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"The Confident Trader "

Confidence overcomes fear. Confidence also overcomes greed because a component of greed is an underlying sense of scarcity. To be confident doesn’t mean that every trade or trading day will be profitable. What it does mean is that when you look to where you want to go, you know that you can figure out a strategy that will get you there. And you know you can execute that strategy in a consistent manner. A successful strategy doesn’t mean anything if you don’t or can’t or won’t employ it.

Theoretically we should be as successful at trading and investing as our trading and investing strategies. Unfortunately the vast majority of traders and investors fall far short of the results of their strategies. They trip over themselves again and again on the way to employing their methods. My work as a trading coach is to enable traders around the world to become as good as their methods.

Confidence need not waver when you have dips and troughs and plateaus in your trading. Confidence is developed when you realize you can correct mistakes and learn from failures. You don’t persist in failing. You learn and move on. You don’t fear repeating the failure either, you simply anticipate correcting it.

Self esteem is basically the sum total of all the thoughts we have about ourselves. This is quite important because we do tend to become what we think about ourselves. The noted philosopher and psychologist, William James, said, “People, in general, become what they think of themselves.” Not only did he say this but he added that this was the essence of all we had learned in psychology in the prior 100 years.

What do you think of yourself as a trader? Do you believe that your dream of excelling as a trader is possible? Do you have a set of philosophies that support your dream? Are you as good as your methods? If not, it’s time to do something about it.

Consider my coaching program. I speak for an hour on the phone each week with the traders I coach. We review your trading, beliefs, attitudes, habits, and philosophies. I help you do more of what works and stop doing what doesn’t work. Through exercises, assignments, and repetitive listening to the CD’s I send, you can become as good as your methods. The money you invest in yourself—especially in difficult times—is truly the best investment you can make. It will pay you exponentially because you never leave yourself. Call me at 800-692-0080, and we’ll discuss it.

MURPHY’S LAWS FOR TRADERS

1. It is morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money 
2. Everyone has a trading strategy that won’t work 
3. For every expert who says prices are going up, there is one who says  they are going down 
4. If you can drink it, don’t trade it 
5. The market is not logical; it is psychological 
6. The successful speculator is one who dies before his time comes 
7. If you drop a dead cat far enough, it will bounce 
8. The market goes your way the day after your stop was hit 
ITS COROLLARY 
9. The big move begins the day after your option expires 
10. He who sells uncovered options goes broke 
11. If you feel like doubling up a profitable position, slam your dialing  finger in the drawer until the feeling goes away 
12. The perfect strategy works every time until you start using it 
13. If your strategy seems to be working well, you haven’t been using it  long enough 
14. The guy who owns the horse when it dies is the loser 
15. When it comes to luck or skill, you can’t beat luck  (more…)

Trading Psychology Quotes

thinker-

  • Assumption 1: We have not learned everything there is to know.
  • Assumption 2: What we have learned, unwittingly or by choice, may not be very useful with respect to fulfilling ourselves in some satisfying manner.
  • Assumption 3: What we have learned that is useful and works to our satisfaction is still subject to change because of changing environmental conditions.

“If you operate out of the foregoing assumptions, you will begin to recognize how every moment becomes a perfect indication of your state of development and what you need to do to improve yourself.

“When we refuse to acknowledge or accept the perfection of each moment in our lives, we deny ourselves access to the infomation that we need to expand ourselves. Any skill that we need to learn to express ourselves more effectively has a true starting point. To find that true starting point requires our acceptance of each outcome as a reflection of the sum total of who we are so that we can first indentify what skill needs to be learned and how we might go about the task of learning it. Without this true starting point, we will operate from a base of illusion.

DENNIS GARTMAN :On Being Wrong

-Don’t miss to Read…………………..!!

“If I’ve learned one thing in 35 years of doing this. I’ve learned this and I’ve learned it the hardest of all ways. Because I made the decision one time to do the wrong thing. I learned this. Whatever you do don’t ever, ever, ever, not never, not ever, under any circumstance, any time ever. Am I clear? Add to a losing trade. Never, ever, ever. Why would you ever add to a losing trade? The market, which is the sum total of the wisdom, and perhaps the stupidly, but predominately the wisdom the sum total of the wisdom of the market is telling you are wrong. How dare you argue with the market? How dare you stand up? What sense of hubris must that take on your part to tell the rest of the world that you’re wrong and I’m right. Because that’s what you’re doing when you’re adding to a losing position. Don’t do that. I will tell you. I did that one time. I lost my wife [first wife]to a margin call. I did, in fact, that did happen…November 11, 1983.”  Wives get very upset “when you come home and say, ‘Sweetheart, I lost the house today’”.

