Trading education » Stop Loss

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

Day Trading Or Swing Trading?

admin — Tue, 18 May 2010 01:08:34 +0000

Day trading has become popular in the last decade. There are many people now who make a successful living by trading different markets. Day trading or swing trading which is better?

Day trading is often depicted in a glamorous manner in the trading literature. Do you know this that day trading is stressful and day traders are often referred to as the kings of stress. Now I am not saying that day trading is something you should avoid. There are people who are masters of day trading and this trading style suits their personality.

However, in my opinion swing trading is a much better option. In day trading you have to sit in front of your computer terminal watching the different charts and waiting for the trading signals. You can do that for a few days but after that fatigue and stress will overtake you especially if you have been making losing trades.

In day trading you open and close a trade within the same day and don’t carry forward your trade overnight to the next morning. As compared to that in swing trading you can open a trade anytime of the day when the moment is right and can keep it open for days as long as your profit target is not met.

In swing trading the profit targets are also much higher as well as your stop loss is also more wide so you have more space. Swing trading depends on riding the trend at the right moment and continue riding it as long as it lasts. Day traders are looking for short term trends that may not last more than 24 hours but sometimes as a day trader if at the end of the day you have a profitable position and you feel that you should keep your trade open for a few more days you decide to carry it forward to the next few days.

So sometimes you start as a day trader but end up as a swing trader. In swing trading you don’t need to monitor your trade all day. After opening your trade and putting your stop loss and take profit orders you are free as the market will take its own course after that. You only need to take a look at your trade for 10-15 minutes a day anytime of the day that suits you. As long as your technical analysis was correct, your trade will work. So you have much more freedom in swing trading specially for those who do a regular job and trade as well.

By: Ahmad A Hassam

Trading Emini Futures – The Failure to Cut Losses Short Revisited

admin — Sun, 09 May 2010 16:52:29 +0000

Emini futures, or simply eminis, are smaller-sized contracts of “full-grown” futures contracts that have been around for decades. Unlike the latter that have been traded on physical exchanges, eminis have always been traded electronically, allowing retail traders with access to the Internet to compete against institutional traders from the comfort of their homes or home based offices.

Futures offer much greater leverage than stocks or bonds, and practically only trading currencies on the Forex can provide even better leverage. While this leverage can be also very risky in the hands of unskilled traders, this somehow has not prevented wannabe traders from flocking to emini futures or Forex.

Trading eminis is not easy, although it can be mastered given enough time and dedication. The basic trading rules apply here just as in trading stocks or bonds, but due to this enormous leverage following these rules is even more important than in stocks or else it’s very easy to end up blowing one’s trading account in no time.

One of such rules insists that you “let your profits run”. Another urges you to “cut your losses short.” Both make a lot of sense and when combined, they give rise to much more intelligent trading.

Let us discuss the latter here as it seems to be of even more importance than the former. This is so because ignoring this rule is a sure path to ending up with a totally depleted account relatively quickly when trading emini futures.

Yet, this rule is often violated despite the grave consequences that doing so entails. Why is it so, one can wonder. Let us address this issue here as that is not always done in an exhaustive, comprehensive manner.

There is no doubt that trader’s ego is involved in this process. Most humans, traders being no exception, do not like to admit that they have made a mistake, so they would rather wait for things to somehow get worked out in their favor while they adjust their stop-loss and keep going deeper into the red zone. This is often no more than wishful thinking that masquerades as eternal hope. Yes, it is true that to be a good trader one has to be an optimist, but one also has to be a realist and being self-disciplined. Violating basic rules of trading is hardly a sign of solid self-discipline.

But there is also another reason why overriding this rule often takes place. At the core here seems to be the lack of confidence in one’s trading methods. This is what also can make the trader to hold to his losing position because he does not believe that he will be able to get a better trading opportunity. Had he believed a much better opportunity is likely to present itself while he is stuck with his loser, he would have cut it much faster.

The moral from the last observation is this: if you are considering trading emini futures or any other market, for that matter, you want to make sure you have a good solid strategy that you trust as this can only help you to cut your losses short.

By: Waldemar Puszkarz

Breakout Method – One of the Simplest Trading Methods

admin — Thu, 06 May 2010 18:47:38 +0000

Many new Forex traders ask what trading system is better to start. I believe the simpler the system the easier can a trader learn to trade. In my opinion trading systems based on a breakout method are the simplest and easiest to trade. I would like to discuss the advantages of breakout method and give a few examples of it.

