rss

Knowledge & Patience

 

Knowledge – A trader must put in the time and effort to study and learn the proper skills in order to be successful. Whether that is through technical or fundamental analysis, one must invest in their education. They must completely understand their market, and its ideal as a beginner to focus on one market and be a specialist. A part of the knowledge and education is devising a game plan or strategy for trading. Writing down your rules and sticking to your trading plan is a key to success.

Patience – A successful trader can sit on the sidelines for days waiting for the proper setup. They don’t jump into a trade just for the sake of trading. Yes there may be opportunities, but the smart trader waits for trades that meet their trading rules and system. Over trading by beginner traders is a big obstacle to overcome. A need to always be in the market will lead to taking trades that are likely too risky. Learn patience, it’s a key to success. A winning trader usually has an extraordinary amount of self control, and often the best trade is no trade.

For peace sake!

Two Palestinians boarded a flight out of London. One took a window seat and the other sat next to him in the middle seat.. Just before takeoff, a rabbi sat down in the aisle seat. After takeoff the rabbi kicked his shoes off, wiggled his toes and was settling in when the Palestinian in the window seat said, ‘I need to get up and get a coke. ”Don’t get up,’ said the rabbi, ‘I’m in the aisle seat, I’ll get it for you.’ As soon as he left, one of the Palestinians picked up the rabbi’s shoe and spat in it..  When the Rabbi returned with the coke, the other Palestinian said, ‘That looks good I’d really like one, too.’ Again, the rabbi obligingly went to fetch it. While he was gone the other Palestinian picked up the rabbi’s other shoe and spat in it.  When the rabbi returned, they all sat back and enjoyed the flight. As the plane was landing, the rabbi slipped his feet into his shoes and knew immediately what had happened. He leaned over and asked his Palestinian neighbors: ‘Why does it have to be this way?  How long must this go on? This fighting between our nations? This hatred? This animosity? This spitting in shoes and pissing in cokes?’

Cut your losses and let your winners ride

This quote is the perfect corollary to Livermore’s. Just as he preached “sitting”, letting your winners ride is the same idea. If you have on a position and it’s working, let it make you money. Don’t cut it prematurely for the sake of booking a small profit. Don’t get scared and exit on the first reaction, when all of your trading rules dictate staying in. If it’s a winner, and it’s working, then let it ride. Winners are good—embrace them.

The important flip side is how to treat losing trades. The first lesson is that losers have to be cut at some point.  Otherwise, a losing trade can keep eating away at your P&L, undoing the profits from any winning positions. If you cut losses at a pre-defined level, then they stop—and presumably your wins can be larger than your losses.

The math behind this is compelling. If you assume that your average winner make 1.6x what your average loser loses, then you only need to be right 40% of the time in order to make money consistently. By keeping the leash short on your losses, then you can let the math of statistical expectation work in your favor. Cut losses and let your winners ride.

There is another aspect to this. A loser isn’t just a trade where you get stopped out at a pre-defined loss limit. Imagine a trade that isn’t making money and has just been languishing on your books—this is also a loser. Cut it, free up financial and mental capital  and move on.

Today I know that …

mylessonsMy lessons may have been costly ,but they brought with them a kind of undertstanding more precious than gold.

😆 Playing the market is much different from being an investor.

😆 Pride is another word for stupidity if you claim credit for profits temporarily created by a bull market run wild.

😆 Paper profits are the illision of wealth created by the myopia of greed.

😆 Margin is a secuctive temptress more enticing than Delilah-and far more dangerous.

😆 Money doesn’t make people better ;it just allows them to become kinder and more charitable.

😆 Losing money doesn’t mean you’re a fool ,just as making a fortune doesn’t prove you’re a genius.

😆 Maturity means knowing how to cope with failure-and with sucess.

😆 The market respects those who treat is seriously and research it thoroughly ;it mocks those who think its rewards are freely granted to the followers of friendly tips and exicted phone calls from “helpful” strangers.

😆 Just as in every other game of chance ,all of your winning should never be left on the table.

😆 The law of gravity was not repealed for the sake of Dalal street ;even there the rule still holds that “whatever goes up must come down .”

😆 Forgiveness is a virtue even to myself ;I can forgive the fact that I failed-because I know that Iam not a failure.

 

Know When to Trade (and When Not to Trade)

Successful traders know when to trade: they trade when their system tells them to. That might seem like an obvious point, but people too often forget it during the excitement of actually having money on the line.
A trader should be governed by his or her system, not by the circumstances of the moment, the market, or the outcome of a few trades. Keep a long-term perspective which focuses on developing a consistent, repeatable strategy. You won’t know what is successful or what fails if you constantly change your reasons for trading.
It is hardest to keep this kind of control when you’re experiencing losses. But this is also the most crucial time to be consistent. Otherwise, you won’t know how to avoid downturns in the future, or how to prevent them from becoming too damaging. (more…)

To Be Happy

be-happyIf you are after specific investment advice, stop reading now. We seek to explore one of Adam Smith’s obsessions: what it means to be happy. We also discuss why that’s important to investors, and how we can seek to improve our own levels of happiness. The list below shows our top ten suggestions for improving happiness.

