Trading education » Emotions

Trading Stocks -Never Forget About A Past Trade

admin — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 02:41:32 +0000

We all know that emotions control every decision that an investor makes in any type of money related vehicle. Whether is be the stock market, real estate, art work or antiques, emotions ultimately set the final price on both sides of the transaction. Some investors have greater control over their emotions while other investors are destroyed by their emotional reactions to certain events.

One common occurrence that I have seen many investors make, including myself, is placing a position in a stock at the wrong time. My last article detailed the importance of timing, while this article will concentrate on the importance of staying focused and emotionally stable when things don’t work out as expected. In the past, I would study a stock’s chart, the fundamentals, the general market health and everything else that I felt necessary before placing a large sum of cash behind my beliefs. When things went wrong and I was forced to sell for a small loss, I would drop the stock from my watch lists and remove it from my memory. This was one of the biggest mistakes that I was making during my earlier years of investing. The greatest investors study their mistakes and learn why they were wrong. If you don’t learn from your mistakes, you will continue to repeat them and never move to the next level.

I was usually correct with my analysis on the particular stock but many times I was too early with my entry point during a new up-trend. Months later, I would come across the same stock in my screens but it was now up 25%, 50% or more from my initial buy point and stop loss. I would be frustrated for selling my stock too soon and was getting tired of using rules and missing big winners that I sold for a loss. I knew money could be made in Wall Street by using the law of averages to my advantage and employing strong money management skills but I needed to employ the rules more consistently. I started to practice what I was taught by selling my losers quickly and allowing my stronger stocks to ride their trends. Over time, I was experiencing a few more losers than winners but my stake was growing because these losers were smaller in size than the winners. The words written in the books were true; Jesse Livermore, Gerald Loeb and William O’Neil were all accurate with their lessons about cutting losses quickly.

More importantly, I learned to keep strong stocks on my radar even if I bought too soon and was forced to sell for a loss. My timing was wrong and my ego was shot because I was wrong, so I typically decided to stay away from that specific stock because it had already taken my cash and my pride. Emotionally, I was burned by the stock even though this was not entirely true. Investing is a game of trial and error. It is okay to buy a stock at the wrong time and sell, only to buy it again because they timing may be better. If you cut the losses small and allow winners to grow, the averages will ALWAYS work out, I promise. You must be honest with yourself to allow the averages to work out. You cannot allow a stock to drop past your sell point and you must try to always hold the strongest stocks without selling them during a premature pullback. This all sounds so easy but it is not! If it was so easy, we would all be extremely rich and the stock market would be everyone’s full time job.

I kept using my system of trial and error and started to record every thought and transaction I made. With my revised philosophy in place; I continued to study the stocks that I was forced to sell and tried my best to re-purchase, even at higher prices than my original position if the time was right. Even now I have these issues, the greatest traders of all time always had these issues and every fund manager must decide if the time is right. My latest example, which can relate to almost everyone in the community is Paincare Holdings, a stock that was purchased solely as a “test buy” that I was forced to sell. If things turn around and the general market starts to rally, I would have no problem buying the stock at a higher price than my original position if the opportunity presents itself.

LaBarge is another example, first showing up on the screens at $9.35 but during a down-trending market. The new pivot point and buy area was $14, over 50% higher than the original price but a solid entry point regardless of past gains or prices. Mentally it is always the toughest to buy a stock at a higher price than you were watching it at an earlier date but it can be the most rewarding strategy. Never look at a chart and toss away a candidate because it has moved up 50% or even doubled in recent months, the real move may just be beginning.

The moral of this article is to make you understand that timing may be your only issue when buying stocks so never throw away a possible superstar because you bought too soon. Keep it on your watch list and be prepared to initiate another position, even if it will cost you an extra point or two. If you buy again and it doesn’t work out, re-peat the process, there is always a chance that the stock was not meant to be or your analysis was slightly faulty. In either case, learn what you are doing right and wrong so you can be prepared to use those lessons with the next stock.

