Keeping Some Fire Power In Reserve
Written by Robert W. Colby
Reserves are funds in our account that are held back from trading, and usually parked safely on the sidelines in risk-less money-market instruments. The effect of holding reserves is to reduce net leverage. A workable rule of thumb that has evolved over time out of the real-world trading arena is to limit net leverage to 30%.
To see how reserves, leverage and net leverage work together, employ the following formulas:
Reserves = 100% - (Net Leverage / Leverage)
Net Leverage = Leverage * (100% - Reserves)
Leverage = Net Leverage / (100% - Reserves)
where
Reserves are cash or cash equivalents held back on the sidelines.
We can solve these equations to find any of these numbers. For example, for a stock position where initial margin and leverage are both 50% and net leverage is held to 30%:
Reserves = 100% - ( 30% / 50% ) = 1 - 3/5 = 1.00 - 0.60 = 0.40 = 40%
For stocks, if we deposit initial margin of 70% into our account and confine our use of net leverage to 30%, as recommended, then
Reserves = 100% - (30%/30%) = 1 - 3/3 = 1.00 - 1.00 = 0%
If we entered a futures position using 75% leverage (and, of course, putting up 25% initial margin, which represents 100% minus the 75% leverage), and if the total value of this position amounted to only 40% of our available trading capital (therefore, we are holding back 60% of our trading capital in reserves on the sidelines), then the net leverage would be reduced proportionately to 30% (that is, 75% times 40%). Using the second formula,
Net Leverage = Leverage * (100% - Reserves)
Net Leverage = 75% * (100% - 60%) = .075 * 0.40 = 30%
Again using industry standard (and quite reasonable) rules of thumb, if we wish to keep net leverage at 30% while holding 60% of our capital in reserve, we can put up 25% margin for each contract, and therefore employ 75% leverage for each contract. Thus, using the third formula,
Leverage = Net Leverage / (100% - Reserves) = 30% / (100% - 60%) = 75%
It has long been known that money management is the most critical consideration in trading and investing. Money management includes the prudent use of leverage. Sound rules and disciplines allow success to accumulate while minimizing the risk of ruin.
Reserves are funds in our account that are held back from trading, and usually parked safely on the sidelines in risk-less money-market instruments. The effect of holding reserves is to reduce net leverage. A workable rule of thumb that has evolved over time out of the real-world trading arena is to limit net leverage to 30%.
To see how reserves, leverage and net leverage work together, employ the following formulas:
Reserves = 100% - (Net Leverage / Leverage)
Net Leverage = Leverage * (100% - Reserves)
Leverage = Net Leverage / (100% - Reserves)
where
Reserves are cash or cash equivalents held back on the sidelines.
We can solve these equations to find any of these numbers. For example, for a stock position where initial margin and leverage are both 50% and net leverage is held to 30%:
Reserves = 100% - ( 30% / 50% ) = 1 - 3/5 = 1.00 - 0.60 = 0.40 = 40%
For stocks, if we deposit initial margin of 70% into our account and confine our use of net leverage to 30%, as recommended, then
Reserves = 100% - (30%/30%) = 1 - 3/3 = 1.00 - 1.00 = 0%
If we entered a futures position using 75% leverage (and, of course, putting up 25% initial margin, which represents 100% minus the 75% leverage), and if the total value of this position amounted to only 40% of our available trading capital (therefore, we are holding back 60% of our trading capital in reserves on the sidelines), then the net leverage would be reduced proportionately to 30% (that is, 75% times 40%). Using the second formula,
Net Leverage = Leverage * (100% - Reserves)
Net Leverage = 75% * (100% - 60%) = .075 * 0.40 = 30%
Again using industry standard (and quite reasonable) rules of thumb, if we wish to keep net leverage at 30% while holding 60% of our capital in reserve, we can put up 25% margin for each contract, and therefore employ 75% leverage for each contract. Thus, using the third formula,
Leverage = Net Leverage / (100% - Reserves) = 30% / (100% - 60%) = 75%
It has long been known that money management is the most critical consideration in trading and investing. Money management includes the prudent use of leverage. Sound rules and disciplines allow success to accumulate while minimizing the risk of ruin.
How To Increase Forex Profits 100% in 10 Minutes
Forex Articles | Written by Jimmy Young |
This simple exercise will increase Forex profits 100% and works for 99% of all short-term FX traders - stop trading so much - widen out your stops - widen out your profit targets - and only trade in the direction of the trend indicated by 4 hour chart.
1) Stop trading so much
Sure there are no commissions but the spreads are HUGE and believe it or not (well you'll believe it after you do the simple exercise below) the spreads are reducing your profits 100%!
2) Widen out your stops
Initial stop loss should be a minimum of 23 points; I use between 23 and 35 point stop losses for short-term trading.
3) Widen out your profit targets
Unless you think a trade can make you 100 points or more don't do it.
4) Only trade in the direction of the 4 hour chart
The real money is made in the direction of the trend
Simple exercise
1) Download all your trades for the year into an excel spreadsheet (if you don't know how to do this ask your broker for help).
2) Determine the dollar value of the spread for each trade.
3) Sum up the total dollar value of all spreads for all trades and add this number it to your current account balance; this is your spread adjusted account balance.
4) Take your spread adjusted current account balance and divide it by your opening balance at beginning of year; the result will be a percentage change.
5) Take your actual current account balance and divide it by your opening balance at beginning of year; the result will be a percentage change.
6) Subtract your spread adjusted year to date percentage change from your actual year to date percentage change.
7) That number should be 100% or more
8) Take the necessary steps as outlined above (1 to 4) and improve your results 100%
This simple exercise will increase Forex profits 100% and works for 99% of all short-term FX traders - stop trading so much - widen out your stops - widen out your profit targets - and only trade in the direction of the trend indicated by 4 hour chart.
1) Stop trading so much
Sure there are no commissions but the spreads are HUGE and believe it or not (well you'll believe it after you do the simple exercise below) the spreads are reducing your profits 100%!
2) Widen out your stops
Initial stop loss should be a minimum of 23 points; I use between 23 and 35 point stop losses for short-term trading.
3) Widen out your profit targets
Unless you think a trade can make you 100 points or more don't do it.
4) Only trade in the direction of the 4 hour chart
The real money is made in the direction of the trend
Simple exercise
1) Download all your trades for the year into an excel spreadsheet (if you don't know how to do this ask your broker for help).
2) Determine the dollar value of the spread for each trade.
3) Sum up the total dollar value of all spreads for all trades and add this number it to your current account balance; this is your spread adjusted account balance.
4) Take your spread adjusted current account balance and divide it by your opening balance at beginning of year; the result will be a percentage change.
5) Take your actual current account balance and divide it by your opening balance at beginning of year; the result will be a percentage change.
6) Subtract your spread adjusted year to date percentage change from your actual year to date percentage change.
7) That number should be 100% or more
8) Take the necessary steps as outlined above (1 to 4) and improve your results 100%
Before You Make a Trade: 10 Critical Questions
Articles Library | General Trading Articles | Written by Jim Wyckoff |
Before You Make a Trade: 10 Critical Questions
A "Trading Checklist" of prioritized criteria not only will help you decide when to execute a trade, but will also help you identify potential winning trades.
What kind of stuff should a trader put on a Trading Checklist? That depends on the individual trader. Each trader should have his or her own set of criteria, or rules, that helps determine a market to trade and the direction to trade it--including when to get in and out. Below are my Top 10 rules on my trading checklist.
1. Are shorter-term and longer-term charts in agreement on price trend?
I've told readers for years that this is my No. 1 trading rule. If the weekly, monthly and daily (and sometimes intra-day) bar charts are not in agreement on price trend, I'll likely pass on a trade. I'm usually a trend trader, and the "trend must be my friend" before I make a trade.
2. Is this potential trade within my financial risk tolerance?
To be a successful trader, I not only have to have winning trades, but I must survive the more numerous losing trades I am likely to encounter. If I see a potentially profitable trading "set-up," but the market is too volatile, I'll likely pass on the trade because of the potential for a big drawdown or even a margin call from my broker. An example is the energy markets a couple years ago. They were highly volatile. Certainly, there were some big moves (and trading opportunities for some) in the energies--both up and down. However, when a 75-cent, or more, daily move in crude oil is a "routine" trading session, that market is too volatile for my risk tolerance--at least when trading straight futures.
