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The Stock Trader's Steps to Success

  
  Education
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Mark Douglas, in his classic book on trading behavior entitled THE DISCIPLINED TRADER: DEVELOPING WINNING ATTITUDES, describes what he believes are the three steps to a trader’s ultimate, long term success.  The following steps have very little to do with technical anaysis and everything to do with the trader’s mental resources.  Douglas explains that the “more sophisticated you become as a trader, the more you will realize that trading is completely mental.  It isn’t you against the markets, it’s just you” (204).  So, if it is just you what are the steps?

1.  STAY FOCUSED ON WHAT YOU NEED TO LEARN.  The trader needs to stay focused on mastering the steps to achieving his goals and not the end result, knowing that the end result, money, will be a by-product of what he knows and how well he can act on what he knows.   A big part of what the trader needs to learn is how to accept missed opportunities.  “Except for the inability to accept a loss, there isn’t anything that has the potential to cause more psychological damage than a belief in missed opportunities.  When you release the energy out of the belief that it is possible to miss anything, you will no longer feel compelled to do something, like getting into trades too early or too late.” (205).

2.  LEARN HOW TO DEAL WITH LOSSES:  Douglas outlines two trading rules for dealing with losses both of which are designed to help the trader deal with any threat of pain and confront, head on, the inevitability of a loss.  The first is to predefine what a loss is in every potential trade.  By predefine Douglas means “determine what the market has to look like or do, to tell you that the trade no longer represents an opportunity” (206).   Secondly, “execute your losing trades immediately upon perception that they exist.  When losses are predefined and executed without hesitation, there is nothing to consider, weigh, or judge and consequently nothing to tempt yourself with” (207). 

3.  BECOME AN EXPERT AT ONE MARKET BEHAVIOR: Simplicity and focus is the mother of success.  “You need to start as small as possible and then gradually allow yourself to grow into greater and greater amounts of market information.  What you want to do is become an expert at just one particular type of behavior pattern that repeats itself with some degree of frequency. To become an expert, choose one simple traing system that identifies a pattern.  Your objective is to understand completely every aspect of the system.  In the meantime, it is important to avoid all other possibilities and information” (209).

Three simple steps yet ironically it is in the simplicity that traders find the most difficulty.  Trading is not difficult, we make it so.  Remember this the next time you enter a trade. 

Dear Readers & Traders………..Don’t miss to read this Book !!101% it should be in your Library.-Technically Yours ,Anirudh Sethi

Ten Simple Facts about OIL

  
  Education
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Oil_barrel_standard1) Oil is priced in dollars.
2) Oil trades in Dollars and Euros right now in spite of the pricing unit being dollars. OPEC has recently admitted this fact.
3) Clearly oil does not have to be priced in Euros to trade in Euros, or for that matter priced in Yen to trade in Yen. The same applies to any major currency.
4) Neither Venezuela or Iran hold any dollar reserves. To the extent that either is taking trades in dollars, there is clearly nothing forcing them to hold dollars. By extension there is nothing forcing any OPEC country to hold dollars if it doesn’t want to.
5) It takes less than a second for Forex trades to take place. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, one can sell any currency they want and buy any other currency.
6) The above logic applies to any currency and any commodity.
7) Nothing is stopping anyone at any time anywhere from selling dollars for whatever currency they want to hold. Nor is anything stopping anyone anywhere at any time from selling any major currency for U.S. Dollars.
8) Because currency conversion is instantaneous no one has to hold U.S. dollars to buy oil, copper, gold, iron, lead, wheat, soybeans, or anything else.
9) Dollars are held (or not held) for reasons totally unrelated to pricing unit. Some of those reasons are political, some are based on sentiment, some on trade patterns and trade relationships, and some to suppress the value of local currencies to improve exports.
10) Currencies float and so do the price of oil and commodities. Pricing oil (or any other commodity) in Euros will not cause a price change in dollars. Look at gold which is simultaneously priced in everything as proof.

Be Unemotional

  
  Education
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UnemotionalIf you have ever played poker, you will know the high of going “all in”. Your heart is racing like there’s no tomorrow, and you are hoping and praying that the cards will go your way. It’s the thrill of knowing you can double your money in a few moments and also knowing it can all disappear if things don’t go your way.