“I will tell you I am good at trading. I am good at investing. I am good at making decisions. I am good at admitting mistakes and that’s my best trait. I am really, really good at admitting mistakes. And that’s to me the most important attribute that an investor, that a trader, that somebody who’s trying to make a living matching wits in the market can have is the ability to admit that they are wrong. That trumps all other concerns. Education doesn’t seem to have that much viability to me. It’s the ability to say I’m wrong.”

“The great ones, the really great traders, I’m sorry, don’t average down. They average up on winning positions. They average up on winning long side trades. Why? Because the market is telling you that you are right. Why would you not do more of something when the market is telling you that you are right? Why do most of us constantly do the opposite? Why do most of us try to understand some fundamental about some stock that we like, some industry that we like, some corporation that we like and you understand the fundamentals of it and you like the underlying fundamentals of the industry that it’s in. You like the long term fundamentals of the US economy and you buy some of it at 25 and it immediately goes to 20. It’s not a better buy at 20. It’s a worst buy at 20 because somebody knows something that you don’t know. That’s the hardest thing for all of us to learn. I’m good at trading and I’m wrong most of the time.”

“I’m good at trading and I’m wrong alot according to my wife. When we got married, we sat down the first year and she said you know this is really very sad. You had a good year at trading. You made us a very nice living this year but Dennis you were wrong 53% of the time this year. I thought this was terribly harsh. You couldn’t even beat a coin toss. I got out of it by saying, Sweetheart I’m so in love with you that it’s colored my ability to think. She bought it. I got another year. We sat down the second year. She said, my wife the accountant, one plus two equals three. She said this is really very sad. You made more money trading this year then you made the previous year. But this year you were wrong 57% of the time. And people pay you for your ideas. And I’m standing by the notion last year that I told you. You can’t even beat a coin toss. You need to do better. Sweetheart I’m trying.  Third year we sat down. My wife, the accountant, one plus two equals three. She said this is sad. You made more money than you made the previous two years. That’s lovely. I want to stay with you. But Dennis, you were wrong 68% of the time this year. Almost 7 out of 10 of your trades lost money. You have got to do better. I told her Laura I’m trying. I’m gonna try. Fourth year we sat down. My wife, the accountant, one plus two equals three. She said, you know, I get it now. You had the best year you ever had. Made more money this year then you made the previous three years. That’s lovely. This year you were wrong 81% of the time. I think if you can just be wrong 95% of the time. We’re gonna get stinkin’ rich. I think I can do it. I think I have it in my grasp to be wrong.”

“The important notion here being – when you’re wrong, admit it. I try to tell to tell people that in the business of handling money, whether it’s in the business of playing poker, whether it’s in the business of trading, whether it’s in the business of investing, you have two types of capital with which you get to deploy: that which is in your account and mental capital. And I don’t have must mental capital. I’ve lost most of mine. You lose mental capital when you are holding on to losing trades and worst when you’re adding to losing trades. The fact that you are losing money is inconsequential what’s really worst is you are hemorrhaging mental capital. You’re there defending that losing trade. You’re hanging onto that losing position and you’re not going out and deploying what should be excellent mental capital.  You should be using that mental capital to go find other positions. To go put on other trades. To go make other investments. It’s a wonderful experience when you take off that losing trade and get rid of it. It’s liberating. I get liberated 20 times a day. It’s a lovely thing. It’s astonishing how many mistakes I make. So the most important thing I want to get across today, tonight, and for your future and what separates the really great investors from the mediocre and the mediocre from the losers is that the losers always go out in exactly the same way…badly.”

The worst degree a trader can have is in economics and the best one is a liberal arts degree preferably “in psychology” or even religion because  “at any one time, down on the floor the background that seemed to have the most viability was religion. Because there would be 50 people saying ‘Oh good God just let this thing come back and I will never do that again.’ The problem is we are all sinners in the hands of an angry God with a very large margin account and more often than not he’s trying to wreak havoc upon you.”

Gartman’s corollary to “markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent” is “the markets will return to rationality the moment you have been rendered insolvent.”