3. What is the potential risk-reward ratio of the trade?
My risk-reward ratio in a futures trade should be at least three to one on maximum profit potential. In other words, if my risk of loss is $1,000, my maximum profit potential should be at least $3,000. Anything less is not worth making the trade. Now, any eventual profit that is made may not always attain that three-to-one risk-reward ratio, but the point here is there should be the "potential" for a profit three times greater than your capital at risk in the trade.
4. Has there been a price "breakout" from a trading range?
One of my favorite trading "set-ups" is when prices have been in a trading range--between key support and resistance levels--for an extended period of time (the longer, the better). This type of trading range is also called a congestion zone, or a basing area when at historically lower price levels. If the price breaks out of a range (above the key resistance or below the key support), I like to enter the market--long on an upside breakout or short on a downside breakout. A safer method would be to make sure there is follow-through strength or weakness the next trading session--in order to avoid a false breakout. The trade-off there is that I could be missing out on some of the price move by waiting an extra trading session.
5. Is there a potentially good entry point if the trade looks good?
Entry points in trades most times should be based on some type of support or resistance levels in a market. If I see a potential set-up for a long-side trade, I will wait for the market to push up through a resistance level and begin a fledgling uptrend. Then, if I do go long, I'll set my sell stop just below a support level that's not too far below the market. And if the trend does not develop and the market turns back south, I'm stopped out for a loss that's not too painful. Another way to enter a market that is trending (preferably just beginning to trend) is to wait for a minor pullback in an uptrend or an upside correction in a downtrend. Markets don't go straight up or straight down, and there are minor corrections in a trend that offer good entry points. The key is to try to determine if it is indeed just a correction and not the end of the trend.
6. Is there a support or resistance level nearby, at which I can set a protective stop when I enter the trade?
This is my exit strategy, and is one of the most important factors in trading futures. On when to get out of a market, I have a simple, yet very effective method: Upon entering a trade, if I place a sell stop below the market if I'm long (buy stop if I'm short), I know right away approximately how much money I could lose in any given trade. I will never trade straight futures without employing stops. Neither should you. Thus, I will never be in a trade and have a losing position and not know where my exit point is going to be.
7. Do "fundamental" market factors raise any warning flags?
Those who have read my features know I base the majority of my trading decisions on technical indicators and chart analysis--and also on market psychology. However, I do not ignore fundamentals that could impact the markets I'm trading. Neither should you. There are U.S. government economic reports that sometimes have a significant impact on markets. Associations also release reports that impact futures markets. Even private analysts' estimates can move markets. I make it a priority to know, in advance, the release of any scheduled reports or forecasts that have the potential to move the market for which I'm thinking about trading. I don't like surprises when I am in the middle of a trade.
8. What do computer-generated indicators show? (RSI, DMI, Stochastics, etc.)
Some traders use the Directional Movement Indicator (DMI) as a complete trading system. Also, some traders use the Relative Strength Index (RSI), Slow Stochastics or other computer-generated technical indicators solely for determining entry and exit points. I do neither and here’s why: I consider these computer-generated technical indicators to be secondary, yet still important, trading tools. I will use these "secondary tools" to help me confirm or reject ideas that are based on my "primary tools"--which are basic chart patterns, support and resistance levels, trend lines, and fundamental analysis.
9. Do volume and open interest provide any clues?
Most veteran futures traders agree that volume and open interest are also "secondary" technical indicators that help confirm other technical signals on the charts. In other words, traders won't base their trading decisions solely on volume or open interest figures, but will instead use them in conjunction with other technical signals, or to help confirm signals. As a general rule, volume should increase as a trend develops. In an uptrend, volume should be heavier on up-days and lighter on down-days within the trend. In a downtrend, volume should be heavier on down-days and lighter on up-days. Changes in open interest also can be used to help confirm other technical signals. Open interest can help the trader gauge how much new money is flowing into a market, or if money is flowing out of a market. This is helpful when looking at a trending market. Another general trading rule is that if volume and open interest are increasing, then the trend will probably continue in its present direction--either up or down. And if volume and open interest are declining, this can be interpreted as a warning signal that the current trend may be about to end.
10. What is the prevailing general opinion of the market? (Possible contrary thinking.)
When I was working on the trading floors of the major futures exchanges, traders would many times "fade" (or trade against) the featured articles on commodities in the major newspapers, such as the Wall Street Journal. They figured that if the general financial press had picked up on a market (such as a drought driving grain prices higher), then that uptrend must be about over. Contrary opinion in the trading business is defined as going (trading) against the popular or most widely held opinions in the marketplace. This notion of "going against the grain" of popular market opinion is difficult to undertake, especially when there is a steady drumbeat of fundamental information that seems to corroborate the popular opinion. If you've read books on trading markets, most will tell you to have a trading plan and stick with it throughout the trade. A main reason for this trading tenet is to keep you from being swayed or influenced by the opinions of others while you are in the middle of a trade. Popular opinion is many times not the right opinion when it comes to market direction.
Before You Make a Trade: 10 Critical Questions
A "Trading Checklist" of prioritized criteria not only will help you decide when to execute a trade, but will also help you identify potential winning trades.
What kind of stuff should a trader put on a Trading Checklist? That depends on the individual trader. Each trader should have his or her own set of criteria, or rules, that helps determine a market to trade and the direction to trade it--including when to get in and out. Below are my Top 10 rules on my trading checklist.
1. Are shorter-term and longer-term charts in agreement on price trend?
I've told readers for years that this is my No. 1 trading rule. If the weekly, monthly and daily (and sometimes intra-day) bar charts are not in agreement on price trend, I'll likely pass on a trade. I'm usually a trend trader, and the "trend must be my friend" before I make a trade.
2. Is this potential trade within my financial risk tolerance?
To be a successful trader, I not only have to have winning trades, but I must survive the more numerous losing trades I am likely to encounter. If I see a potentially profitable trading "set-up," but the market is too volatile, I'll likely pass on the trade because of the potential for a big drawdown or even a margin call from my broker. An example is the energy markets a couple years ago. They were highly volatile. Certainly, there were some big moves (and trading opportunities for some) in the energies--both up and down. However, when a 75-cent, or more, daily move in crude oil is a "routine" trading session, that market is too volatile for my risk tolerance--at least when trading straight futures.
3. What is the potential risk-reward ratio of the trade?
My risk-reward ratio in a futures trade should be at least three to one on maximum profit potential. In other words, if my risk of loss is $1,000, my maximum profit potential should be at least $3,000. Anything less is not worth making the trade. Now, any eventual profit that is made may not always attain that three-to-one risk-reward ratio, but the point here is there should be the "potential" for a profit three times greater than your capital at risk in the trade.
4. Has there been a price "breakout" from a trading range?
One of my favorite trading "set-ups" is when prices have been in a trading range--between key support and resistance levels--for an extended period of time (the longer, the better). This type of trading range is also called a congestion zone, or a basing area when at historically lower price levels. If the price breaks out of a range (above the key resistance or below the key support), I like to enter the market--long on an upside breakout or short on a downside breakout. A safer method would be to make sure there is follow-through strength or weakness the next trading session--in order to avoid a false breakout. The trade-off there is that I could be missing out on some of the price move by waiting an extra trading session.
5. Is there a potentially good entry point if the trade looks good?
Entry points in trades most times should be based on some type of support or resistance levels in a market. If I see a potential set-up for a long-side trade, I will wait for the market to push up through a resistance level and begin a fledgling uptrend. Then, if I do go long, I'll set my sell stop just below a support level that's not too far below the market. And if the trend does not develop and the market turns back south, I'm stopped out for a loss that's not too painful. Another way to enter a market that is trending (preferably just beginning to trend) is to wait for a minor pullback in an uptrend or an upside correction in a downtrend. Markets don't go straight up or straight down, and there are minor corrections in a trend that offer good entry points. The key is to try to determine if it is indeed just a correction and not the end of the trend.