This type of excitement should not exist in any form in your trading. If you are a thrill seeker, go skydiving. If you are a gambler, go to a casino. If you are afraid to lose money, open a savings account.

Successful Day traders do not let their emotions interfere with their trading. Too often, we let fear, greed, or pride get in the way.

Fear

Fear will prevent you from making the right trades and make you lose out on immense opportunities. Fear stems from lack of knowledge and proper education. You are afraid because you can’t see that a trade is the right trade since you don’t know what the right trade looks like. Once you acquire the knowledge and training, you can begin to trust your decisions because they are based on facts and not emotion.

Greed

Greed is another emotion we must overcome to be successful. Many beginners experience “beginners luck”, and come out on top on their first few trades. Then they start believing that they should have traded with more money so their profits will be larger. So on the next trade, they trade with a large sum of money and they lose it all. Logic will dictate that they should trade with a smaller amount the next time around since they have less capital now. Unfortunately, humans are not logical creatures. Our greed takes over, and we start believing that if we put in more money, we will make up for the lost amount, and come out on top. Sadly, this cycle can only continue until you are completely out of money. The worst thing that can happen to a beginner trader is to have a successful first trade. (more…)

Analysing yourself

  
  Education
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At the end of each trading day (week) you shouldn’t focus solely on your P/L. Instead, focus on your thought process during the day and how well you executed your plan. If you consistently execute your trades according to plan and still lose money, then you need to reevaluate your approach. While there is definitely a cyclical rhythm to the market, no strategy will always work. You need to constantly  and objectively  review what is working and what is not so you can make necessary adjustments to you plan.”

Managing the fear of making a loss

  
  Education
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Managing lossBefore entering a trade I know what type of loss I am happy to accept and I set my stop loss at about that level. Making a loss is part of trading. So long as the losses are small and the wins are large, life is great. Sometimes I have taken several losses in a row, which makes placing that next trade a bit harder because I think about the prior loss. I have overcome this by telling myself that the next trade “is just one of many thousands of trades that I will do in the future” and then I look forward to the next entry.

Cut your losses quickly, let your winning trades run, and allow trades to take their course. Be happy to make small losses, since the next trade may be the big one. Congratulate yourself when you have stuck to your plan, even if you have made a loss.

Probability game

  
  Education
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ProbabilitygameThere is a random distribution between wins and losses for any given set of variables that defines an edge.In other words ,based on the past performance of your edge ,you may know that out of the next 20 trades ,12 will be winners and 8 will will be losers.What you don’t know is the sequence of wins and losses or how much money the market is going to make available on the winning trades.This truth makes trading a probability or numbers game.When you really believe that trading is simply a probability game ,concepts like “right “and “wrong ” or “win ” and “lose ” no longer have the same significance.As a result ,your expectations will be in harmony with the possibilities.

Time – Space – Reality – Oneness – Markets

  
  Education
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What do the above all have in common? That’s right, “nonlinear” concepts!

It is interesting that one of the great minds of humanity, Albert Einstein spent his time on “nonlinear” concepts such as “time, space, reality, and oneness.” I find it more interesting that the interdependence of these “nonlinear” concepts is what makes a market tick as well.

As a trader, “timing” your trade within the “market” is based on “reality” in relation to the “oneness” of other traders and your outcome is determined by the “space” or movement of your position.

It is my opinion based on consulting with many traders that most traders incorrectly view the markets from purely a “linear” mindset and instead should view the markets from a “nonlinear” mindset as the markets are “nonlinear” themselves.  This is why rigid logical thinkers or “linear intellectuals” find trading the markets so frustrating.  Since they operate from their logical “linear” “beta” mind state, and become frustrated when market behavior does not do what it “should.” This is also why I feel that successful trading has to be both “art” & “science.”

Think about how you approach the markets and to what degree you are a “linear” vs. a “nonlinear” mindset. Also try and remember a trade or trading day where it seemed effortless and you just “let-go” and flowed with the market. In days like these, I’ll bet logical thinking was secondary to enjoying yourself, and selecting trades based on both your trading “tools” and your “intuition” which represents trading the markets as an “art” & “science.” Compare that to days when you where frustrated because the market did not do what it was suppose to based solely on logical assumptions.