By: Chris Perruna

12-Steps to Good Trading – Step 3 – Ego, Risk-Tolerance and Confidence – The Psycho-Enchilada

admin — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 10:34:25 +0000

This step in the 12-steps to good trading will be the most challenging and will take the longest for most people to overcome. It will require the most maintenance over the life of your trading career and it will also be nearly impossible to learn from a short article like this but hopefully I can get you on the right track and help identify some resources and exercises to help.

Ego is really a tough thing for me to write about. I don’t fully understand it and apart from my Christian viewpoint it wouldn’t make any sense at all to me. Ego is that part of you that you refer to when you say “I.” Its part of your soul as opposed to your spirit. Both reside in your body. Its everything you think you are. Your self-concept. It says “I am hungry…I am a winner…I am a loser…I am a Californian…I am a Republican…I am nice…I am clever…I don’t believe that…I believe that more than anything…blah blah blah..” It’s the inner part of you that is most influenced by the outside world and I believe outside forces as well but I wont get into that unless you ask.

Ego is the part of you that has been shaped over the years or the last five minutes along with your concepts of who you are and how you see yourself in the future. It is the part of you that you display and defend and its also the part of you that keeps you from living in the very now moment.

In step one of this series I emphasized how there are no destructive trading emotions in the very now moment. In the now moment fear cant reside because it is based on images of the future and past. Greed cant reside there either. Well, the thing that blocks easy access to that place is the ego. It always wants center stage. In trading rooms and in sports and everywhere in performance based art, the ego stands out. In trading rooms it presents itself in bottom and top pickers and calling trades from the past and announcing one-sided results. Said plainly, it usually shows up as boasting. The trader who boasts not only doesn’t likely think he or she has an ego issue, but they certainly don’t recognize that they are led by it. The danger to them in these cases is that they are not market focused but are running their trading business from the part of the self that is most subject to the winds of the world and are linked arm and arm with the most destructive trading emotions they can face (fear, greed & denial). It effects everything from their risk tolerance to their confidence which are the other two pieces of this enchilada so I will move on and tie them together and help you develop a plan to make sure your ego is in check.

The number one issue I see people have when working with them on their trading is not accepting risk. Its normal for us to want to avoid risk and that shows up as the normal thing to do when we come to trade. The trouble is that being normal in trading is being a losing trader and washing out.

Never makes it in trading. We have to be abnormal and take risks. Calculated risks of course and that is where having a system or method comes into play but it goes beyond that. Lets just assume you will have a method of approaching the market that will put the odds in your favor and that you will work at it and know how to use it. We also have to have very clear and realistic concepts about what trading is and align our expectations with reality. It is not something you can realistically try and squeeze in to your summer vacation and learn in a few weeks so you don’t have to go back to work. Some of you are saying “yeah, of course not. Who would think that.” Well unfortunately, and also understandably so, as the marketing in the trading education space paints a really rosy picture and more people think that way than you could imagine. Plan on a long learning curve and doing a lot of hard work. Plan on training your focus on learning to trade and not on money or exotic calculations of what-ifs as far as how much you could earn in a year or whatever “normally” comes to your mind. Prepare to be abnormal. We don’t think about money much outside the development of our trading plan. If you do think about money then as quick as you earn it in your head you had better give it away in your head or you will be the one giving it away instead of earning it in reality. Again we think abnormally.

Would you want to go to a heart surgeon and have him chopping into you and at the same time thinking about the boat you are buying him on his lake? Or would you rather him keep his now moment eyes on your aorta? For that matter, would you want that same doctor to have had a speedy summer Internet Heart Surgeon degree program or put his time in learning the hard way (at John’s Hopkins no less). I know that’s not realistic, or at least I sure hope not, but it’s the same idea as someone thinking they can speed through the process of learning to trade. After all, the heart is pretty much going to be in the same place give or take a few inches for all of us but the market can and will change daily or even quicker (yes, it at least follows the same structure most of the time).