1. What is the breakout method?

First let’s define what the breakout method is. Whenever you define a price range and the price breaks out of that range you have a trading opportunity. The range can be defined in different ways. Usually it’s a period of time where price did not move a lot. It can be the period of Asian session. Sometimes an indicator can be used to identify such a ranging period. I use Ballinger bands to identify the squeeze in price range.

2. How to trade the break out method?

It’s very simple to trade the breakout method. First you need to set a pending order to buy at the top of the range. Then you set the pending order to sell at the bottom of the range. Or if you can continuously watch the charts then you buy or sell as soon as price breaks out the range. Some people introduce more sophisticated rules into break out method. Fore example they can wait until candle closes outside of the range. The beauty of the break out method you know for sure where to place your stop-loss level.

3. Example of a Bollinger-squeeze breakout method.

This is one of my favorite trading setups. Place Bollinger indicator on your 15-minute chart. Look for the period when bands become horizontal and the distance between them becomes no more than 10-15 pips. The longer the squeeze lasts the higher the probability of a profitable breakout trade. Now place your orders on each side of the bands. The upper band is where you place your buy order, the lower band where you place your sell order. Stop-loss levels are placed at the opposite bands. With EURUSD pair this method gives at least 30 pips. But taking profit is actually art of trading. So you need to test your profit taking levels and methods with it.

By: Albert Schmidt

Trading Emini Futures: Designing A Simple Emini Trading System

admin — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 15:07:01 +0000

It is not very difficult to design a viable winning trading system for emini futures markets. Eminis, just as most other futures markets, tend to be pretty technical in nature and so elements of technical analysis can be successfully employed here to design a profitable trading system.

Trading systems can be roughly divided into two large categories: counter-trend systems and trend-following systems, although it is possible to combine the elements of both to produce a more complex system that handles more trading situations.

In some markets, such as emini futures for S&P 500, counter-trend systems can be profitable, in other markets it makes more sense to focus only on trend-following systems. Trend-following systems should work reasonably well in most emini markets, although some are more suitable for this approach than others.

In this age of electronic trading, most emini traders are involved in daytrading, taking positions for several minutes to several hours, always closing them before the end of a daytrading session, that usually is not far away to the closing time for the major US stock exchanges.

Any sound trend-following mechanical trading system that operates as a daytrading system should rest on the following three pillars:

1. it is selective (it trades at most twice a day, but not necessarily every day),

2. it cuts losses relatively short (a suitable stop-loss that is a function of the market’s volatility should be chosen by testing),

3. it lest profits run.

While the last two conditions are quite obvious and are used routinely in the design of trend-following systems, the first one is usually overlooked, yet it is as important, if not even more, as the other two, in this author opinion. It is, in fact, much easier to design a profitable trading system when this condition is taken into account. This is so simply because there are really not so many good daytrading opportunities every day that could be easy to first identify and then to exploit profitably. On the other hand, when this condition is taken into consideration, it is relatively easy to find one or two good trading opportunities per day frequently enough to design a working profitable trading system.

By: Waldemar Puszkarz

Commodity Futures and Options Trading- Money Management, Risk and Trading Logic, PART 3

admin — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 19:35:14 +0000

Possibly the most important aspect to get right in trading is survival. This is number one. Without surviving the bad times we are gone, with no hope. Money management and risk may sound like boring subjects, but read on to see how exciting they can be once you learn the concrete reasons and logic for their use. You may never trade the same way again!

Commodity option buying can be rough for novices. Some see a TV pitch about striking it rich in gold or heating oil. They load up their entire account buying way out-of-the-money options, lose all of their trading capital through premium erosion and then curse the market. They don’t consider to survive they must prepare for the inevitable string of losses when trading at 10% accuracy. We need to survive long enough to be around when that 10% option winner hits big. The other 90% will be losers simply from the probability of the method used.

In this case, it means dividing our trading capital into at LEAST twenty parts to be able to survive the string of losses that probability will surely bring our way, over time. It’s about survival and knowing what type of commodity trading we are doing so that we can adjust the money risked on each trade. If we are trading at 10% accuracy, (option buying) and expecting to make money on the first 3-4 trades, it’s pure arrogance.

Then there are some commodity option traders who will overload themselves by buying large option positions and are willing to let them erode away, taking a full 100% loss of the total account. They have no plan to exit if the market does not act properly. Not a good idea. Though, some buy a commodity option and use its full loss as a stop loss in itself. That’s acceptable ONLY if you do it with small positions. But the sad thing is when these guys get a mere double in the option price, they call that a big profit and grab it. Pure lunacy!