  • Don’t equate happiness with money. People adapt to income shifts relatively quickly, the long lasting benefits are essentially zero.
  • Exercise regularly. Taking regular exercise generates further energy, and stimulates the mind and the body.
  • Have sex (preferably with someone you love). Sex is consistently rated as amongst the highest generators of happiness. So what are you waiting for?
  • Devote time and effort to close relationships. Close relationships require work and effort, but pay vast rewards in terms of happiness.
  • Pause for reflection, meditate on the good things in life. Simple reflection on the good aspects of life helps prevent hedonic adaptation.
  • Seek work that engages your skills, look to enjoy your job. It makes sense to do something you enjoy. This in turn is likely to allow you to flourish at your job, creating a pleasant feedback loop.
  • Give your body the sleep it needs.
  • Don’t pursue happiness for its own sake, enjoy the moment. Faulty perceptions of what makes you happy, may lead to the wrong pursuits. Additionally, activities may become a means to an end, rather than something to be enjoyed, defeating the purpose in the first place.
  • Take control of your life, set yourself achievable goals.
  • Remember to follow all the rules.

Desire

DesireThis post is about one of the most important, but often overlooked rule, having huge philological impact on trader’s course of actions and decision making process.

Never confuse “Making money for the sake of fulfilling material desires” with “Making money as having profit on a trade”.

We do trade for achieving material independence, when we place the trade we need to think PROFIT, NOT “I need to make Rs 5 lac to buy new car”. Setting material goal as a trade objective is dangerous, it clouds our judgment, messing up initial trade setup and timing and interfere with “close position” decision. What if we are not going to make Rs 5 lac on a trade or “within a month”? Are we going to hold position forever if we only making Rs 2 lac? Are we going to quadruple the size of position to achieve “Rs 5 lac objective” sooner? Remember “counting turkeys” story? Are we going to trade even if market is bad and timing is wrong? I doubt that many of us will answer “yes” to any of these questions.

So here comes the rule:
Trade for profit – you’ll decide how to spend it AFTER you’ll make it.

6 Mistakes done by Traders

1. Failure to have a trading plan in place before a trade is executed. A trader with no specific plan of action in place upon entry into a futures trade does not know, among other things, when or where he or she will exit the trade, or about how much money may be made or lost. Traders with no pre-determined trading plan are flying by the seat of their pants, and that’s usually a recipe for a “crash and burn.”

2.Expectations that are too high, too soon. Beginning futures traders that expect to quit their “day job” and make a good living trading futures in their first few years of trading are usually disappointed. You don’t become a successful doctor or lawyer or business owner in the first couple years of the practice. It takes hard work and perseverance to achieve success in any field of endeavor–and trading futures is no different. Futures trading is not the easy, “get-rich-quick” scheme that a few unsavory characters make it out to be.

3.Failure to use protective stops. Using protective buy stops or sell stops upon entering a trade provide a trader with a good idea of about how much money he or she is risking on that particular trade, should it turn out to be a loser. Protective stops are a good money-management tool, but are not perfect. There are no perfect money-management tools in futures trading.

4.Lack of “patience” and “discipline.” While these two virtues are over-worked and very often mentioned when determining what unsuccessful traders lack, not many will argue with their merits. Indeed. Don’t trade just for the sake of trading or just because you haven’t traded for a while. Let those very good trading “set-ups” come to you, and then act upon them in a prudent way. The market will do what the market wants to do–and nobody can force the market’s hand.

5.Trading against the trend–or trying to pick tops and bottoms in markets. It’s human nature to want to buy low and sell high (or sell high and buy low for short-side traders). Unfortunately, that’s not at all a proven means of making profits in futures trading. Top pickers and bottom-pickers usually are trading against the trend, which is a major mistake.

6.Letting losing positions ride too long. Most successful traders will not sit on a losing position very long at all. They’ll set a tight protective stop, and if it s***they’ll take their losses (usually minimal) and then move on to the next potential trading set up. Traders who sit on a losing trade, “hoping” that the market will soon turn around in their favor, are usually doomed.

Principles to being "Super Rich "

#1: Give Your Talents Until They Can’t Live Without It: “Wake up in the morning and find out what you want to give as opposed to what you want to get. Through this practice of becoming a good giver you become a good getter.”

#2: Relentlessly Pursue Your Goals Without Appearing Needy.

#3: If You Don’t Love it, Leave it Alone: “I want to stress is that making money just for the sake of getting paid is a pedestrian activity that you can rise above.” If you don’t love it, don’t do it.

#4: Let Go of the Results: “You really have no control over the results, you have control over the action.”

#5: Get Open: “You want to always be open, creative and fluid as possible, and never become rigid, old or tight.”

Top 6 Mistakes Traders Make

1. Failure to have a trading plan in place before a trade is executed. A trader with no specific plan of action in place upon entry into a futures trade does not know, among other things, when or where he or she will exit the trade, or about how much money may be made or lost. Traders with no pre-determined trading plan are flying by the seat of their pants, and that’s usually a recipe for a “crash and burn.”

2.Expectations that are too high, too soon. Beginning futures traders that expect to quit their “day job” and make a good living trading futures in their first few years of trading are usually disappointed. You don’t become a successful doctor or lawyer or business owner in the first couple years of the practice. It takes hard work and perseverance to achieve success in any field of endeavor–and trading futures is no different. Futures trading is not the easy, “get-rich-quick” scheme that a few unsavory characters make it out to be.

3.Failure to use protective stops. Using protective buy stops or sell stops upon entering a trade provide a trader with a good idea of about how much money he or she is risking on that particular trade, should it turn out to be a loser. Protective stops are a good money-management tool, but are not perfect. There are no perfect money-management tools in futures trading.

4.Lack of “patience” and “discipline.” While these two virtues are over-worked and very often mentioned when determining what unsuccessful traders lack, not many will argue with their merits. Indeed. Don’t trade just for the sake of trading or just because you haven’t traded for a while. Let those very good trading “set-ups” come to you, and then act upon them in a prudent way. The market will do what the market wants to do–and nobody can force the market’s hand. (more…)