What does this have to do with risk-tolerance you ask? Well if you choose to trade I just want to make it clear you are taking a big risk. Most wont make it but if you really get these first few steps down and make building a better you a priority along side your chart studies then you have a great chance. Most wont do that though. You are risking the time and chances to do something else more normal and you have to know that.

Now here is the kicker. Most people wont or cant accept risk because they are under capitalized. They can too clearly see the end of the road. You can learn on as little as you want, but it will effect your thinking. Fear and greed will get all over your face or try to anyhow and your ego will get invaded with denial and if you don’t take those early steps I have already covered and stay in the now it will be very, very, normal. If however you do train yourself to stay in the now then the capital wont matter as much. I suggest you have at least ten times your margin amount if you want to help quiet fear and greed and be able to accept the risk. Some people need a lot more than that. Whatever amount it would take where you can look at your per-trade maximum loss and think of it about the same as if you misplaced a dollar or bought a raffle ticket from some kid. This is important to understand so if you don’t please start a dialogue with me via email so we can go over this more.

Moving on to confidence now, and really each of these could be their own series. I just want you to be introduced to them and make it known that you will have to contend with these things. At the end I will give you some practical ideas for dealing with some of them. Confidence in your trading is important. Both in your system and your ability to operate it. You need confidence that the odds are in your favor if you do what you are supposed to do so that you can accept the risk and put a trade on and let it play out without gripping that poor mouse until it has no life in it. You need this confidence because without it your fear will block you from doing your breathing and getting to the now moment. I hope you can see how these three topics tie together here.

How do we get that confidence? Lots and lots of work. It requires many hours of screen time and replays. Technology now makes it really easy to get the operational side of your system down when there is nothing at risk. That is good even though it doesn’t train you much on the more challenging part of trading, which is controlling yourself when it really matters. But replays and simulation are great for just drilling into your head the steps you take when you trade. Its vital that those things are automatic when you do get into live trading. You need the confidence that comes from doing the exact same thing hundreds or thousands of times. This is the same concept that US Marine Corps or other armed forces go through when they drill or train. All of their training is done in conditions that largely not life threatening. I am not sure spy-rigging counts because that just looks downright crazy. But nobody is actually shooting at Marines in training with hostile intent or rather, capability. Those in charge of the training know this and don’t belittle it as being “not-real.” They make it as real as they can and that’s what we need to do in when we simulate trading. When those Marines hit the ground in actual war zones they act automatically. Not because they know the actual beach or woods or desert or towns but because they know how to move together towards an objective as they have done countless times in training.

I grew up around people just like that and have seen the payoffs and that is why it is so important to me to train thoroughly in my trading and also important that you do the same. Confidence comes from that and from the translation of that training into real live success in the markets. Plan on being abnormal here as well. Most wont do this.

Ok, now to the battle. The best way to keep your ego in check is to keep quiet until you do have it in check. Its not about you. Concentrate on becoming a listener. The next time you are in a conversation with your wife or husband or whoever, try and just listen. If you are jumping out of you skin because you need to talk then this is an area of struggle for you. If you don’t even catch it until later that you went on and on about ” I, I, I, me, me, me” then it is a dominant area in your life that needs to be addressed before successful trading will occur. Part of what the ego does is express emotions in packages. If you focus on the breathing and self-awareness techniques of steps 1 & 2 you will get better at getting in the now moment. The thing that deflates the destructiveness of all emotions and the ego is identifying the emotion from the now moment and calling it by its name. So if you feel fear or you feel the ego rising in your own unique pattern then what you do is say it. Say “fear, I see you and you have no power over me.” If you are Christian, and I pray that you are, then really let the emotions have it in the name of Jesus. When you operate in the now moment and identify your feelings like that it deflates them. In other words it keeps you in self-control and in the moment and not subject to them. This like anything is a learned skill and will require you to be a good listener to not only others but yourself and what is coming up from inside you. The great thing is that while it deflates negative emotions, staying in control and recognizing positive emotions perpetuates the benefits. Understand me clearly here. I am not talking about visualizing the outcomes of fearful things. I don’t want you to mediate on the negative stuff. Just call it by its name and tell it to leave because it has no authority over you. If you make this a habit your life will change like you cant imagine.