6. Is there a support or resistance level nearby, at which I can set a protective stop when I enter the trade?
This is my exit strategy, and is one of the most important factors in trading futures. On when to get out of a market, I have a simple, yet very effective method: Upon entering a trade, if I place a sell stop below the market if I'm long (buy stop if I'm short), I know right away approximately how much money I could lose in any given trade. I will never trade straight futures without employing stops. Neither should you. Thus, I will never be in a trade and have a losing position and not know where my exit point is going to be.
7. Do "fundamental" market factors raise any warning flags?
Those who have read my features know I base the majority of my trading decisions on technical indicators and chart analysis--and also on market psychology. However, I do not ignore fundamentals that could impact the markets I'm trading. Neither should you. There are U.S. government economic reports that sometimes have a significant impact on markets. Associations also release reports that impact futures markets. Even private analysts' estimates can move markets. I make it a priority to know, in advance, the release of any scheduled reports or forecasts that have the potential to move the market for which I'm thinking about trading. I don't like surprises when I am in the middle of a trade.
8. What do computer-generated indicators show? (RSI, DMI, Stochastics, etc.)
Some traders use the Directional Movement Indicator (DMI) as a complete trading system. Also, some traders use the Relative Strength Index (RSI), Slow Stochastics or other computer-generated technical indicators solely for determining entry and exit points. I do neither and here’s why: I consider these computer-generated technical indicators to be secondary, yet still important, trading tools. I will use these "secondary tools" to help me confirm or reject ideas that are based on my "primary tools"--which are basic chart patterns, support and resistance levels, trend lines, and fundamental analysis.
9. Do volume and open interest provide any clues?
Most veteran futures traders agree that volume and open interest are also "secondary" technical indicators that help confirm other technical signals on the charts. In other words, traders won't base their trading decisions solely on volume or open interest figures, but will instead use them in conjunction with other technical signals, or to help confirm signals. As a general rule, volume should increase as a trend develops. In an uptrend, volume should be heavier on up-days and lighter on down-days within the trend. In a downtrend, volume should be heavier on down-days and lighter on up-days. Changes in open interest also can be used to help confirm other technical signals. Open interest can help the trader gauge how much new money is flowing into a market, or if money is flowing out of a market. This is helpful when looking at a trending market. Another general trading rule is that if volume and open interest are increasing, then the trend will probably continue in its present direction--either up or down. And if volume and open interest are declining, this can be interpreted as a warning signal that the current trend may be about to end.
10. What is the prevailing general opinion of the market? (Possible contrary thinking.)
When I was working on the trading floors of the major futures exchanges, traders would many times "fade" (or trade against) the featured articles on commodities in the major newspapers, such as the Wall Street Journal. They figured that if the general financial press had picked up on a market (such as a drought driving grain prices higher), then that uptrend must be about over. Contrary opinion in the trading business is defined as going (trading) against the popular or most widely held opinions in the marketplace. This notion of "going against the grain" of popular market opinion is difficult to undertake, especially when there is a steady drumbeat of fundamental information that seems to corroborate the popular opinion. If you've read books on trading markets, most will tell you to have a trading plan and stick with it throughout the trade. A main reason for this trading tenet is to keep you from being swayed or influenced by the opinions of others while you are in the middle of a trade. Popular opinion is many times not the right opinion when it comes to market direction.
11 Fascinating Market Correlations You'll Want to Use
Written by Jim Wyckoff
Experienced futures traders know there are many correlations among futures markets - some of which are valuable guides in helping to determine specific market trends, and some of which are fickle. This educational feature will examine some basic correlations among futures markets, and will likely be most beneficial to the less-experienced traders. However, it just might be a good refresher for the experienced traders who may have forgotten a few of the market correlations.
It is important to emphasize that market correlations are never 100% predictable, and that some market correlations can and do make 180-degree turns over a period of time.
U.S. Dollar-Gold: The gold market and the dollar usually trade in an inverse relationship. This has been the case for many years. During times of U.S. economic prosperity and lower inflation, the dollar will usually benefit as money flows into U.S. paper assets (stocks and bonds), while physical assets (gold) are usually less attractive. Conversely, during times of weaker U.S. economic growth, higher inflation or heightened world economic or political uncertainty, traders and investors will tend to flock out of "paper" assets and into "hard" assets such as gold. Inflation is a bullish phenomenon for gold.
U.S. Dollar-U.S. Treasury Bonds: Usually, a stronger dollar means a stronger bond market because of good demand for U.S. dollars (from overseas investors) to buy U.S. T-Bonds. T-Bonds are also seen as a "flight-to-quality" asset during times of economic or political instability. In the past, the U.S. dollar has also benefited from "flight-to-quality" asset moves. However, since the major terrorist attacks on the U.S. and the resulting damage to the U.S. economy, the safe-haven status of the "greenback" has been much less pronounced.
Crude Oil-U.S. Treasury Bonds: If crude oil prices rally strongly, that is a negative for U.S. T-Bond prices, due to notions that inflationary pressures could reignite and become problematic for the economy. Inflation is the arch enemy of the bond market. Rising crude oil prices are also bullish for the gold market.
CRB-U.S. Treasury Bonds: The CRB Index is a basket of commodities melded into one composite price. A rising CRB index means generally rising commodities prices, and increasing inflation. Thus, a rising CRB Index is negative for U.S. Treasury Bond prices.
U.S. Stock Indexes-U.S. Treasury Bonds: Since the bull market in U.S. stocks ended just over two years ago, stock index futures prices and U.S. Treasury bond futures prices have traded in an inverse relationship. When stock prices are up, bond prices are usually down. However, during the long bull market run that preceded the current bear market, stock and bond prices traded in tandem. In fact, years ago, before all the electronic overnight futures trading had begun, the best way to get a good read on how the stock indexes would open was by early trading in the T-bond market. (T-Bond trading opens 70 minutes before the stock indexes).
Silver-Soybeans: This corollary may be more fiction than fact, at least nowadays. But during the "go-go" days of soaring precious metals and soybean prices, it was said that if soybean futures would lock limit-up, bean traders would buy silver futures.
Cattle-Hogs: The point to mention here is that if strong price gains or losses occur in one meat futures complex, there is likely to be somewhat of a spillover effect in the other meat complex. For example, sharp losses in the cattle or feeder cattle futures will likely weigh on the hogs and pork bellies.
Currency Futures-U.S. Dollar Index: Most major IMM currency futures contracts are "crossed" against the U.S. dollar. Thus, when the majority of the currencies are trading higher, it's very likely that the U.S. Dollar Index will be trading lower. It's a good idea for currency traders to keep a watchful eye on the U.S. Dollar Index, as it's the best barometer for the overall health of the U.S. dollar versus major foreign currencies.
U.S. Stock Indexes-Lumber: Lumber is a very important commodity for the U.S. economy. It is literally a building block for the nation. If the stock market is sharply higher, lumber futures prices will be supported. A big sell off in the stock market will likely find selling pressure on lumber futures.
N.Y. Cocoa-British Pound: London cocoa futures trading is as important (or even more important) than New York cocoa futures trading, on a worldwide basis. London cocoa futures trading is conducted in the British pound currency. Thus, big fluctuations in the pound sterling will impact the price of U.S. cocoa futures, due to the cross-currency fluctuations of the British pound versus the U.S. dollar. Keep in mind there is constantly arbitrage taking place between the New York and London cocoa markets, and thus the currency cross-rates between the pound and the dollar are very important.
Grains-U.S. Dollar Index: A weaker U.S. dollar will be an underlying positive for the U.S. grain futures markets because it makes U.S. grain exports more competitive (cheaper prices) on the world market. Larger-degree trends in the U.S. dollar will have a larger-degree impact on the grains.
Experienced futures traders know there are many correlations among futures markets - some of which are valuable guides in helping to determine specific market trends, and some of which are fickle. This educational feature will examine some basic correlations among futures markets, and will likely be most beneficial to the less-experienced traders. However, it just might be a good refresher for the experienced traders who may have forgotten a few of the market correlations.
It is important to emphasize that market correlations are never 100% predictable, and that some market correlations can and do make 180-degree turns over a period of time.