Usually fear and greed are by products of logical thinking. Fear and greed are emotions and “nonlinear” in concept, but created by “linear” thinking. Isn’t it interesting that fear and greed are present in the markets and are “nonlinear” as well. Or is it because fear and greed are “nonlinear” and that they are present in the markets?

Maybe the key to a good trading system should be based on how to measure or determine “nonlinear” market events such as fear and greed. The purpose of this article is to have you look at the markets from a “nonlinear” point of view so that you can perhaps “see” market relationships that where invisible to you before.

Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the mouth

  
  Education
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I heard Mike Tyson say this years ago, and it immediately stuck with me because of so many ties it has to trading your trading plan with focus, discipline, and repetition.

Our main focus in training new and veteran traders is to build a belief in the system through repetition. After seeing the performance of a trade over 150 times within a 2 month period, it becomes evident that you begin to move away from a fear-based internal dialogue regarding your trade. You already know the system is consistently profitable, so the only X-factor in the entire process is that little 6-inch universe between your ears. Now, the focus of accuracy has everything to do with you, the trader, following your rules with consistency and repetition and nothing to do with the system.

Now back to my original point. We have seen the trades. We know the system is profitable. We have simulated the system and are showing a profit. We are ready to trade live hard earned cash that we have an emotional attachment to. Every dollar we are trading equals a loaf of bread, so to speak. Our hard earned trading capital is now taking the INEVITABLE equity draw-down, as dictated by the system. We WILL lose trades, traders, this is a fact that we must embrace on all levels. But remember, contraction leads to expansion. Your draw-down will inevitably lead to a run-up. The KEY is NOT TO MISS IT!

Now, we’ve had the draw-down, and to put it bluntly we’ve “Been punched in the mouth”. THIS is where the magic happens. At this very moment what will you do? Will you let the fear and painful associations of the market dictate your trading executions? Or will you draw upon your training, having fully accepted that this equity swing is nothing more than another step to consistent profitability?

Will you continue to place those next trades with consistency? Will you remove all mpulsive trades from your trading style? Will you follow the trading plan that you’ve put so much thought and process into developing for yourself?

If you have a pen, WRITE THIS DOWN and tape it to your Monitor:

“WHEN I TRADE MY PLAN WITH CONSISTENCY AND REPETITION THE MONEY WILL FOLLOW.”

Remember, every trader gets punched in the mouth. The magic is how you apply
your trading when this happens.

DENNIS GARTMAN :On Being Wrong

  
  Education
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-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.”

Rules By Jesse Livermore

  
Analysis, Education
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“In cotton I was very successful in my trading for a long time. I had my theory about it and I absolutely lived up to it. Suppose I had decided that my line would be forty to fifty thousand bales. Well I would study the tape as I told you, watching for an opportunity either to buy or to sell. Suppose the line of least resistance indicated a bull movement. Well I would buy ten thousand bales. After I got through buying that, if the market went up ten points over my initial purchase price, I would take on another ten thousand bales. Same thing. Then if I could get twenty points’ profit, or one dollar bale, I would buy twenty thousand more. That would give me my line–my basis for my trading. But if after buying the first ten or twenty thousand bales, it showed me a loss, out I’d go. I was wrong. It might be I was temporarily wrong. But as I have said before it doesn’t pay to start wrong in anything.

As I think I also said before, this decribes what I may call my system for placing my bets. It is simple arithmetic to prove that it is a wise thing to have the big bet down only when you win, and when you lose to lose only a small exploratory bet, as it were. If a man trades in the way I have described, he will always be in the profitable position of being able to cash in on the big bet.

I recollect Pat Hearne. Ever hear of him? Well, he was a very well-known sporting man and he had an account with us. Clever chap and nervy. He made money in stocks, and that made people as him for advice. He would never give any. If they asked him point-blank for his opinion about the wisdom of their commitments he used a favourite race-track maxim of his: “You can’t tell till you bet.” He traded in our office. He would buy one hundred shares of some active stock and when, or if, it went up 1 per cent he would buy another hundred. On another point’s advance, another hundred shares; and so on. He used to say he wasn’t playing the game to make money for others and therefore he would put in a stop loss order one point below the price of his last purchase. When the price kept going up he simply moved up his stop with it. On a 1 per cent reaction he was stopped out. He declared he did not see any sense in losing more than one point, whether it came out of his original margin or out of his paper profits. (more…)

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