Now as far as risk-tolerance goes, you have to raise capital and stay in the now moment along the way. The less money you have the less you can do. Trading something like FOREX at Oanda is probably the best option for you if you are starting with very limited funds because you can trade fractional pips and stay in the game on little for a long time while you learn, but at some point you will have to add capital. Do not set yourself up thinking you will trade your way from $1,000 to millions. If you don’t treat your opponents and your business with the proper respect it just wont likely happen for you. You may have a good hobby and learn a lot and that may be great in itself, but until you treat your trading as a start-up business with real capital needs it wont likely prosper. I pray that some of you prove me wrong, and I have seen it done, but they were really abnormal. If you try and do the same I would be as abnormal as you can in the places you can afford to in order to compensate for the very normal idea of starting with nothing or close to it.

Lastly, for confidence, plan on working and building a life of balanced confidence and keeping confidence in check and based on real training. If you find yourself down the road trading and needing layers and layers of confirmation before you take a trade then you drifted away from confidence to some blend of being unconfident and being overconfident. Being unconfident in your system and over confident in your ability to handle it on your own. Needing excess confirmation is like a farmer who says he will plant corn seed just as soon as he sees some tassels. It just wont work that way. He has to plan his crop (develop a business plan), buy his seed (raise his capital), plant it (release some capital), and then let the earth do its thing in its due course so he can harvest (evaluate the results and learn from them). Try and blend some of your personal traits that are strong outside of trading with your trading. If you are a mother or father and somehow are very patient with our kids then have confidence that you can use those same abilities in the market if you stay in the now. If you think about it, that is exactly what you do with your kids if you are one of those people. They make a big mess or if older kids, wreck the car or whatever, and you take a deep breath and just release in an instant all those destructive emotions so that we don’t kill them. The same thing we do when we prepare to trade.

Anyhow, I covered a lot. Probably too much for one article but a couple of you probably made it this far. If we end up working together or if we already are then chances are we are already deeper into some of these areas and techniques. We will get to some chart stuff in the next article. Spend the majority of your time in these first three steps though and pick my brain or do whatever it is you need to do to get yourself in a position where you can operate from self-control rather then being dragged through life. There is so much more to say on these mental topics and more so I will write more later. Thanks for listening.

God Bless ~

Ryan

By: Ryan Watts

The Real Secret to Day Trading Forex Currency

admin — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 07:48:45 +0000

You want to know the real secret to day trading forex currency? Well, here it is: Confidence and understanding of the market. There you go. There’s your real holy grail. If you can accomplish these two feats then you can write your own paycheck. Happy? Ok, so you probably need a little more information. Fine. Here it is:

Confidence! I cannot begin to tell you how many forex traders in the world are having anxiety attacks watching their trades just as I am typing. If you can’t handle a trade or trading or in general, then don’t do it. You’ll never have success day trading forex currency if you are watching every pip move like it’s life or death. Emotions can destroy a trader. A trader’s fear can cause him/her to hold a trade even though the obvious trend is going against them. It could also have the adverse effect in which a trader closes a trade WAY too early because he’s afraid to hold it, even though all the signs are pointing in the right direction.

I could give you the greatest trading system in the world, but it won’t do you much good if you don’t have any confidence in trading it.

The understanding of the market goes hand in hand with the confidence. When I say understand, I mean just that: Understand what you are looking at. Don’t be like everybody else who has to use indicators to tell them what the market is doing. Does anybody understand what these indicators even mean? Can you honestly tell me what using an MACD Divergence does? It’s colorful and its pretty on a chart, but what does that have to do with the tea in China? Take the time to understand the underlying causes of price and market movement.