U.S. Dollar-Gold: The gold market and the dollar usually trade in an inverse relationship. This has been the case for many years. During times of U.S. economic prosperity and lower inflation, the dollar will usually benefit as money flows into U.S. paper assets (stocks and bonds), while physical assets (gold) are usually less attractive. Conversely, during times of weaker U.S. economic growth, higher inflation or heightened world economic or political uncertainty, traders and investors will tend to flock out of "paper" assets and into "hard" assets such as gold. Inflation is a bullish phenomenon for gold.
U.S. Dollar-U.S. Treasury Bonds: Usually, a stronger dollar means a stronger bond market because of good demand for U.S. dollars (from overseas investors) to buy U.S. T-Bonds. T-Bonds are also seen as a "flight-to-quality" asset during times of economic or political instability. In the past, the U.S. dollar has also benefited from "flight-to-quality" asset moves. However, since the major terrorist attacks on the U.S. and the resulting damage to the U.S. economy, the safe-haven status of the "greenback" has been much less pronounced.
Crude Oil-U.S. Treasury Bonds: If crude oil prices rally strongly, that is a negative for U.S. T-Bond prices, due to notions that inflationary pressures could reignite and become problematic for the economy. Inflation is the arch enemy of the bond market. Rising crude oil prices are also bullish for the gold market.
CRB-U.S. Treasury Bonds: The CRB Index is a basket of commodities melded into one composite price. A rising CRB index means generally rising commodities prices, and increasing inflation. Thus, a rising CRB Index is negative for U.S. Treasury Bond prices.
U.S. Stock Indexes-U.S. Treasury Bonds: Since the bull market in U.S. stocks ended just over two years ago, stock index futures prices and U.S. Treasury bond futures prices have traded in an inverse relationship. When stock prices are up, bond prices are usually down. However, during the long bull market run that preceded the current bear market, stock and bond prices traded in tandem. In fact, years ago, before all the electronic overnight futures trading had begun, the best way to get a good read on how the stock indexes would open was by early trading in the T-bond market. (T-Bond trading opens 70 minutes before the stock indexes).
Silver-Soybeans: This corollary may be more fiction than fact, at least nowadays. But during the "go-go" days of soaring precious metals and soybean prices, it was said that if soybean futures would lock limit-up, bean traders would buy silver futures.
Cattle-Hogs: The point to mention here is that if strong price gains or losses occur in one meat futures complex, there is likely to be somewhat of a spillover effect in the other meat complex. For example, sharp losses in the cattle or feeder cattle futures will likely weigh on the hogs and pork bellies.
Currency Futures-U.S. Dollar Index: Most major IMM currency futures contracts are "crossed" against the U.S. dollar. Thus, when the majority of the currencies are trading higher, it's very likely that the U.S. Dollar Index will be trading lower. It's a good idea for currency traders to keep a watchful eye on the U.S. Dollar Index, as it's the best barometer for the overall health of the U.S. dollar versus major foreign currencies.
U.S. Stock Indexes-Lumber: Lumber is a very important commodity for the U.S. economy. It is literally a building block for the nation. If the stock market is sharply higher, lumber futures prices will be supported. A big sell off in the stock market will likely find selling pressure on lumber futures.
N.Y. Cocoa-British Pound: London cocoa futures trading is as important (or even more important) than New York cocoa futures trading, on a worldwide basis. London cocoa futures trading is conducted in the British pound currency. Thus, big fluctuations in the pound sterling will impact the price of U.S. cocoa futures, due to the cross-currency fluctuations of the British pound versus the U.S. dollar. Keep in mind there is constantly arbitrage taking place between the New York and London cocoa markets, and thus the currency cross-rates between the pound and the dollar are very important.
Grains-U.S. Dollar Index: A weaker U.S. dollar will be an underlying positive for the U.S. grain futures markets because it makes U.S. grain exports more competitive (cheaper prices) on the world market. Larger-degree trends in the U.S. dollar will have a larger-degree impact on the grains.
Don't Hold Your Breath Too Long While Under Water
The headline of this educational feature pertains not to swimming but to trading. Most professional traders do not hold onto their losing positions for very long. Once a trading position goes "under water" most professional traders will immediately begin looking for an exit strategy-if they do not already have one in place (and most do) via protective stops.
I had lunch with my trading mentor the other day and he shared a very good story with me. It went something like this: There once was a trader whose trading decisions were based upon using a "plumb-bob." (For those who have never worked on a construction site or in the land-surveying business, a plumb-bob is a turnip-shaped weight that is attached to a string to help determine if a structure is straight.) When this trader dangled the plumb-bob and it swung back and forth from north to south, he would buy. If the trader dangled the plumb-bob and it swung back and forth from east to west, he would sell. The trader had success using this methodology--with one simple rule applied: At the end of the first day, if his position was "under water," he exited his trade first thing the next trading day.
The moral of the story is: Traders can (and do) have all kinds of trading strategies, but prudent money management is paramount. In other words, cut losses short!
Over the years I have received emails and telephone calls from traders who were way "under water" and had not prudently liquidated their losing trading positions. These traders were "hoping" the markets would turn around and losses would be reversed. Any time a trader has losses which are so big that "hope" comes into play, it's usually a situation where prudent money management has not been employed.
It's also important to mention that traders who know they have waited way too long to exit a losing position should not think already-big losses can't get even bigger--much bigger. I've heard many traders say, "Well, I've lost so much already that now I might as well wait for the market to turn around because it can't go much farther against me." That's a recipe for disaster and potential financial ruin. This is where the saying, "Never meet a margin call" comes into play. If a trader gets a margin call from his or her broker, it's best just to close out the losing position and look for trading opportunities in other markets.
I've often mentioned the old trading adage: "A market will do anything and everything possible to frustrate the largest amount of traders." Guess who are the traders that get most frustrated? It's the ones who are hanging on to losing trading positions, waiting and hoping for the market to turn around so they can get their money back. "I just want to get back to even" is a desperate quote that comes from some traders who are under water. That "hope" is usually never realized.
One of the most interesting aspects of trading futures is that there are a few basic and effective rules that have been used by successful traders for years. However, adhering to these rules on a continual basis can be most difficult for many traders--including the experienced veterans. Why is this? It is because some of the most effective rules in futures trading go against the grain of human nature. Indeed, the "psychology of trading" plays such an important role in trading success.
Jim Wyckoff
I had lunch with my trading mentor the other day and he shared a very good story with me. It went something like this: There once was a trader whose trading decisions were based upon using a "plumb-bob." (For those who have never worked on a construction site or in the land-surveying business, a plumb-bob is a turnip-shaped weight that is attached to a string to help determine if a structure is straight.) When this trader dangled the plumb-bob and it swung back and forth from north to south, he would buy. If the trader dangled the plumb-bob and it swung back and forth from east to west, he would sell. The trader had success using this methodology--with one simple rule applied: At the end of the first day, if his position was "under water," he exited his trade first thing the next trading day.
The moral of the story is: Traders can (and do) have all kinds of trading strategies, but prudent money management is paramount. In other words, cut losses short!
Over the years I have received emails and telephone calls from traders who were way "under water" and had not prudently liquidated their losing trading positions. These traders were "hoping" the markets would turn around and losses would be reversed. Any time a trader has losses which are so big that "hope" comes into play, it's usually a situation where prudent money management has not been employed.
It's also important to mention that traders who know they have waited way too long to exit a losing position should not think already-big losses can't get even bigger--much bigger. I've heard many traders say, "Well, I've lost so much already that now I might as well wait for the market to turn around because it can't go much farther against me." That's a recipe for disaster and potential financial ruin. This is where the saying, "Never meet a margin call" comes into play. If a trader gets a margin call from his or her broker, it's best just to close out the losing position and look for trading opportunities in other markets.
I've often mentioned the old trading adage: "A market will do anything and everything possible to frustrate the largest amount of traders." Guess who are the traders that get most frustrated? It's the ones who are hanging on to losing trading positions, waiting and hoping for the market to turn around so they can get their money back. "I just want to get back to even" is a desperate quote that comes from some traders who are under water. That "hope" is usually never realized.