On Shakespeare:  “You’ll be better trained to deal with the uncertainties that exist in the market and to understand why Hamlet waited so long after finding out that it was his father-in-law that had killed his own father. He had the proof, he knew it was there. And yet the entire play of Hamlet is Hamlet delaying, and delaying and delaying and not acting. That’s what Hamlet is all about. It’s about the inability to make a decision. That’s what trading is all about. It is about the ability to make a decision. Hamlet would have been a terrible trader. Or why did Lear split his kingdom into three parts? What was he thinking? He would have made a terrible trader.”

Here is what the markets are all about:  “The study of human begins dealing with the rational and the irrational. Dealing with rational numbers in an irrational environment. Dealing with irrational numbers in a rational environment. Dealing with irrational numbers in an irrational environment. And trying to make sense out of the chaos. Trying to bring order to the chaos.”

Trading Wisdom

“You are the sum total of ALL your experiences in life.

And if you discount ANY of them ~ you negate and discount your very ability to be a consistent and successful trader.

So ~ what IS your definition of CONFIDENT?

If we look up the definition of the word “confident” in Roget’s Thesaurus as you know I like to do, we can find the following:

“…believing, undoubting, unhesitating, without a doubt, convinced, satisfied, assured, unafraid, courageous, unscarred, undaunted, daring, venturesome…”

Is that you?  Is that your definition?  Or, is this your definition:

“…hopeful, expecting, try to reassure, hold out hope, make promise to…”

Or do you know?  Right now, if someone were to ask you what your definition of confidence is ~ what would you say?  Right off the top of your head? (more…)

The Confident Trader

Confidence overcomes fear. Confidence also overcomes greed because a component of greed is an underlying sense of scarcity. To be confident doesn’t mean that every trade or trading day will be profitable. What it does mean is that when you look to where you want to go, you know that you can figure out a strategy that will get you there. And you know you can execute that strategy in a consistent manner. A successful strategy doesn’t mean anything if you don’t or can’t or won’t employ it.

Theoretically we should be as successful at trading and investing as our trading and investing strategies. Unfortunately the vast majority of traders and investors fall far short of the results of their strategies. They trip over themselves again and again on the way to employing their methods. My work as a trading coach is to enable traders around the world to become as good as their methods.

Confidence need not waver when you have dips and troughs and plateaus in your trading. Confidence is developed when you realize you can correct mistakes and learn from failures. You don’t persist in failing. You learn and move on. You don’t fear repeating the failure either, you simply anticipate correcting it.

Self esteem is basically the sum total of all the thoughts we have about ourselves. This is quite important because we do tend to become what we think about ourselves. The noted philosopher and psychologist, William James, said, “People, in general, become what they think of themselves.” Not only did he say this but he added that this was the essence of all we had learned in psychology in the prior 100 years. (more…)

15 Points for Trading System & Money Management

1. 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.

2. “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.

3. An understanding of mass psychology is often more important than an understanding of economics.
Markets are driven by human beings making human errors and also making super-human insights.

4. The market is the sum total of the wisdom … and the ignorance…of all of those who deal in it; and we dare not argue with the market’s wisdom.
If we learn nothing more than this we’ve learned much indeed.

5. The hard trade is the right trade: If it is easy to sell, don’t; and if it is easy to buy, don’t.
Do the trade that is hard to do and that which the crowd finds objectionable.
Peter Steidelmeyer taught us this twenty five years ago and it holds truer now than then.

6. There is never one cockroach: Bad news begets bad news, which begets even worse news. (more…)

Four Basic Points on Technical Analysis

The true trader, the consistent winner, is not concerned with any price or where prices started from.  He or she is concerned with what it takes for people to believe strong enough, and with enough commitment, that they will place their capital at risk.”  So, with that in mind, the four basics:

1.  A price chart is simply “a pictorial representation of the sum total of all the market’s belief structures.”  No matter what we believe the chart does not lie.

2.  “Because every potential trader in every market is seeing it differently, every printed price will mean something different to everyone.” Our entry may be someone else’s opportunity to exit and vice versa.  We should always remember this the next time we believe we have a sure thing.

3.  Prices eventually have to stop their forward progress, in either direction.  “When every potential trader has executed for an entry, in any time frame, the market is vulnerable. When no one is doing anything, and what’s been done is done, prices must stop.” 

4.  No matter what indicator we use “every technical indicator designed is based solely on combining or dividing prices in some way.”  Volume and open interest, however, “chronicles the true state of what is happening inside the minds of the market participants.”