitting the trading game. This is what will get you through if your heart is in it. You need a very big bucket of carrots waiting for you on the other side of trading success to get through the whips the market will hit you with while you are learning.

3. Outline Your Definite Action Step

Identifying your wants or desires speaks of what you want to achieve.  Determining your motivation shows the reasons why you want to achieve what you want.  Outlining your definite action step is necessary to know howyou will be able to achieve what you want.

When you know how to get what you want, it makes it easier to achieve it.  To know how, it pays to do some research and planning of what needs to be done on your part.  Be specific on each step you need to take.  Identify at least two ways and plans on how you can achieve your goals.

4. Keep the right mindset, believe that you are going to be a winning trader. (more…)

Be responsible

  
  Education
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Be responsible for your own trading destiny. Analyze your trading behavior. Understand your own motivations. Traders come into Future  trading with a view to making money. After awhile they find the trading process to be fascinating, entertaining and intellectually challenging. Pretty soon the motivation to make money becomes subordinated to the desire to have fun and meet the challenge. The more you trade to have fun and massage your ego, the more likely you are to lose. The kinds of trading behaviors that are the most entertaining are also the least effective. The more you can emphasize making money over having a good time, the more likely it is you will be successful.

Be wary of depending on others for your success. Most of the people you are likely to trust are probably not effective traders. For instance: brokers, gurus, advisors, system vendors, friends. There are exceptions, but not many. Depend on others only for clerical help or to support your own decision-making process.

Don’t blame others for your failures. This is an easy trap to fall into. No matter what happens, you put yourself into the situation. Therefore, you are responsible for the ultimate result. Until you accept responsibility for everything, you will not be able to change your incorrect behaviors.

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