1.Never enter a trade before you know where you will exit if proven wrong.
2. First find the right stop loss level that will show you that you’re wrong about a trade then set your positions size based on that price level.
3. Focus like a laser on how much capital can be lost on any trade first before you enter not on how much profit you could make.
4. Structure your trades through position sizing and stop losses so you never lose more than 1% of your trading capital on one losing trade.
5. Never expose your trading account to more than 5% total risk at any one time.
6. Understand the nature of volatility and adjust your position size for the increased risk with volatility spikes.
7. Never, ever, ever, add to a losing trade. Eventually that will destroy your trading account when you eventually fight the wrong trend.
8. All your trades should end in one of four ways: a small win, a big win, a small loss, or break even, but never a big loss. If you can get rid of big losses you have a great chance of eventually trading success.
9. Be incredibly stubborn in your risk management rules don’t give up an inch. Defense wins championships in sports and profits in trading.
10. Most of the time trailing stops are more profitable than profit targets. We need the big wins to pay for the losing trades. Trends tend to go farther than anyone anticipates.
Archives of “Trend Following” tag
rss10 Things Traders Must Quantify
- What exactly is your entry signal going to be? What technical indicators will trigger you to enter a trade?
- What will the perceived edge for your entries be based on? Will you quantify your entries edge with back testing of through trading principles?
- Will you wait for an initial move in the direction of your trade entry or will you enter based on a technical indicator trigger?
- How will you trade in different market environments and trends? Will you have better odds of success buying dips in bull markets and shorting strength in down trends?
- What is the risk/reward ratio for the trade you want to take? How much are you willing to risk if the trade is a loser? How much could you make if you are right? Is it worth it?
- What are the probabilities that this entry will be a winning trade based on past historical price data and charts? With the winning percentage in mind how big do the winners have to be and how small do you have to keep the losers for the trading system to be profitable?
- Where should your stop loss be? At what price level will your entry be wrong and signal you to exit the trade with a loss?
- How big of a position size should you take based on your stop level and total capital you are willing to risk on this one trade?
- Is your position size small enough to enable you to hold the trade without emotions effecting your ability to follow your trading plan?
- When you open this trade in addition to your other positions, how much of your total trading capital is now exposed to loss if all trades went against you at the same time?
Teach Yourself to Be Great
Can you teach yourself to trade? Do you realize how important learning on your own is if you really want to be a successful trader? Everything about Kevin Bruce’s trading is self-taught. He started in the basement of the University of Georgia library: The school had old editions of the Wall Street Journal on microfilm. In the basement dungeon, he would compile his own record of the open, high, low, and closing prices for all markets. At the time, Bruce was actually working at a gas station at night, and between cleaning bugs off windshields and pumping gas, he had time to think and research–which is where he would analyze that price data. Bruce had a Texas Instruments handheld calculator that helped him sort through price data collected from the library. He figured out how to mathematically define a trend (in order to profit from its movement). It was a basic trend trading system. It was the same system he had used for the trading game in school with slight tweaks. Ultimately, it was the same one he would use with real money in the decades to follow.
10 Steps-Every Trader Should Take
- Trade in a conceptually correct manner
Trading because Mars lines up with Venus might work occasionally, but there is no real basis for trading in this manner. Patterns you trade should make sense and have some sort of statistical edge. It does not have to be complex. In fact, simpler is better (e.g. I’m known as the trend following moron). - Trade small
Any ONE trade should NOT have a material impact on your life. ANY one loss should be viewed as an “expense”—no different from what you do in any other business. Remember, It’s a marathon, not a sprint! You’ll only be smarter in the future. If you’re in the learning phase, I can promise you you’ll look back years from now and say “what the heck was I thinking!” - Ignore the news
Ever have a stock you’re long come out with good news and then you watch in agony as it drops? Every be short a stock that comes out with bad news and then you watch in agony as the stock rises? The news is irrelevant. It’s the reaction to the news that’s relevant. What is, is. - Forget about logic—Don’t worry about the “whys”
Stocks trade on emotions–period. There often is no logic as to why a stock rises or falls. Again, what is, is. - Know YOUR Methodology
Each method will have its sweet spot. I can’t speak for every methodology, but I can tell you this about momentum based swing trading: It works well in trending markets (duh!) and doesn’t work so well in choppy markets (duh duh!). - Don’t deal in mediocrity
Pick the best and leave the rest. Stocks should be in an obvious trend (or transition) and set up. The stock should also trade “cleanly.” - Do NOTHING unless there is something to do!
