rss

Dennis Gartman’s Trading Rules List

Some food for thought for the weekend. Trading rules from great traders are always worth reading. If you spend some time to understand the concept behind each trading rule this will improve your trading skills and take you to the next level. Also check this video where Dennis Gartman talks about the concept of keeping it simple.

1. Never, under any circumstance add to a losing position…. ever! Nothing more need be said; to do otherwise will eventually and absolutely lead to ruin!

2. Trade like a mercenary guerrilla. We must fight on the winning side and be willing to change sides readily when one side has gained the upper hand.

3. Capital comes in two varieties: Mental and that which is in your pocket or account. Of the two types of capital, the mental is the more important and expensive of the two. Holding to losing positions costs measurable sums of actual capital, but it costs immeasurable sums of mental capital.

4. The objective is not to buy low and sell high, but to buy high and to sell higher. We can never know what price is “low.” Nor can we know what price is “high.” Always remember that sugar once fell from $1.25/lb to 2 cent/lb and seemed “cheap” many times along the way.

5. In bull markets we can only be long or neutral, and in bear markets we can only be short or neutral. That may seem self-evident; it is not, and it is a lesson learned too late by far too many.

6. “Markets can remain illogical longer than you or I can remain solvent,” according to our good friend, Dr. A. Gary Shilling. Illogic often reigns and markets are enormously inefficient despite what the academics believe.

7. Sell markets that show the greatest weakness, and buy those that show the greatest strength. Metaphorically, when bearish, throw your rocks into the wettest paper sack, for they break most readily. In bull markets, we need to ride upon the strongest winds… they shall carry us higher than shall lesser ones.

8. Try to trade the first day of a gap, for gaps usually indicate violent new action. We have come to respect “gaps” in our nearly thirty years of watching markets; when they happen (especially in stocks) they are usually very important.

9. Trading runs in cycles: some good; most bad. Trade large and aggressively when trading well; trade small and modestly when trading poorly. In “good times,” even errors are profitable; in “bad times” even the most well researched trades go awry. This is the nature of trading; accept it.

10. To trade successfully, think like a fundamentalist; trade like a technician. It is imperative that we understand the fundamentals driving a trade, but also that we understand the market’s technicals. When we do, then, and only then, can we or should we, trade.

11. Respect “outside reversals” after extended bull or bear runs. Reversal days on the charts signal the final exhaustion of the bullish or bearish forces that drove the market previously. Respect them, and respect even more “weekly” and “monthly,” reversals.

12. Keep your technical systems simple. Complicated systems breed confusion; simplicity breeds elegance. (more…)

12 Quotes From ‘Trading In The Zone


I spent hours reading and re-reading this book, and eventually made a summary of all the key quotes.  In a series of posts I’ll be sharing these quotes with you, and hopefully they will inspire you to take your trading to the next level.  I hope you enjoy my first selections:    
1.  You will need to learn how to adjust your attitudes and beliefs about trading in such a way that you can trade without the slightest bit of fear, but at the same time keep a framework in place that does not allow you to become reckless.
2. Trading is an activity that offers the individual unlimited freedom of creative expression.
3. The unlimited characteristics of the trading environment require that we act with some degree of restraint and self-control, at least if we want to create some measure of consistent success.
4. The hard reality of trading is that, if you want to create consistency, you have to start from the premise that no matter what the outcome, you are completely responsible.
5. One of the principal reasons so many successful people have failed miserably at trading is that their success is partly attributable to their superior ability to manipulate and control the social environment, to respond to what they want.  (Unfortunately) the market doesn’t respond to control and manipulation (unless you’re a very large trader).
6. The tools you will use to create this new version of yourself are your willingness and desire to learn, fuelled by your passion to be successful.  Successful traders have virtually eliminated the effects of fear and recklessness from their trading.
7. Attitude produces better overall results than analysis or technique. (more…)

Trading with No Regrets


Trading is really not as much of a numbers game as it is a mind game. Winning or losing in the long term will come down to whether you quit or keep going on your trading journey. Trading is not for everyone, there is no easy money in the markets. You will fight for your dollars, you will make money by doing the uncomfortable you will lose money when you think you are in a trade that just can’t lose. The emotional and mental pain will be unbearable if you do not believe in yourself and your method. If you are trading with no plan, no rules, and no system or method you will tend to be very hard on yourself for every losing trade. It was your decision that made you lose money, you will beat yourself up, and feel stupid. You will have 100% accountability for your mistake.This will not work.