How can one be willing to lose their total investment and at the same time take tiny gains while still trading at 10-20% accuracy? The results are predictable. They consistently lose. Their excuse is the analysis is bad, or the commodity markets are poor or they should have gotten into another trade instead. You can point the math out to them, but they do not get it. No matter what they do, the result will continue to be the same unless money management changes are made. By the way, one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. (grin)

The bottom line is that if your commodity trading method generates an average of 20% (at best) accuracy by design, as option buying way out-of-the-money often does, you had better be seeing your average gains four times larger than your average losses. And, this is just to break even not counting commissions, bid-offer spreads and slippage! This means if you think a $2,000 loss is prudent, you had better be averaging $8,000 gains to break even. Just to break even!

You must sit on your hands and let the profits run when buying options. This is over the long-haul where things even out over time. In the short term you may trade better or worse, but over time, probability will put you where you spend the most time. With a $10,000 account, if you’re taking $2,000 profits and $2,000 losses when trading 20% accurate, you will probably be out of the commodity option business in less than ten trades. This may sound like fiction, but believe me, many new traders do exactly this, thinking they will win in the end.

Part Four of Five Parts – Next!

There is substantial risk of loss trading futures and options and may not be suitable for all types of investors. Only risk capital should be used.

By: Thomas Cathey

How a Day Trading Stocks Newsletter Can Help You Succeed

admin — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:40:08 +0000

Education

One of the greatest benefits a good day trading stocks newsletter provides is the chance to learn from experienced professionals. The best day trading stocks newsletter will give you pointers on stock and market analysis, using various trading strategies, and money management, as well as less concrete aspects of trading like the psychological issues involved on both the trader’s side and the market’s.

Save time

The staff at a day trading stocks newsletter have the time to do in-depth stock analysis and report their findings back to you. After all, if you’re honest with yourself, do you really have time to do sufficient research on the stocks your interested in?

Catch trends fast

Turn your back on the market for a moment and things can change fast. While you can’t spend every waking moment watching your stocks, as a day trader you need to keep on top of trends if you expect to turn a decent profit. A quality day trading stocks newsletter can not only help you quickly identify tends, but also let you know how those trends may change. Many online newsletters even send out email alerts when a stock’s situation is really changing fast.

Protect your trading capital

A good day trading stocks newsletter will give you tips on how to limit risk and keep your trading capital safe from large losses and market drawdowns by using sound stoploss and money management techniques. The quality newsletters offer more than just theory. Many even provide you with exact stop loss levels.

Access the professionals

Many stocks newsletters conduct interviews with top investors and business leaders, quizzing them about their trading and money management strategies. Writers for these newsletters not only have access to such people, but they know exactly which questions to ask to get exactly the information their readers need.

Get specific instructions

If you’re relatively new to day trading getting clear, specific instructions on what to buy and sell when can make a huge difference in your profits as well as cut down on a lot of stress. Even if you’re already an experienced day trader, though, these instructions can give you valuable insight into the minds of other expert traders. Either way, you’re bound to learn a thing or two.

Avoid mistakes

Let’s face it, when it comes to day trading, even professional make mistakes. They might be due to technical miscalculations, misjudgments or simple psychological reactions that lead to rash decisions. Checking your decisions against the recommendations in a high quality day trading stocks newsletter let’s you see when you might be going astray.

Whether you’re just starting out in day trading or you’ve already got some experience, the guidance available through a good day trading stocks newsletter can increase your profits while making lighter work of research and buy and sell decisions.

By: Mark Crisp

Best Forex Trading Education – Learning The Right Stuff

admin — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 08:33:59 +0000

It is the aim of all retail Forex traders to make money from the market. We read books, take courses and search the web for all kinds of Forex-related information to
best educate us on how to trade profitably.

Unfortunately, most of the time retail traders are looking to learn about the wrong kinds of things. We spend our time looking for the “best and latest” techniques and systems with the hope of making money once we adopt them.

The truth, however, is that there are other more important aspects of Forex trading that we should all be paying attention to… and these are the aspects that separate a consistently winning trader from a consistently losing one.

Forex Education Topic #1 – Understanding Leverage

One of the biggest attractions of Forex trading is leverage. We are all aware that in the Forex market, we can trade with a large amount of currency using only a fraction of our own money. What most retail traders don’t realize, however, is that leverage actually plays a major role in how they should manage their money (and risk).