Take off the indicators on your charts and see if you notice some repeated patterns. If you can start to see them then you can be ahead of the other 95% of forex traders who end up losing money on the markets. After all how can you have confidence day trading forex currency if you have no idea what you are looking at.

By: Jim Buhs

Stock Market Trading Strategies – Step Two of the Wyckoff Method

admin — Wed, 12 May 2010 00:46:05 +0000

Step two of the Wyckoff method is very simple, but yet so very important in achieving consistent success in the market.

Wyckoff teaches us to always trade stocks that are in harmony with the market. The trend of the market as indicated by the Wyckoff Wave indicates the line of least resistance. It reflects the direction in which most of the individual issues are moving. Traders who take positions that are in harmony with the line of least resistance are more likely to experience positive results than are traders who try to fight the trend. It is always better to have the market working for you than against you. There are always individual issues that make huge moves against the trend, but these are relatively rare.

The odds of finding one of these counter trend wonders are much smaller than are the odds of selecting an issue that is going to perform as well or better than the trend of the market.

Trading in harmony with the market means taking long positions when the market as measured by the Wyckoff Wave is in a defined up trend channel.

It means taking short positions when the market is in a defined down trend channel. When the defined trend is neutral or a trading range, trading in harmony with the market can mean standing aside and let the bulls and bears battle for control of the action, or consider opportunities on both sides of the market.

However, Wyckoff discourages being in positions on both sides of the market at the same time. Theoretically, trading both sides at once while the market is in a trading range is possible, but it is emotionally difficult. Whenever emotions enter the picture, the odds of making costly mistakes increases.

To avoid these errors make a commitment to never be long and short at the same time.

Just because the trend of the market and that of an individual issue are pointed in the same direction does not mean that the trader automatically has a green light to take a long position if the trends are pointed upward or a short position if the trends are pointed downward.

Remember what Wyckoff teaches in step one of the Wyckoff method. Knowing the position of the price in the trend is as important as knowing the direction of the trend. Situation where the market and an individual issue under consideration for a long position are both located near the top of their up trend channels should be avoided in favor of those where the positions are near the bottom of the trend channels. When short positions are being considered in down trends, it is best to locate those situations where both the market and the individual issue are positioned near the top of their down trend channels. If trading ranges are going to be traded, look for those instances where both the general market and the individual issue are positioned near the very top or the very bottom of their trading ranges.

An important concept in applying step two of the Wyckoff method is relative strength and/or weakness. Although most individual issues will be in the same trend as the general market and many of them will even be in the same position in their trends as the market, not all of these are the best candidates for new positions. All up trends and down trends are the result of a series of trusts in the direction of the trend separated by corrections. Some individual issues that are in harmony with the market from the stand point of the direction in which their trends are pointed will make relatively larger thrusts and experience relatively smaller corrections than the market as a whole.

These are the issues that are most likely to have the best potential to produce a profitable trade. Relative strength or weakness can be measured as soon as the first thrust in a trend has been completed. This will likely be even before the trend channel has been clearly defined. Those issues that have made larger thrusts than the market are the ones that should be watched closely as the prices make their first correction. The issues that have made the largest thrusts relative to that made by the market and that then make the smallest corrections relative to the market are most likely to perform well on the next thrust in the direction of the trend. These are the stocks that deserve the most consideration for new positions. This technique can also be used later in the development of an advance or decline when there are additional thrusts and corrections to consider. Those issues that most consistently out perform the market are most likely to produce a profitable trade.

The concept of relative strength and weakness can be helpful in locating trade candidates when the market is in a defined trading range. If the market is in a trading range, most individual issues will also be in trading ranges. However, some will be in up trends and some will be in down trends. Those that are trending up or down are relatively stronger or weaker than the market. These are the issues to consider first when looking for new positions. However, consideration must always be given to the position of the market in its trading range and the individual issue in its up or down trend. If both positions do not favor the likelihood of a rally or reaction, opening a position in that individual issue is discouraged. After the stocks that are trending up or down, attention can be directed to those that like the market are also in trading ranges. Here again, the positions of both the market and the stock are important issues to consider before opening a position.