Your performance is based on the good trades less the bad trades. By avoiding the markets in less-than-ideal conditions, you’ll have fewer bad trades hence, better performance! My favorite thing to do is to take the “can’t stand it test.” If you can’t stand NOT taking a trade because all the signs are there, then you probably should take it. Otherwise, don’t trade. - Stack the odds in your favor: Market/Sector/Stock
Your odds will greatly improve if only trade when the market, sector, and stock are all trending in the same direction. - Let things work
Results in trading (especially momentum based swing trading) are often skewed—most of the gains come from a few big winners. Therefore, it’s crucial to catch these occasional homeruns. And, you’ll never catch any big winners if you micro manage your trades ( i.e. exit early). - Money management
Trade small, use stops, take partial profits when offered, trail stops.
Profiting from Market Trends- Tina Logan (Book Review )
When the market accommodates, trend trading can be highly lucrative. The trick, of course, is to divine the market’s often fickle moods. Tina Logan sets out to help the trader identify and exploit the “good times” in Profiting from Market Trends: Simple Tools and Techniques for Mastering Trend Analysis(Wiley, 2014).
The book is divided into two parts. The first, trend development, has chapters on trend direction, trend duration, trend interruptions, early trend reversal warnings, and later trend reversal warnings. The second part, putting trend analysis to work, deals with the broad market, bull markets, bear markets, and monitoring the market trends; it also includes a case study of the current bull market. Throughout, the text is illustrated with TC2000 (Worden Brothers) charts.
Let’s look at the chapter on early trend reversal warnings to get a sense of the book as a whole. Logan summarizes the warnings in a table. In an uptrend they are: a bearish climax move such as a key reversal or an exhaustion gap, bearish divergence, failure to break a prior peak, change of slope—rising trendline, break of tight rising trendline, approaching a strong ceiling, and bearish candlestick reversal pattern. The warnings in a downtrend are the reverse. (more…)
5 Steps To Becoming a Long-Term Success in Trading
1. Make Rational, Not Emotional, Decisions — Do you have a plan to enter and exit your trades? Or do you just wing it? If you have a plan, write down your rules, and make sure that you trade your plan. If you don’t, or can’t, follow your rules, hire someone who can.
2. Respect Risk — Stock Market is not going anywhere. If you risk too much, your emotions will take over, and you will likely go broke. Always know where you are going to exit before you enter and how much you are going to risk if wrong.,
3. Don’t Judge Your Success One Trade at a Time — Losing money is part of trading. It happens to everyone. Once you learn to expect that will happen, you can plan for it and get past normal pitfalls, such as giving up on your system after a few losing trades.
4. Think like a winner — Remember that winning starts within. How you think is everything.,
5. Ask For Help — Making money on Wall Street is simple, but it is definitely not easy. Don’t let your ego get in your way of making money. Most people have a hard time asking for help. That’s just one reason why most people lose money on Stock Market . You don’t have to go it alone. Find someone you trust and are comfortable with, and don’t be afraid to ask for help.
Must Read Quotes For Traders
“Good investing is a peculiar balance between the conviction to follow your ideas and the flexibility to recognize when you have made a mistake.“-Michael Steinhardt
Do not stay bullish or bearish. Go with the current flow of the market. Be on the team that is making the money.
“There is only one side of the market and it is not the bull side or the bear side, but the right side.” -Jesse Livermore
When putting it all together, it is more than just numbers. Successful traders trade in three dimensions.