One of the most interesting aspects of trading futures is that there are a few basic and effective rules that have been used by successful traders for years. However, adhering to these rules on a continual basis can be most difficult for many traders--including the experienced veterans. Why is this? It is because some of the most effective rules in futures trading go against the grain of human nature. Indeed, the "psychology of trading" plays such an important role in trading success.
Jim Wyckoff
Seven Time-Tested Money Management Rules to Insure Survival over the Long Run
Articles Library | Money Management Articles | Written by Robert Colby |
Seven Time-Tested Money Management Rules to Insure Survival over the Long Run
1. Always Preserve Capital. Traders should limit loss to 1% of total capital for any one position.
2. Always trade in the direction of the larger trends, with the most emphasis on the Primary Tide that lasts many months or years. In a Bull Market, look only for opportunities to enter long and close long. In a Bear Market, look only for opportunities to enter short and close short.
3. Always use Actual Stops. Short-term traders should limit losses to a maximum 2% for each position. Longer-term traders and investors should limit losses to 7.2% on the long side and 8.4% on the short side for each position. (See my book, Swing Filter, pages 680-681, and Cycles, pages 178-179.)
4. Always exit losing positions before the close of the day for short-term Ripple traders (with a time horizon measured in days). Longer-term traders should also set a time stop appropriate to the cycle they are trying to capture, in order to avoid tying up capital in positions that are not moving as expected. (See my book, Cycles of Time and Price, pages 176-188.)
5. Always consider Bet Size and Diversification. Commit a maximum of 5% of total capital to any one position.
6. Always calculate your Reward/Risk Ratio. Enter a position only when your analysis indicates 3 points of potential reward for 1 point of risk.
7. Always take a time out from trading any time you lose 5% of your capital. This breaks bad momentum and limits negative spirals into deep holes. It gives us time to calmly reevaluate the situation. A few days off helps clear the head. A time out helps limit revenge trading. The desperate attempt to quickly make back the loss most often causes even more trouble.
Capital conservation should be the first rule in trading and investing. Capital takes time to accumulate, but it can disappear fast if the technical trading rules are not well known and respected. Beginners particularly would be well advised to take these rules to heart and to start trading only a small fraction of their capital using the minimum size orders until they acquire their real-time market education as inexpensively as possible. Ignore this, and the tuition could be substantial.
Seven Time-Tested Money Management Rules to Insure Survival over the Long Run
1. Always Preserve Capital. Traders should limit loss to 1% of total capital for any one position.
2. Always trade in the direction of the larger trends, with the most emphasis on the Primary Tide that lasts many months or years. In a Bull Market, look only for opportunities to enter long and close long. In a Bear Market, look only for opportunities to enter short and close short.
3. Always use Actual Stops. Short-term traders should limit losses to a maximum 2% for each position. Longer-term traders and investors should limit losses to 7.2% on the long side and 8.4% on the short side for each position. (See my book, Swing Filter, pages 680-681, and Cycles, pages 178-179.)
4. Always exit losing positions before the close of the day for short-term Ripple traders (with a time horizon measured in days). Longer-term traders should also set a time stop appropriate to the cycle they are trying to capture, in order to avoid tying up capital in positions that are not moving as expected. (See my book, Cycles of Time and Price, pages 176-188.)
5. Always consider Bet Size and Diversification. Commit a maximum of 5% of total capital to any one position.
6. Always calculate your Reward/Risk Ratio. Enter a position only when your analysis indicates 3 points of potential reward for 1 point of risk.
7. Always take a time out from trading any time you lose 5% of your capital. This breaks bad momentum and limits negative spirals into deep holes. It gives us time to calmly reevaluate the situation. A few days off helps clear the head. A time out helps limit revenge trading. The desperate attempt to quickly make back the loss most often causes even more trouble.
Capital conservation should be the first rule in trading and investing. Capital takes time to accumulate, but it can disappear fast if the technical trading rules are not well known and respected. Beginners particularly would be well advised to take these rules to heart and to start trading only a small fraction of their capital using the minimum size orders until they acquire their real-time market education as inexpensively as possible. Ignore this, and the tuition could be substantial.
Some Practical Thoughts About Money Management
Articles Library | Money Management Articles | Written by Chuck LeBeau |
We get a lot of questions about various complex money management (MM) formulas and our preferences. We don't comment on this subject very often because money management is such a personal issue that it would be impossible to give any universal advice that would be specific enough to have value. Everyone seems to have different goals and tolerances for risk, not to mention varying amounts of capital for trading.
However we do have some basic thoughts and opinions that might be helpful in picking a suitable MM strategy that will help you to become a winner.
Be careful about trying to use formulas that are designed to optimize the returns. In my experience I have found that the most successful traders, over the long run, are not seeking to maximize their returns. The best traders are always seeking to carefully control their risks and to achieve as much consistency as possible. They look for methods to achieve consistent returns with low drawdowns and they are willing to accept smaller returns in the process. My policy has always been to worry about the risk and the consistency first and then to accept whatever returns that prudent approach will allow. I'm sure I will never win any trading contests and I have never bothered to enter one. In my opinion, no one should ever trade like the winner of a trading contest. I apologize for getting off on a different subject here. Lets get back on track and talk about trading in the only contest that matters - the trading that you do every day.
In recent years the strategy of risking a small percentage of capital on each trade has become quite popular and deservedly so. This MM strategy, often referred to as fixed fractional trading, reduces our dollar amount of risk as we experience losses and increases our risk level as we earn profits. The possibility of ever going to zero with such a strategy is virtually nonexistent. However this strategy has an inherent weakness that tends to constantly work against us. If we assume an equal number of winners or losers in a sequence this popular strategy produces net losses if the winners are not larger than the losers. To keep things very simple lets just look at a series of five wins followed by five losses with the wins being equal to the amount we risk. Lets also keep the math really simple and begin with starting capital of 100 and risk 5% of our current capital on each trade. I think that most traders would assume that if they had five losers followed by five winners they would be even. Unfortunately that is not the case.
Here are the numbers: Risk is always 5% of current capital. (I'm going to round the numbers to two decimals.)
Capital $ Risk W/L Account balance
100.0 5.00 L 95.00
95.00 4.75 L 90.25
90.25 4.51 L 85.74
85.74 4.29 L 81.45
81.45 4.07 L 77.38
OK we are already tired of losing. Let's have five winners in a row and see if we can get our money back.
Capital $ Risk W/L Account balance
77.38 3.87 W 81.25
81.25 4.06 W 85.31
85.31 4.27 W 89.58
89.58 4.48 W 94.06
94.06 4.70 W 98.76
As you can see we had an equal number of winners and losers yet somehow we lost money. Perhaps it is because we had bad luck and got started in the wrong direction. Lets reverse the sequence of trades so that we start out on a winning streak instead of losing. Maybe that will help.
Capital $ Risk W/L Account balance
100.00 5.00 W 105.00
105.00 5.25 W 110.25
110.25 5.51 W 115.76
115.76 5.79 W 121.55
121.55 6.08 W 127.63
Looks good so far. Starting off with winners looks much better than starting with losses. But now we have five losers coming up.
Capital $ Risk W/L Account balance
127.63 6.38 L 121.25
121.25 6.06 L 115.19
115.19 5.76 L 109.43
109.43 5.47 L 103.96
103.96 5.20 L 98.76
Hmmm. It doesn't seem to matter if we start out with a string of winners or a string of losses. Somehow we wound up losing the same amount of money either way.
Obviously we don't have a very good system at work here but it is not a losing system. With the proper MM strategy we should break even. Our winning trades are only equal to our risk and to have a winning system the winners need to be bigger than the losers. We are winning on only half of our trades and we would be profitable if we could win on more than half. Even though our system is not a good one you would think that it would at least be a breakeven proposition (we haven't included any costs) because the winners are always equal to the amount at risk and we win 50% of the time. That sounds like a breakeven system, doesn't it? But if we employ the popular money management strategy of risking a fixed percentage of our current capital we manage to turn the system into a loser. However, if we risked a fixed dollar amount on each trade the system results would improve and we would break even.
