Archives of “winning side” tag

rss

Trading Tactics

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #

Gerald Loeb

Gerald Loeb was a highly successful trader who wrote the classics “The Battle For Investment Survival” and “The Battle For Stock Market Profits.” Although they’ve been around for as long as I’ve been alive, you may find them helpful in today’s market.

Once in a while I take time to review old handwritten notes I’ve taken from the books I’ve read in the past including from Loeb. These notes often serve as inspiration to my own trading. Even though I’ve read them many times over the years, they always offer a good insight.

Loeb’s Trading Tactics:

  • The market is a battlefield. Make sure you are on the winning side
  • You must trade with the actions of the market and not simply by how you might think the market should trade
  • Knowledge through experience is one trait that separates successful stock market speculators from everyone else
  • To do well in short-term trading, it takes full-time attention and dedication
  • Exploit all new trends quickly and aggressively
  • The best traders are usually psychologists. The worst are usually accountants (more…)

Mistaking luck for skill.

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #

good-luckAre you lucky? Napoleon was once asked whether he preferred courageous generals or brilliant generals. Supposedly, his response was “neither”, for he preferred lucky generals.
You may or may not agree, but there are some things we can’t explain (just yet), and luck is one of them. Some people have the instinct — or luck — to get out of bad trades at the right time. Others simply just don’t have it. Although some people may actually have the instinct or ability to make the right market moves; most of us probably just rely on luck to get on the winning side of a trade. So, the question here is: how lucky are you?

The 20 Rules of Trading

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #

artimg51

  1. Never, under any circumstance add to a losing position…. ever! Nothing more need be said; to do otherwise will eventually and absolutely lead to ruin!
  2. Trade like a mercenary guerrilla. We must fight on the winning side and be willing to change sides readily when one side has gained the upper hand. (more…)

5 Expensive Words

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #

Whether it’s been on the winning side of trades where I’ve tried to squeeze the last Rs 2 out of a stock, or it’s a losing position that has been trying to tell me I’m wrong (those numbers are RED for a reason!), I am guilty! 

Oddly enough, as cheap as it is to enter trades with commission structures so affordable, have you ever noticed just how expensive it can be to stay in a trade?

We all know the rules….
• Obey thy stop!
• Never Believe in your stock!
• Don’t let a trade become an investment!

…..yet it is so easy to break them. It’s a solitary job, and the only person to prevent you from compounding your mistakes is the one you see in the mirror.

So, be your own ally. Have a trading plan in place before you login to your account. Do your homework. Set hard stops as soon as your orders are filled, and let those safety nets keep your losses small (we all know how easy it is to blow a mental stop).

Be smart! Trading is about real money, not just flickering numbers on a screen. Be prepared and protect your capital at all costs. That guy in the mirror will hold you accountable the next time you see him!

Control

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #

Control-Stocks rise when they are being bought up. Stocks fall when they are being sold off. I always ask myself “Who is in control. The buyers or sellers.” Control changes often and in different time frames you can argue that one party or the other were merely taking a rest.
I generally buy stocks that are going up and short sell stocks that are falling. But I also play the sharp reversals that happen if there is a huge gain or drop as I know gravity will take effect and profit taking will occur. The smart way to day trade is to be on the winning side be it buyers or sellers.
As a small fish in a big ocean I can only ride on the coattails of the big boys who actually move the market. My job as a trader is to recognize when trend or momentum is starting to kick in and climb aboard. Short term trends or momentum are the only thing that I trade. The old cliche’ “the trend is your friend” is so very true.
I only trade in the direction the chart is telling me to. Maybe you can watch the talking heads on TV blathering on or read about how great some stock is without forming an opinion on it. I can’t, so it’s safer to insulate myself from any and all information. I actually don’t care what, where, why, how or when a company does what it does. Who am I to be able to process all this information? I do know that when a stock is rising, more people are buying it than selling it and vice versa. Seems easier to me to only look at and believe the chart and trade accordingly. If I have preconceived notions about what the stock may do, I will not be able to cut my losses when the chart tells me to. I will hold on to the dream all the way to the poor house. Always trade with the trend.
Cutting your losers is one of the most important aspects of trading.Unless you have an unlimited pile of money to fritter away you must admit you’re wrong and exit the trade. If you don’t you will not have enough to remain in the game. End of story.
Letting the winners run is also important. They are winners after all and that is all that counts. Adding size (buying more shares) can turn little winners into big winners.
If you disregard any or all of these 3 simple rules you won’t be around trading very long.