“Successful trading depends on the 3M`s – Mind, Method and Money. Beginners focus on analysis, but professionals operate in a three dimensional space. They are aware of trading psychology their own feelings and the mass psychology of the markets. Each trader needs to have a method for choosing specific stocks, options or futures as well as firm rules for pulling the trigger – deciding when to buy and sell. Money refers to how you manage your trading capital.” – Alexander Elder
The money is in the primary market trend, not jumping in and out.
“I think it was a long step forward in my trading education when I realized at last that when old Mr. Partridge kept on telling other customers, “Well, you know this is a bull market!” he really meant to tell them that the big money was not in the individual fluctuations but in the main movements-that is, not in reading the tape but in sizing up the entire market and its trend.” – Jesse Livermore (more…)
10 -Trend Following Commandments
1. You shall back test and develop quantify robust trend trading systems that are profitable over the long term.
2. You shall identify and follow the long term trend in the markets you trade, and have no guru that you bow down to.
3. You shall not try to predict the future, that is a fool’s game, but follow the current price trend.
4. You shall remember the stop loss to keep your capital safe from destruction; you shall know your exit level before your entry is taken.
5. Follow your trend following system all the days that you are trading, so that through discipline you will be profitable.
6. You shall not give up on your trading system because of a draw down.
7. You shall not change a winning system because it has had a few losing trades.
8. You shall trade with the principles that have proven to work for successful traders. Manage risk, go with the trend, and diversify so your days in the market will be long.
9. You shall keep the faith in your trend following system even in range bound markets; a trend will begin anew eventually.
10. You shall not covet fundamentalist’s valuations, Blue channels talking heads, newsletter predictions, Holy Grails, or the false claims of any of the black box systems.
10+10+10 Trading Rules
1. Be flexible and go with the flow of the markets price action, stubbornness, egos, and emotions are the worst indicators for entries and exits.
2. Understand that the trader only chooses their entries, exits, position size, and risk and the market chooses whether they are profitable or not.
3. You must have a trading plan before you start to trade, that has to be your anchor in decision making.
4. You have to let go of wanting to always be right about your trade and exchange it for wanting to make money. The first step of making money is to cut a loser short the moment it is confirmed that you are wrong.
5. Never trade position sizes so big that your emotions take over from your trading plan.
6. “If it feels good, don’t do it.” – Richard Weissman
7. Trade your biggest position sizes during winning streaks and your smallest position sizes during losing streaks. Not too big and trade your smallest when in a losing streak.
8. Do not worry about losing money that can be made back worry about losing your trading discipline.
9. A losing trade costs you money but letting a big losing trade get too far out of hand can cause you to lose your nerve. Cut losses for the sake o your nerves as much as for the sake of capital preservation.
10. A trader can only go on to success after they have faith in themselves as a trader, their trading system as a winner, and know that they will stay disciplined in their trading journey.
Bring your risk of ruin down to almost zero. (more…)
10 points -Risk Managment
1. Never enter a trade before you know where you will exit if proven wrong.
2. First find the right stop loss level that will show you that you’re wrong about a trade then set your positions size based on that price level.
3. Focus like a laser on how much capital can be lost on any trade first before you enter not on how much profit you could make.
4. Structure your trades through position sizing and stop losses so you never lose more than 1% of your trading capital on one losing trade.
5. Never expose your trading account to more than 5% total risk at any one time.
6. Understand the nature of volatility and adjust your position size for the increased risk with volatility spikes.
7. Never, ever, ever, add to a losing trade. Eventually that will destroy your trading account when you eventually fight the wrong trend.
8. All your trades should end in one of four ways: a small win, a big win, a small loss, or break even, but never a big loss. If you can get rid of big losses you have a great chance of eventually trading success.
9. Be incredibly stubborn in your risk management rules don’t give up an inch. Defense wins championships in sports and profits in trading.
10. Most of the time trailing stops are more profitable than profit targets. We need the big wins to pay for the losing trades. Trends tend to go farther than anyone anticipates.