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Archives of “trend followers” tag
rssOvercoming the top 10 Pains of Trading.
Here are 7 painful aspects of trading and what to do about them.
- The pain of losing money. (Trade smaller so it is not painful, it is just an outcome)
- The pain of being wrong about a trade you were sure about. (You lost simply because the market didn’t match your trade, trend followers lose money in choppy markets, swing traders lose money in trending markets, it’s the market not you.)
- The pain of a draw down in capital.(Even the world’s best money managers do not continually hit all time equity highs. Your path may look like this $10,000 to $20,000 to $15,000 to $25,000 to $20,000 to $30,000. Mine was rockier than most, and after blood, sweat and tears I am now able to trade with $250,000.)
- Consecutive trading losses hurt. They make you doubt yourself, your method, and your system. (You need to remember your winning trades, your winning years, or your back-testing, or paper trading of the method.)
- The embarrassment of public losses. You told everyone who would listen about a great trade, and you were wrong. (Never be overconfident in any trade, but always be sure of your stop loss.)
- The pain of of admitting you were wrong. (Cut your loss and move on to the next trade, trade reality not your ego.)
- Losing paper profits, you are up 20% on a trade then a massive whip saw takes back those profits in one move. (Take your trailing stop and move on to the next trade, there is truly no reason to cry over spilled milk.)
- You are following a guru and come to realize he truly is a salesman not a trader. (You stop following gurus and look to learn how to trade you yourself.)
- You buy a super hot stock that you have researched for many weeks then it goes down due to a bear market. (Only trade stocks long in up-trending markets)
- You start trading a system that did amazing in back-testing and promptly lose 10% of your account. (You have to stick with it so it can win in the long term, you may need to make slight adjustments in position sizing or stops to account for volatility that you may have missed.)
Whatever the pain, just don’t quit, there is gold to be found in trading right over the long term.
Top Trend Traders Bank Millions, Ride The Trend
Famed Stanford University psychologist Leon Festinger once said, “A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.”
Although trend following has been one of the most successful trading strategies for decades, some critics downplay the massive profits accumulated by trend followers, arguing there are just a few chance winners — “lucky monkeys,” they claim.
BEAT THE AVERAGES
Not true. Large numbers of trend followers have found a way to outpace market averages. They have done so with hard work and the ability to stick with a trading plan — usually for a very long time. Some argue, “There’s no romance in trend following.” The romance is found in returns. Money is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
PROFITS COUNT
Think of it this way: Performance data examples from the great trend followers could be the foundation of every college finance class. When you show up on the first day, instead of your teacher handing you a syllabus and telling you to buy certain books, you are handed one piece of paper that simply shows the performance histories of professional trend following traders for the last 50 years. (more…)
Nuggets
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10 Insights from Benjamin Graham
Benjamin Graham doesn’t need an introduction. His sober look at the stock market has built an enormous following and for a good reason.
1. “If you are shopping for common stocks, choose them the way you would buy groceries, not the way you would buy perfume.” – It is true that perfumes come and go out of popularity, but no trend lasts forever. There are trends that last 3 months; there are trends that last 3 years.
2. “Obvious prospects for physical growth in a business do not translate into obvious profits for investors.” – it depends on to what level has the expected growth been already discounted. The truth is that it is really hard to forecast growth in quickly developing businesses. The market always overdiscounts at some point, but in the meantime trend followers could make a killing. You never know how long or how fast a trend could go.
3. The only constants in the markets are change and uncertainty. Not only business environment changes, but also people’s perceptions of stocks change.
Most businesses change in character and quality over the years, sometimes for the better, perhaps more often for the worse. The investor need not watch his companies’ performance like a hawk; but he should give it a good, hard look from time to time.
4. Different catalysts matter for the different time frames:
Basically, price fluctuations have only one significant meaning for the true investor. They provide him with an opportunity to buy wisely when prices fall sharply and to sell wisely when they advance a great deal. At other times he will do better if he forgets about the stock market and pays attention to his dividend returns and to the operating results of his companies.
5. The difference between a trader and investor
The most realistic distinction between the investor and the speculator is found in their attitude toward stock-market movements. The speculator’s primary interest lies in anticipating and profiting from market fluctuations. The investor’s primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at suitable prices. Market movements are important to him in a practical sense, because they alternately create low price levels at which he would be wise to buy and high price levels at which he certainly should refrain from buying and probably would be wise to sell.