The merits of trading in harmony with the market may seem obvious. However, most traders are exposed to a stream of market noise from brokers, friends, relatives, co-workers and the media. This bombardment of frequently conflicting information and misinformation can cause a trader to get distracted from those things that are really important. Step two of the Wyckoff method is one of those really important things. It along with the other four steps of the method are the best foundation on which to build a successful market operation.

© The Jamison Group, Inc.: Trade the Stock Market- Step two of the Wyckoff Method

By: Craig Schroeder

Forex Trading Made Easy – A 3 Step Simple to Follow Plan For Big Profits in 30 Minutes a Day!

admin — Wed, 05 May 2010 19:27:19 +0000

Here we will discuss the subject of Forex trading made easy and despite the fact that over 90% of traders lose money, it’s a known fact that Forex trading is a learned skill and in this article, we will show you how to get the right mindset and education, to enjoy big profits in 30 minutes a day.

Lets go to the first step to success which should be obvious but most traders don’t understand it and lose money – here it is:

1. Accept Responsibility for Your Actions

Most traders don’t and they think they will get rich quick by buying a Forex robot for a hundred dollars or so and making no effort. These systems are laughable in their claims of easy money and anyone who tries them soon gets wiped out. If only making an income for life was as easy as paying a hundred dollars and making no effort. Accept you have to work and now for some good news…

2. Get a Simple Robust Strategy

Forex trading is simple and simple, robust systems work best. If you make a strategy too complicated, it simply has to many parameters to break. Many people think there is some holy grail system and constantly look for it – but there isn’t one so don’t bother looking. Get a simple strategy and you will do just fine and you should be able to learn a system which can make you great profits in around two weeks.

Learning a system which can make money is easy but you have to adopt the mindset to make it work lets take a look at why and how you can get the mindset of a winner.

3. Staying on Course with Your System

When you trade, you will have losing periods, all traders do and it’s the way you deal with these losses which is the key to making money in Forex. Let them run and hope they turn around and you will lose, cut them quickly and you can preserve your equity, until you hit profits again. When you trade Forex, you need to keep your emotions out and follow your system with discipline.

Be a Winner…

Simply understand the three points above and you can enjoy currency trading success. If you do understand them, you can see how you can win and make great profits, when the vast majority of traders lose – good luck and good trading!

By: Kelly Price

Forex Education – Identifying The 4 Human Weaknesses

admin — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 17:12:36 +0000

The 4 basic human weaknesses in trading: Greed, fear, impatience and pride. How do these emotions cause so many Forex traders to lose money? Let’s examine the ways.

Greed

Greed causes poor traders to increase the size of their trading positions the moment they’re “in the money” (in a winning trade). This often results in these traders having the largest position size trade just before the market turns in the opposite direction. As a result, this causes them to suffer large losses.

Fear

Fear makes people avoid entering into good trades because they don’t know what they’re doing. Heard of the phrase “buy low, sell high”? Unfortunately, many traders think that this is true. The profitable traders however, know that a more accurate phrase would be: “buy high, sell higher”.

Fear is often the result of not knowing what one is doing. If you have a proper, reliable trading system, fear shouldn’t be in your trading vocabulary.

Impatience

The opposite of fear, impatience leads people to enter into trades when there are no clear trading signals. Needless to say, most of these impatient trades usually turn out to be unprofitable.

Pride

This is very possibly the worst trading weakness of all! Pride makes a trader hold on to losing positions with the false hope that the position will turn around in his favour. Winning traders are humble, and aren’t afraid to admit that they’ve made a mistake when they lose money. After all, no one can be right all the time!

Unfortunately, many losing traders refuse to admit that they’re wrong, and often lose money to pay for their pride.

Summary

Understanding the effects of these emotions is crucial before one can be a consistently profitable trader. Use this knowledge as a tool to make money from ignorant traders, and don’t fall into these traps yourself!