Simply put: the more leverage one trades with, the smaller the stop-loss allowance would be available to them. If you don’t know why this is so, I highly recommend that you study the impact of trading with leverage more carefully and how it affects your money management system… too many beginner traders have wiped out their accounts because they didn’t truly understand the risks involved here.

Forex Education Topic #2 – Understanding Yourself

Among all the aspects of profitable Forex trading, this is arguably the most difficult to master. You can have the “best” trading system in the world; but if you find it hard to trade according to its rules, then it’s still useless.

Understanding your own risk appetite is a crucial component of deciding which trading system you should adopt. If you’re an aggressive trader, find a trading system that reflects your style. And vice versa if you’re a conservative trader.

An old trader once told me, “The market is the perfect place to discover your true flaws”. And now, I finally realize what he meant. My flaws of greed, fear and discipline have all been exposed to the market… and it’s through the conquering of these flaws that you can emerge as a profitable trader.

Don’t trade if you’re not prepared to have your vulnerabilities exposed by the market.

By: Harold Hsu

Forex Trading Education Works For Every Newcomer

admin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:47:26 +0000

Forex or foreign exchange is definitely the most vulnerable market for those who wish to earn little more than they invest. With large number of traders involved and almost 2 to 3 trillion dollars being traded each day, forex tends to magnetize every other person who wishes to trade and trade big. But, if you are someone new to the ecstasy of foreign exchange then a prior knowledge or a good forex trading education is a must to ensure that you do not regret your deals and trading.

Following are some of the things you will benefit from forex trading education as a newcomer or novice in trading:

Basic knowledge of forex, it’s benefits and roleTechnical terms involved in forexIntroduction and implementation of various tools and softwareHow to make strategies while trading in forex marketUnderstanding of trading system i.e. when to enter a trade and when to stop the tradingExecution of risk management tactics such as stop loss.

An education in forex trading is the best way to begin in forex, as forex is a market with unexpected fluctuations, sudden announcements and lots of risk. For someone who is new to trading, education acts as a guide to doubts like why forex is unpredictable and how to manage trading along with the instability factor.

Forex when taken carelessly can jeopardize the investment and effort put in by a novice, thus without the basic idea of risk involved and method to avoid or minimize them comes from a good forex trading education.

Apart from the basics and technical aspects of trading, forex trading education also teaches methods to build following skills:

PatienceDisciplineHandling pressureAnalyzing situationTrading on a well planned pace

Thus, Forex trading education makes sure that you, as a newcomer, understand forex well enough to trade. Forex is full of benefits but to make the most of it, a newcomer needs to have proper and complete understanding of it and that’s where forex trading education helps or works for a new comer.

By: Juan Saton

Forex Trading Education – Risk Management 101

admin — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 04:58:41 +0000

Many retail traders focus so much on trying to make money off the market that they often neglect to protect their capital. This causes them to ultimately wipe out their trading accounts no matter how good their ‘money-making’ strategy is.

You see, there are two aspects to profitable trading: increasing your gains, and reducing your losses. Unfortunately the former is the only thing most traders pay attention to. Protecting one’s losses is not as sexy or exciting as making money; and so many amateur traders make the crucial mistake of having a weak money management system in place.

How Much To Risk

When planning out your money management strategy, the first thing you’ll need to decide is how much of your capital you are willing to risk per trade. Experts generally recommend that you risk no more than 2% of your total equity.

An Example

When trading with standard lots, each pip is worth approximately $10.

So let’s say you start trading with $10,000. 2% of $10,000 is $200. That means that you should risk no more than $200 (or 2% of your capital) per trade. And since each pip is worth $10, you can risk a maximum of 20 pips ($200/$10) for each trade that you take. Essentially, this means that you should have a stop-loss of no more than 20 pips away from your entry price.

Does this make sense?

Adjustments Needed

Of course, a 20 pip stop-loss level might be considered too tight for many traders. In reality, it’s up to you to play around with the variables of your money management system. For scalpers for example, a 20 pip stop-loss level might even be too high!

It all boils down to your overall trading strategy… a swing trader will definitely want to use a higher stop-loss allowance, and he can do so by either increasing his equity capital, or by trading using mini lots instead.

The bottom line however, is to never violate the 2%-capital-risk-per-trade rule.

By: Harold Hsu