6. How to think about risk (more…)
Larry Hite-Trend Following Legend Who Respects the Risks
Larry Hite was featured in Market Wizards. Market Wizards is a must read for all trend followers. On one level you will learn various trading tips however on the other hand, do not be think that your trading will be so easy. Trend following as easy as it is, is very difficult.
Try to internalize some of Larry Hite’s trading tips for trend followers:
I have noticed that everyone who has ever told me that the markets are efficient is poor.
People develop systems and people will make mistakes. Some will alter their system or jump from system to system as each one has a losing period. Others will be unable to resist second-guessing the trading signals. People don’t change.
The very first rule we live by at Mint is: Never risk more than 1% of total equity on any trade. Secondly, we always follow the trends and we never deviate from our methods. In fact, we have a written agreement that none of us can ever countermand our system. Thirdly, diversify in two ways. A. we trade more markets worldwide than any other money manager. B. we use lots of different systems ranging from short term to long term.
Over-rated indicators: Overbought/oversold indicators.
Two basic rules: (1) if you don’t bet, you can’t win. (2) If you lose all your chips, you can’t bet.
Never trade counter to the market trend.
Irrational Exuberance
Robert J. Shiller
Shiller’s book presents yet another correct view of the issues that so many people refuse to confront. These are the very issues that cause people to lose. Perhaps, one day investors will begin to appreciate uncertainty as something that can be managed. If people refrained from being overconfident or indulging in their magical thinking and then started to manage uncertainty as Trend Followers do — there might actually be the risk of no more trends!
Is it likely? No. For trends to stop investors would need to realize that news, personal opinions, tips, etc. have no relevance to properly making a decision. Trend Following trading takes advantage of the psychological weaknesses that most people possess. Trend Followers disarm the magical thinkers by winning their losses in the great zero sum game.
Ponder the wisdom:
Everyone wants to be rich, but few want to work for it.
14 Points for Traders
1. Have a profit? Forget it. Have a loss? Forget it even quicker.
2. It was never my thinking that made the big money for me. It was my sitting, my sitting tight.
3. There is only one side to the stock market and it is not the bull side or the bear side, but the right side.
4. If you don’t know what’s going on, don’t do anything.
5. Markets are never wrong, opinions often are.
6. Don’t be too curious about the reasons behind moves.
7. The smarter you are, the longer it takes.
8. When time is up, markets will reverse.
9. Don’t expect the tape to be a lecturer. It’s enough to see that something is wrong.
10. Don’t imagine that a market that once sold at 150 is cheap at 130.
11. A man does not swear eternal allegiance to either the bear or bull side.
12. People believe what it pleases them to believe.
13. Trend followers plan when they will get out before they ever get in.
14. Know every day what your portfolio is worth. Calculate what your risks are on any given day for all positions.
10 Thing u should learn from Market
1. “There is no such thing as easy money”
This is so true, in the markets, in everything. Those who happen upon money where it DID come to them easily, it seems, as a witness, have had it very fleetingly. In my own case, although I am supremely confident in the profitabliity of what I am doing, in practically any market, in virtually any “regime,” doesn’t mean it’s easy. It works like clockwork and is incredibly painful and distressing. It would be so much easier to simply sell buckets of blood.”
2. It’s bad to try to make money the same way several days in a row
3. Markets that have little liquidity are almost impossible to profit from.
4. When the stock market is way down, policy makers take notice and do what they can to remedy the situation.
5. The market puts infinitely more emphasis on ephemeral announcements that it should.
6. It is good to go against the trend followers after they have become committed.
7. One should not make one’s analysis more precise than one’s actual trading could ever possibly be.
8.If the rational mind has not determined the parameters of a trade, then upon execution, the lizard brain will decide.
9. Never go on vacation with open trading positions.
10. All higher forms of math and statistics are useless in uncovering regularities.
Technically Yours/ASR TEAM/BARODA/INDIA
Eight Questions That Go Bump in the Night
Why do the gurus who proclaim a “feel” for the market tell us to eliminate emotions from trading?
Would 80% of traders make money instead of losing it by placing trades through “enrichers” instead of “brokers”?
Why do people who offer programs on making a living from trading make their livings from offering programs?
Why do beginners think they’d have an easier time beating professionals at trading than at golf, boxing, racecar driving, or chess?
Why are so many market newsletters bullish or bearish, when the most common market outcome is little or no change?
What happens when contrary opinion is the dominant school of thought?
Why do trend followers follow trend following once it goes out of favor?
If exchanges make more money than brokers; brokers make more money than market makers; and market makers make more money than traders, is the answer to success in the markets to always have people who are your customers?