What you must do is transition the accountability from yourself to your system or method. You must trade a proven methodology that will win based on the market action not your personal actions. You can not control odd out of left field events.  You can not help it if you trade a trend or a pattern and suddenly it loses. All you can do is take trades with great probabilities that match your beliefs about the market and if they are losers then you can’t blame yourself you can only cut your losses and look for the next trade that meets your parameters.

When you can shrug off a loss with no emotional or mental pain and move on to the next one you are at the next level. All you can control is your entry parameters, risk management, position size, exit, and mind set, the market determines whether you win or lose, not you.  You must have self confidence and faith in a proven method, take your trades let the market separate the winners from the losers.

3 Steps to Controlling Emotions and Gaining Trading Discipline

1. Know what you are going to do before you do it.

A Master Chess Player is at least 6 moves ahead of his opponent at every step in the game of Chess. A Master Trader identifies the market participants in that stock at that moment, determines when the next level of market participants will buy, decides a specific price for entry, and has one or more exit strategies planned for that stock trade before he ever places an order. In other words: he knows what he is going to do before he initiates the trade and has all of his various strategies worked out for all the different scenarios that can happen to that trade. He is prepared for all situations and ready to trade.

2. Develop your own unique Trading Style.

Too often traders simply follow the crowd. Instead you should develop your own unique trading style. A trading style is not a strategy. It is a set of parameters or rules that you adhere to strictly, ignoring rare anomalies that occur in your trading from time to time that go against your rules. Your trading style should also ignore gimmicks, fads, and ‘hot new strategies’ that are constantly being promoted to crowd traders. If you establish a set of parameters for your trading, write those rules down, and follow them while ignoring the crowd mentality of most small retail traders, you will begin to establish strong emotional control in your trading decisions. The trick is writing the parameters down and then sticking to those rules. Emotions want traders to ignore rules.

3. Ignore the Money.

Don’t trade for the money. Trade because you can’t imagine doing anything else. Trade because it is the most enjoyable and rewarding profession you can do. You can have a passion for studying charts without letting passion rule your decisions. Highly successful people, in any career, do not do their job because of the money, they do it because they love what they are doing and can’t imagine doing anything else. The money is secondary to doing the job that gives them purpose and self-esteem. Money is not the ultimate motivator, purpose and self-esteem are.

Are You A Subjective or Objective Trader?

Subjective: Based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.Proceeding from or taking place in a person’s mind rather than the external world.

Subjective traders they are intertwined with their trades.Their signals are generally entering out of greed and exiting based on their own internal fear. The believe in their opinions more than the actually price action. They base trades off of whether they are feeling good or bad about a particular trade. A subjective trade comes out of the imagination of the trader, from their own beliefs, opinions, and what “should” happen in their view. Many times reality is not even cross checked as a reference, and if it is the subjective traders sees what they want to see instead of what is really going on. Their compass is their emotions and they have internal goals other than making money.

Objective: (Of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts. Having actual existence or reality. (more…)

5 Ideas for Traders

1) You can’t take your trading to the next level if you don’t know the level you’re playing at. It’s not just P/L; it’s also knowing how you manage risk, how you take advantage of opportunities, how well you execute ideas, etc. Self-improvement starts with self observation;
2) Improving risk-adjusted returns is as important for a long-term career as improving absolute returns. If you take half the trades and make 90% of your previous income, you’ve meaningfully improved. If you take twice as many trades and make 110% of your prior income, you’ve moved backward;
3) Learning to diversify your trading (and income stream) can be as important as improving your core trading. Diversification can be by market, by strategy, by time frame, or by some combination of those;
4) Many times, the best improvements come from doing more of what you’re good at. It helps to make fewer mistakes, but doing less of what doesn’t work is not in itself going to make you a living. It’s crucial to know what you’re really good at;
5) Improving your preparation for trading can be as important as directly working on your trading results. So many outcome results follow from improvements in one’s process. 
Most of all, you elevate your trading by always working on your craft. A day without goals is a day without forward movement. And life is too precious to settle for standing still.