15 Points for Trading System & Money Management

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #

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…)

These 16 Rules Will Make You A Better Trader

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #

1. Never, Ever, Ever, Under Any Circumstance, Add to a Losing Position… not ever, not never! Adding to losing positions is trading’s carcinogen; it is trading’s driving while intoxicated. It will lead to ruin. Count on it!

 2. Trade Like a Wizened Mercenary Soldier: We must fight on the winning side, not on the side we may believe to be correct economically.16

3. Mental Capital Trumps Real Capital: Capital comes in two types, mental and real, and the former is far more valuable than the latter. Holding losing positions costs measurable real capital, but it costs immeasurable mental capital.

4. This is Not a Business of Buying Low and Selling High: It is, however, a business of buying high and selling higher. Strength tends to beget strength, and weakness, weakness.

5. In Bull Markets One Can Only Be Long or Neutral, and in bear markets, one can only be short or neutral. This may seem self-evident; few understand it, however, and fewer still embrace it. 

6. “Markets Can Remain lllogical Far Longer Than You or I Can Remain Solvent.” These are Keynes’ words, and illogic does often reign, despite what the academics would have us believe. (more…)

DENNIS GARTMAN'S RULES FOR TRADERS

  
  Education
#  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #  #

1. Never, under any circumstance add to a losing position! Ever! Nothing more need be said; to do otherwise will eventually and absolutely lead to ruin!
2. Trade like a mercenary guerrilla. We must fight on the winning side and be willing to change sides readily when one side has gained the upper hand.
3. 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.
4. The objective is not to buy low and sell high, but to buy high and to sell higher. We can never know what price is too low. Nor can we know what price is too high.  Always remember that sugar once fell from $1.25/lb to 2 cent/lb and seemed cheap many times along the way.
5. In bull markets we can only be long or neutral, and in bear markets we can only be short or neutral. That may seem self-evident; it is not, and it is a lesson learned too late by far too many.
6. 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.
7. Sell markets that show the greatest weakness, and buy those that show the greatest strength. Metaphorically, when bearish, throw your rocks into the wettest paper sack, for they break most readily. In bull markets, we need to ride upon the strongest winds as they shall carry us higher than shall lesser ones.
8. Try to trade the first day of a gap, for gaps usually indicate violent new action. We have come to respect gaps in our nearly thirty years of watching markets; when they happen (especially in stocks) they are usually very important.
9. Trading runs in cycles: some good; most bad. Trade large and aggressively when trading well; trade small and modestly when trading poorly. In good times even errors are profitable; in bad times even the most well researched trades go awry. This is the nature of trading; accept it.
10. To trade successfully, think like a fundamentalist; trade like a technician. It is imperative that we understand the fundamentals driving a trade, but also that we understand the market’s technicals. When we do, then, and only then, can we or should we, trade.
11. Respect outside reversals after extended bull or bear runs. Reversal days on the charts signal the final exhaustion of the bullish or bearish forces that drove the market previously. Respect them, and respect even more weekly and monthly, reversals.
12. Keep your technical systems simple. Complicated systems breed confusion; simplicity breeds elegance.
13. Respect and embrace the very normal 50-62% retracements that take prices back to major trends. If a trade is missed, wait patiently for the market to retrace. Far more often than not, retracements happen just as we are about to give up hope that they shall not.
14. 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.
15. Establish initial positions on strength in bull markets and on weakness in bear markets. The first addition should also be added on strength as the market shows the trend to be working. Henceforth, subsequent additions are to be added on retracements.
16. Bear markets are more violent than are bull markets and so also are their retracements.
17. Be patient with winning trades; be enormously impatient with losing trades. Remember it is quite possible to make large sums trading/investing if we are right only 30% of the time, as long as our losses are small and our profits are large.
18. 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.
19. Do more of that which is working and less of that which is not: If a market is strong, buy more; if a market is weak, sell more. New highs are to be bought; new lows sold.
20. 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 Steidlmayer taught us this twenty five years ago and it holds truer now than then.
21. There is never one cockroach! This is the winning new rule submitted by our friend, Tom Powell.
22. All rules are meant to be broken: The trick is knowing when and how infrequently this rule may be invoked!

Go to top