The fixed percentage of risk approach to MM is a good one because it keeps us from going broke and it compounds our profits rapidly. Both of those are desirable characteristics but we need to be aware that they come at a price. We should realize that our recovery from drawdowns might not be as fast as we would like and that we can give back profits even faster than we made them.
One strategy that can help solve the problem of giving back the profits too rapidly is to periodically sweep some of the profits out of the account and place them in some other place where they are adding to our diversification and reducing our risk. Now and then we should take some of the profits out and spend them on something that improves our quality of life. This important step gives the dollars at stake a new meaning and boosts our morale tremendously. What is the point of winning and losing and accumulating profits only to give them back at some later date? If we make it a practice to routinely sweep some of the profits our account will continue to grow but it will be compounding at a slower rate than if we left our profits at risk. However if we stumble into a losing streak we will be glad that we took out some of the profits and reduced our bet size.
If we are good traders and we make it a practice to withdraw some of our profits on a regular basis we will eventually reach the point where we have taken out more than we started with. There are very few traders, particularly in futures, who can claim that they have truly beaten the market. Until you have taken out more than you started with the market can still beat you. Trading futures is a zero sum game and winners are few and far between. Taking out profits now and then rather than getting carried away trying to optimize the gains to infinity is contrary to what is being taught these days. Everyone is obsessed with finding formulas to optimize the returns. We need to remember that the trader who has the optimum gains today could easily be tomorrow's biggest loser. That is a game we don't need to play.
I think we all need to take a step or two back and look at the big picture. Trading is not really just a game. The money is real. Lets make sure that we are true winners and not just habitual players. Take some profits now and then and put them out of harms way. When we have done this I can assure you that the game is a lot more fun and our trading will improve. Nothing builds confidence like knowing for sure that you are indeed a winner.
Good Luck and Good Trading
We get a lot of questions about various complex money management (MM) formulas and our preferences. We don't comment on this subject very often because money management is such a personal issue that it would be impossible to give any universal advice that would be specific enough to have value. Everyone seems to have different goals and tolerances for risk, not to mention varying amounts of capital for trading.
However we do have some basic thoughts and opinions that might be helpful in picking a suitable MM strategy that will help you to become a winner.
Be careful about trying to use formulas that are designed to optimize the returns. In my experience I have found that the most successful traders, over the long run, are not seeking to maximize their returns. The best traders are always seeking to carefully control their risks and to achieve as much consistency as possible. They look for methods to achieve consistent returns with low drawdowns and they are willing to accept smaller returns in the process. My policy has always been to worry about the risk and the consistency first and then to accept whatever returns that prudent approach will allow. I'm sure I will never win any trading contests and I have never bothered to enter one. In my opinion, no one should ever trade like the winner of a trading contest. I apologize for getting off on a different subject here. Lets get back on track and talk about trading in the only contest that matters - the trading that you do every day.
In recent years the strategy of risking a small percentage of capital on each trade has become quite popular and deservedly so. This MM strategy, often referred to as fixed fractional trading, reduces our dollar amount of risk as we experience losses and increases our risk level as we earn profits. The possibility of ever going to zero with such a strategy is virtually nonexistent. However this strategy has an inherent weakness that tends to constantly work against us. If we assume an equal number of winners or losers in a sequence this popular strategy produces net losses if the winners are not larger than the losers. To keep things very simple lets just look at a series of five wins followed by five losses with the wins being equal to the amount we risk. Lets also keep the math really simple and begin with starting capital of 100 and risk 5% of our current capital on each trade. I think that most traders would assume that if they had five losers followed by five winners they would be even. Unfortunately that is not the case.
Here are the numbers: Risk is always 5% of current capital. (I'm going to round the numbers to two decimals.)
Capital $ Risk W/L Account balance
100.0 5.00 L 95.00
95.00 4.75 L 90.25
90.25 4.51 L 85.74
85.74 4.29 L 81.45
81.45 4.07 L 77.38
OK we are already tired of losing. Let's have five winners in a row and see if we can get our money back.
Capital $ Risk W/L Account balance
77.38 3.87 W 81.25
81.25 4.06 W 85.31
85.31 4.27 W 89.58
89.58 4.48 W 94.06
94.06 4.70 W 98.76
As you can see we had an equal number of winners and losers yet somehow we lost money. Perhaps it is because we had bad luck and got started in the wrong direction. Lets reverse the sequence of trades so that we start out on a winning streak instead of losing. Maybe that will help.
Capital $ Risk W/L Account balance
100.00 5.00 W 105.00
105.00 5.25 W 110.25
110.25 5.51 W 115.76
115.76 5.79 W 121.55
121.55 6.08 W 127.63
Looks good so far. Starting off with winners looks much better than starting with losses. But now we have five losers coming up.
Capital $ Risk W/L Account balance
127.63 6.38 L 121.25
121.25 6.06 L 115.19
115.19 5.76 L 109.43
109.43 5.47 L 103.96
103.96 5.20 L 98.76
Hmmm. It doesn't seem to matter if we start out with a string of winners or a string of losses. Somehow we wound up losing the same amount of money either way.
Obviously we don't have a very good system at work here but it is not a losing system. With the proper MM strategy we should break even. Our winning trades are only equal to our risk and to have a winning system the winners need to be bigger than the losers. We are winning on only half of our trades and we would be profitable if we could win on more than half. Even though our system is not a good one you would think that it would at least be a breakeven proposition (we haven't included any costs) because the winners are always equal to the amount at risk and we win 50% of the time. That sounds like a breakeven system, doesn't it? But if we employ the popular money management strategy of risking a fixed percentage of our current capital we manage to turn the system into a loser. However, if we risked a fixed dollar amount on each trade the system results would improve and we would break even.
The fixed percentage of risk approach to MM is a good one because it keeps us from going broke and it compounds our profits rapidly. Both of those are desirable characteristics but we need to be aware that they come at a price. We should realize that our recovery from drawdowns might not be as fast as we would like and that we can give back profits even faster than we made them.
One strategy that can help solve the problem of giving back the profits too rapidly is to periodically sweep some of the profits out of the account and place them in some other place where they are adding to our diversification and reducing our risk. Now and then we should take some of the profits out and spend them on something that improves our quality of life. This important step gives the dollars at stake a new meaning and boosts our morale tremendously. What is the point of winning and losing and accumulating profits only to give them back at some later date? If we make it a practice to routinely sweep some of the profits our account will continue to grow but it will be compounding at a slower rate than if we left our profits at risk. However if we stumble into a losing streak we will be glad that we took out some of the profits and reduced our bet size.
If we are good traders and we make it a practice to withdraw some of our profits on a regular basis we will eventually reach the point where we have taken out more than we started with. There are very few traders, particularly in futures, who can claim that they have truly beaten the market. Until you have taken out more than you started with the market can still beat you. Trading futures is a zero sum game and winners are few and far between. Taking out profits now and then rather than getting carried away trying to optimize the gains to infinity is contrary to what is being taught these days. Everyone is obsessed with finding formulas to optimize the returns. We need to remember that the trader who has the optimum gains today could easily be tomorrow's biggest loser. That is a game we don't need to play.
I think we all need to take a step or two back and look at the big picture. Trading is not really just a game. The money is real. Lets make sure that we are true winners and not just habitual players. Take some profits now and then and put them out of harms way. When we have done this I can assure you that the game is a lot more fun and our trading will improve. Nothing builds confidence like knowing for sure that you are indeed a winner.
Good Luck and Good Trading
I See The Future And The Successful Trader Is Me!
"Mental Fitness for Traders" Series Article Six
Believe it or not, it's true what they say …
Visualizing your future the way you want it, is much more likely to make that future a reality.
I'm a "doubter" by nature and this notion of visualizing didn't really make much sense to me when I heard about it the first hundred times.
I mean, come on!
Sit in a quiet place and wish and hope and pray and all your dreams will come true? I think not. That's what my mathematician brain told me (University of Cincinnati, 1973, BA Mathematics).
Then I met a subconscious trainer (whom I later married), who sat me down and stated, "Thoughts are things."
OK, what kind of things?
I've seen Kreskin and other guys bending spoons with their thoughts… it that what she means?