By: Harold Hsu

Forex Education – A Lesson From History For Forex Success

admin — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:12:38 +0000

Here we are going to look at the story of “the turtles”. If you don’t know who they were, then you should study this group of traders, as learned to trade in just 14 days and made $100 million, in just 4 years! There is much to learn and it’s an inspiring story, so let’s look at it.

The story begins in 1983, when trading legend Richard Dennis decided to prove that anyone could be a trader, if they had the right mindset, the right education and the right trading system.

He picked a group of people who had never traded before.

This group consisted of both sexes, various ages and various levels of academic achievement and variety of occupations from a security guard to a boy fresh from school.

He then set about teaching them to trade in 14 days.

He set them up with trading accounts and the results were astounding:

This group of traders went on to make $100 million in four years and many went on to become trading legends.

So what can you learn from the experiment?

The first lesson is, anyone has the potential to be a successful trader and every thing about currency trading can be learned.

Secondly, if you have the right forex education you can do it quickly, 14 days is not a long time to learn any trade!

Hang on! – You maybe saying:

If everyone can learn to trade, why do 95% of forex traders wipe out their accounts?

When Dennis taught the turtles, he used a simple method – but he rammed home two:

1. You need to have mental discipline to follow any system because if you don’t, you have no method at all. He made sure that the traders knew exactly how and why the system worked, to give them the confidence and discipline to follow it.

Most traders simply never get confidence in what their doing, as they follow others or simply have no well thought out forex trading strategy and trade with their emotions.

2. Dennis also taught the traders to play great defence first. This meant strict money management to protect their equity above all else.

Just like any great football team you build from the back.

There is no point in having a great offensive line, if your backs can’t protect you and it’s the same in trading.

The Key Combination

Dennis essentially knew that you can teach anyone a trading system – but that’s not enough, you need to combine this with mental discipline.

A lot is written about discipline in trading yet, few new traders really understand how hard it is to maintain it.

To keep executing a trading system when it’s losing is tough!

Of course all systems will lose and you have to have the confidence, discipline and money management in place to ride the period out.

Could You Be Successful?

The story of the turtles actually inspired me to trade back in the eighties.

The reason it’s so inspiring is because it shows anyone can make money with the right mindset and the right education.

Sure not everyone is going to become as rich as “the turtles” – but the opportunity exists and everyone can earn an income that more than compensates for the effort.

So the moral of the story is work smart, get a simple system, have confidence in it and apply it with discipline – if you can do that your on the road to currency trading success and a life changing income.

By: Kelly Price

Forex Trading Education – Trading Looks Easy But You Must Have This Key Trait Or Lose!

admin — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 20:50:35 +0000

Forex trading look easy and anyone can learn to be a successful trader so why then do 95% of trader’s burn their equity and get wiped out. The reason is they lack one key trait and this normally comes about from the way they get their forex education…

Trait the overwhelming majority of losing forex traders lack is discipline – they have all heard of it but can’t obtain it and in most instances this comes from the way they believe forex markets work and the education they get.

There are two main reasons traders cannot stay discipline and trade their systems.

1. They Want to Follow Others

The fact is discipline comes form within and is based upon confidence in what you are doing and most traders follow others and do not get confidence. When a few losses occur (and most of the advice given on the net and forex robots people try and follow do) they then throw in the towel however, even with a successful method, traders cant follow them most of the time.

Keep in mind if you don’t have the disciple to follow your trading system – you don’t have one!

3. Normal Traits to Win Don’t Apply In Forex

Most trader want perfection they want to buy low sell high and predict market tops and bottoms and be rewarded by the market for being clever and their effort – but it doesn’t the forex market provides a unique challenge and traits that work in normal society, don’t in forex trading:

- You are not rewarded for effort just profits you make

- Only you can be wrong and the market is always right

- Being clever wont help its like effort you don’t get rewarded for it

- You cannot trade with the majority you must trade in isolation

- Your emotions will come into play and fight your ability to remain disciplined.