Rather than give you the entire exchange of words (I don't know that I remember all of them, as I was falling in love while I was listening), I'll give you the capsule.
According to her, there is this stream of consciousness somewhere up there that you can plug into, and then, by directing your thoughts, you can harness this consciousness somehow to get what you want (as long as what you want is positive… you can't wish someone a losing trade!).
This, combined with the notion that time, as we know it, is not linear, we can affect the future from the present through this universal consciousness!
That's all I'll say about that.
Excuse me while I hug a tree…
I'm back.
I don't know that I understand all of this, let alone believe it, but I'll tell you one thing I DO KNOW…
If you get your brain into an alpha brain wave state and you tell yourself (of have someone else suggest to you) what you'd like to happen in the future, say, the picture of you as a successful trader… you WILL head in the direction of that picture you've created in your head.
At least that's what happened to me, and just about every successful trader I know.
There are different ways to visualize. During a quiet time (I know You can't imagine any quiet time… so start while seated in the bathroom), …
Now, just see yourself living the "Life of Riley" (am I showing my age… for those of you that don't recognize that phase, it means "the good life) and having people around you recognize you as that successful trader whom everybody is talking about.
You can move up the effectiveness ladder (get off the pot?) as you get used to the notion of visualization and get more and moreaffective with your thinking, but the idea is to get started.
Once you start creating pictures of the money-bulging-pocketed-successful-trader-you, you will actually become less likely to allow your emotions to lead you to trading mistakes… because…"doing the wrong thing", like pulling your stops when the market comes close to them, or not taking your profit when your system tells you to, becomes inconsistent with your picture of who you are.
Eventually, if you keep up your visualizations, you become that picture.
Now THAT makes sense!
Norman Hallett, was a very successful Trader/CTA for 21 years and is currently the President of Subconscious Training Corporation in Parkland, Florida. "TradingMind Software" is one of his company's most respected software titles
Believe it or not, it's true what they say …
Visualizing your future the way you want it, is much more likely to make that future a reality.
I'm a "doubter" by nature and this notion of visualizing didn't really make much sense to me when I heard about it the first hundred times.
I mean, come on!
Sit in a quiet place and wish and hope and pray and all your dreams will come true? I think not. That's what my mathematician brain told me (University of Cincinnati, 1973, BA Mathematics).
Then I met a subconscious trainer (whom I later married), who sat me down and stated, "Thoughts are things."
OK, what kind of things?
I've seen Kreskin and other guys bending spoons with their thoughts… it that what she means?
Rather than give you the entire exchange of words (I don't know that I remember all of them, as I was falling in love while I was listening), I'll give you the capsule.
According to her, there is this stream of consciousness somewhere up there that you can plug into, and then, by directing your thoughts, you can harness this consciousness somehow to get what you want (as long as what you want is positive… you can't wish someone a losing trade!).
This, combined with the notion that time, as we know it, is not linear, we can affect the future from the present through this universal consciousness!
That's all I'll say about that.
Excuse me while I hug a tree…
I'm back.
I don't know that I understand all of this, let alone believe it, but I'll tell you one thing I DO KNOW…
If you get your brain into an alpha brain wave state and you tell yourself (of have someone else suggest to you) what you'd like to happen in the future, say, the picture of you as a successful trader… you WILL head in the direction of that picture you've created in your head.
At least that's what happened to me, and just about every successful trader I know.
There are different ways to visualize. During a quiet time (I know You can't imagine any quiet time… so start while seated in the bathroom), …
Now, just see yourself living the "Life of Riley" (am I showing my age… for those of you that don't recognize that phase, it means "the good life) and having people around you recognize you as that successful trader whom everybody is talking about.
You can move up the effectiveness ladder (get off the pot?) as you get used to the notion of visualization and get more and moreaffective with your thinking, but the idea is to get started.
Once you start creating pictures of the money-bulging-pocketed-successful-trader-you, you will actually become less likely to allow your emotions to lead you to trading mistakes… because…"doing the wrong thing", like pulling your stops when the market comes close to them, or not taking your profit when your system tells you to, becomes inconsistent with your picture of who you are.
Eventually, if you keep up your visualizations, you become that picture.
Now THAT makes sense!
Norman Hallett, was a very successful Trader/CTA for 21 years and is currently the President of Subconscious Training Corporation in Parkland, Florida. "TradingMind Software" is one of his company's most respected software titles
Develop a System that Fits You.
by : Van K. Tharp, Ph.D.
My book, Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom, is all about the subject of system development. It's about constructing a system that fits you, and then testing that system so that you have confidence in it. Confidence in your system is a part of having faith. Following is a quote from the conclusion of the book in which I was having a conversation.
"Nothing is exact. You can never know how it will really turn out. Instead, trading is very much a game of discipline, of being in touch with the flow of the markets, and of being able to capitalize upon that flow. People who can do that can make a lot of money in the markets.
Why test at all?
"So you can get an understanding of what works and what doesn't work. You shouldn't believe everything I've told you. Instead, you need to prove to yourself that something is true. When something seems reasonably true, then you can develop some confidence in using it. You must have that confidence or you'll be lost when are dealing with the markets.
"You probably cannot be exact. But no science is exact. People used to think that physics was exact, but now we know that the very act of measuring something changes the nature of the observation. Whatever it is, you are a part of it. You cannot help that because it probably is the nature of reality. And it again illustrates my point about the search for the Holy Grail System being an inner search."- page 317
Faith is empowerment. The primary source of faith is from God. This involves opening up your heart and mind to your spiritual nature. It is tuning into the God Presence within you. When you realize that an Infinite Presence is the source of your faith, it gives your faith real power. Your system is not the source of your abundance or of your trading success-the God Presence within you is the source of that success. Understanding and truly believing that principle is the basis of real faith.
Now when I talk about God, I’m dealing with spiritual beliefs. These beliefs are at the core of most human beings (even when you think you don’t believe in God) and who they are. People fight wars over spiritual beliefs. They fly airplanes into buildings over spiritual beliefs. Thus, I know I’m treating on sensitive ground here. However, if you don’t like the way I’ve phrased the beliefs, then rephrase them to fit your own beliefs. The beliefs I’m giving you are very useful if you use them and apply them. With that said, let’s go on.
When you have confidence in that God Presence assisting you, then you'll begin to develop a lot more confidence in yourself. Lastly, when you develop confidence in yourself, then you'll develop extensive confidence in your system and your ability to make money from your system. However, none of this works as real faith without thoroughly understanding the Source of everything.
Assignment for the Week:
Spend 20 minutes meditating each day. At the beginning of that meditation, affirm your source. You might say something like,
"God's magnificence is empowering me now. It is closer to me than my breath. It fills me with Love, Abundance, and all that I desire. I know that it is the Source of All my Good and I give thanks for Its Presence."
Repeat the thought several times until it becomes a part of you and then spend 20 minutes in silence. If you become distracted, simply repeat the thought.
When you trade, remember the Source of your abundance and have faith in that source. Remember that the God Presence within You is your Source, not the next trade. Notice what impact this thought has upon your trading.
Much success to you and let me know about your experiences in practicing this all-important principle.
My book, Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom, is all about the subject of system development. It's about constructing a system that fits you, and then testing that system so that you have confidence in it. Confidence in your system is a part of having faith. Following is a quote from the conclusion of the book in which I was having a conversation.
"Nothing is exact. You can never know how it will really turn out. Instead, trading is very much a game of discipline, of being in touch with the flow of the markets, and of being able to capitalize upon that flow. People who can do that can make a lot of money in the markets.
Why test at all?
"So you can get an understanding of what works and what doesn't work. You shouldn't believe everything I've told you. Instead, you need to prove to yourself that something is true. When something seems reasonably true, then you can develop some confidence in using it. You must have that confidence or you'll be lost when are dealing with the markets.
"You probably cannot be exact. But no science is exact. People used to think that physics was exact, but now we know that the very act of measuring something changes the nature of the observation. Whatever it is, you are a part of it. You cannot help that because it probably is the nature of reality. And it again illustrates my point about the search for the Holy Grail System being an inner search."- page 317
Faith is empowerment. The primary source of faith is from God. This involves opening up your heart and mind to your spiritual nature. It is tuning into the God Presence within you. When you realize that an Infinite Presence is the source of your faith, it gives your faith real power. Your system is not the source of your abundance or of your trading success-the God Presence within you is the source of that success. Understanding and truly believing that principle is the basis of real faith.