Forex trading even if you have a sound system takes tremendous discipline to stay on course, as normal traits that you rely on to make money in society, don’t work in forex trading.

This is frustrating and when you start to lose and the market makes you look a fool, you have a battle with your emotions to keep executing trading signals in the face of losses. You also need to be on your own and cannot seek refuge with the majority, as the majority lose.

Becoming a Disciplined Trader is Achievable but NOT Easy

Think its easy? Then you have never traded!

Of course, you can do it – but this means getting a forex education which you have confidence in and accepting that you will look a fool, you will lose for some periods and you will have to battle your emotions to stay on course.

Discipline comes from confidence and learning and applying a logical forex trading system, through the losing periods and staying on course – until you are rewarded for your perseverance.

Success is in your hands and is reliant as much on your mindset as on your method.

You need a logical method; you have confidence in and the discipline to apply it. If you can do this, you can make big forex gains – its not easy and that’s why the rewards are so high.

Learn to be disciplined and you will find it will lead you to currency trading success.

By: Kelly Price

Stock Marketing Trading – Stocks Trading & Investing Tips

admin — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:30:58 +0000

There are plenty of spectacular stock market trading tips out there to take note of– and these stock market trading tips can make the difference between you making money or losing it. Some people fall into the trap of jumping in too quickly before learning the secrets, and they usually end up frustrated because they lost money. Don’t let yourself fall into that trap, take a little bit of time to learn some tips and tricks to help you get started on the right foot!

There are some stock market traders out there that are doing very well with all the of trades they are making, their strategy is very profitable! But, what do you need to do in order learn the same tips that they are using? There are many tutorials and coaching programs out there that can help you be just as successful with your stock market trading.

One tip that you may not always hear is: to not be afraid to lose some money. Too many investors that are new to stock market trading are very afraid of that, but they don’t realize that there is a learning curve in the beginning. The important aspect of this tip is to be sure that you are only investing money that you can afford to lose– and start out small! Assume that you will lose a portion of what you invest at times, but don’t get hung up on the losses too much, focus on your gains and continue to optimize and improve your stock trading skills

You also need to get your emotions in check when it comes to investing, because if you let your emotions run things instead of logic you will end up losing money. Don’t be greedy, don’t be afraid to take a risk, and don’t involve yourself in types of investing that you don’t know anything about. All of these tips will help you to make decent decisions and to continue learning.

Pay close attention to the various stock market trading tips out there. You may not find you incorporate all of them in your strategies, but you will likely use many of them. Always be on the lookout for new information concerning the stock market, so that you can stay up to day on the current trends. Learn what you can so that you can be on top of the game when it comes to the stock market.

By: Jayda Kaycee

Emini System Trading – Are You Satisfied With Your Emini Trading Results?

admin — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:59:34 +0000

Most successful futures traders agree that using a emini system that is designed to remove speculation on the part of the trader is the most effective way to increase the amount of winning trades. It is understood in trading circles that no trader will execute winning trades each and every time. It is also understood that the mental part of trading, more than any other factor, determines whether or not a trader will become successful at emini futures trading.

Although it is very important to be mentally prepared each day before approaching the futures markets, to increase the chances of success, emotions should be controlled on the part of the trader. Most experienced traders rely on a totally mechanical or involuntary emini system that signals the trader when to execute buy and sell orders rather than the trader determining entry and exit points.

A mechanical emini trading system should be simple to follow and easy to trade. The emini markets are fluid with significant price movements each trading session which allow for many opportunities to execute profitable trades each day. Having a mechanical trading system that alerts the trader to possible trade set-ups based on repeating and powerful patterns, removes the human equation and second guessing that has so often ended many trading careers before they ever began. Although it is ultimately the traders decision whether or not to enter a trade, mechanical systems are designed to offer the best opportunity for the trader to execute winning trades and increase trading results.

By: Doug Fisher