Now when I talk about God, I’m dealing with spiritual beliefs. These beliefs are at the core of most human beings (even when you think you don’t believe in God) and who they are. People fight wars over spiritual beliefs. They fly airplanes into buildings over spiritual beliefs. Thus, I know I’m treating on sensitive ground here. However, if you don’t like the way I’ve phrased the beliefs, then rephrase them to fit your own beliefs. The beliefs I’m giving you are very useful if you use them and apply them. With that said, let’s go on.
When you have confidence in that God Presence assisting you, then you'll begin to develop a lot more confidence in yourself. Lastly, when you develop confidence in yourself, then you'll develop extensive confidence in your system and your ability to make money from your system. However, none of this works as real faith without thoroughly understanding the Source of everything.
Assignment for the Week:
Spend 20 minutes meditating each day. At the beginning of that meditation, affirm your source. You might say something like,
"God's magnificence is empowering me now. It is closer to me than my breath. It fills me with Love, Abundance, and all that I desire. I know that it is the Source of All my Good and I give thanks for Its Presence."
Repeat the thought several times until it becomes a part of you and then spend 20 minutes in silence. If you become distracted, simply repeat the thought.
When you trade, remember the Source of your abundance and have faith in that source. Remember that the God Presence within You is your Source, not the next trade. Notice what impact this thought has upon your trading.
Much success to you and let me know about your experiences in practicing this all-important principle.
myLot User Profile
Forget Gurus… Your Experiences Are The ONLY Ones That Count
by Norman Hallett
You read about the Gurus of trading.
There's a group of them that started with their last few dollars and ran it up to millions because of a simple strategy they can teach you.
There's another group of Gurus that claim hard work, long study and signing up for their newsletter will lead you to where you want to go.
All Gurus want you to "learn from their mistakes."
They ask, "Why should you make all the mistakes I've made, when you can benefit from my experiences?"
Now being somewhat of a Guru myself, I think there IS a certain truth to this query, but not the way you probably think.
Other trader's experiences can make you aware of what to expect as you embark upon your trading.
Knowing what to expect should translate into having less "blindside" occurrences.
However, when you come across the forewarned learning experience, emotions will come up. These emotional situations (fear, overconfidence, freezing) are up to YOU to handle.
Here, if your going to be a successful trader, is where the learning takes place… in dealing with your emotions so that you can follow your trading plan.
If you blow the situation, your supposed learn from it and go on.
And learn from it, you must... or even the best trading system won't save you from doom.
Your Mental Toughness is going to be the key to whether you make it or break it as a trader. I know of two MAJOR things that you can do to develop your Mental Toughness for trading.
The first is to keep a Journal.
I know that sounds like work, and who wants more paperwork at the end of the trading day?
However, soon after you force yourself to start writing down your day's trading experiences, you will see the power of the technique.
It becomes the place where you will be honest with yourself. You'll find after just a week or so of keeping a Journal of your trading experiences, mistakes and all… especially mistakes… that when you are confronted with a trading situation that you blew before… in the back of your head you'll knoq that if you do the same stupid thing again you're going to have to report it to yourself… in your Journal… and…THAT will give you the strength to "do the right thing."
That's the power of keeping a Journal.
Whether you just buy a spiral notebook (like I do) and start writing, or you make it a religious experience and buy something leather-bound…
You will find that the discipline of keeping a journal, is a practice that will flat-out make you a better trader.
The other way to get Mentally Tough is to train your mind with as much intention as exibit when you test and run your trading system.
There are a few psychologists I've bumped into over the years that seem to have enough of a handle on what training is … so they may be qualified to help a trader.
But I prefer the process of literally programming the mind for discipline and focus, via putting the mind in an alpha brainwave state and then submitting the right suggestions to it.
If you were to learn the simple rudiments of self-hypnosis, that, in my opinion, would be a great way to go.
This way you could tell yourself exactly what you wanted!
This is what Tiger Woods does for his golf game. Why not do something similar with your trading?
Mental Toughness is my business.
Make it part of yours.
Keep a journal. Feed your mind.
There's a group of them that started with their last few dollars and ran it up to millions because of a simple strategy they can teach you.
There's another group of Gurus that claim hard work, long study and signing up for their newsletter will lead you to where you want to go.
All Gurus want you to "learn from their mistakes."
They ask, "Why should you make all the mistakes I've made, when you can benefit from my experiences?"
Now being somewhat of a Guru myself, I think there IS a certain truth to this query, but not the way you probably think.
Other trader's experiences can make you aware of what to expect as you embark upon your trading.
Knowing what to expect should translate into having less "blindside" occurrences.
However, when you come across the forewarned learning experience, emotions will come up. These emotional situations (fear, overconfidence, freezing) are up to YOU to handle.
Here, if your going to be a successful trader, is where the learning takes place… in dealing with your emotions so that you can follow your trading plan.
If you blow the situation, your supposed learn from it and go on.
And learn from it, you must... or even the best trading system won't save you from doom.
Your Mental Toughness is going to be the key to whether you make it or break it as a trader. I know of two MAJOR things that you can do to develop your Mental Toughness for trading.
The first is to keep a Journal.
I know that sounds like work, and who wants more paperwork at the end of the trading day?
However, soon after you force yourself to start writing down your day's trading experiences, you will see the power of the technique.
It becomes the place where you will be honest with yourself. You'll find after just a week or so of keeping a Journal of your trading experiences, mistakes and all… especially mistakes… that when you are confronted with a trading situation that you blew before… in the back of your head you'll knoq that if you do the same stupid thing again you're going to have to report it to yourself… in your Journal… and…THAT will give you the strength to "do the right thing."
That's the power of keeping a Journal.
Whether you just buy a spiral notebook (like I do) and start writing, or you make it a religious experience and buy something leather-bound…
You will find that the discipline of keeping a journal, is a practice that will flat-out make you a better trader.
The other way to get Mentally Tough is to train your mind with as much intention as exibit when you test and run your trading system.
There are a few psychologists I've bumped into over the years that seem to have enough of a handle on what training is … so they may be qualified to help a trader.
But I prefer the process of literally programming the mind for discipline and focus, via putting the mind in an alpha brainwave state and then submitting the right suggestions to it.
If you were to learn the simple rudiments of self-hypnosis, that, in my opinion, would be a great way to go.
This way you could tell yourself exactly what you wanted!
This is what Tiger Woods does for his golf game. Why not do something similar with your trading?
Mental Toughness is my business.
Make it part of yours.
Keep a journal. Feed your mind.
Enjoying Your Trading
Written by Jay Lakhani
At Bindal FX, we believe that 90% of trades lose money, It is not that they do not know the strategies or are not aware of the iron-clad trades that they see.
The reason most traders fail, is because of their psychology and not having a correct mindset.. In the E Course, we cover most areas of the Trading Psychology, such as Fear, Discipline, Having a Trading Plan and so on.
Every week we will cover, important areas of Psychology that will help the trader in his quest for profits.
Enjoying Your Trading
Trading requires commitment and persistence. One must build up skills to the point that a trade can be executed effortlessly, with precision, over and over again. It is essential to enjoy trading and trade because it is your passion. The profits should be less important than the fulfillment that trading offers.
You’ve got to want to trade with a passion. If you worry about profits, you’ll never make them. You will want to leave the game before you’ve really started. Sure, you can make a few winning trades, but it’s trading consistently, and over the long haul, that really matters. And that requires commitment, the kind of dedication that is rare.
Rather than considering how trading profits can change your life, focus on how enjoyable the process of trading is. It’s fun; it’s challenging; and when you devote enough time and energy to it, it can be fulfilling.
You should always commit yourself on a regular basis to learn about trading, Repetition is the mother of all skills.
Professional traders put in much less time and effort. And more important, they make huge profits, You know exactly where you stand, and that’s one of the biggest advantages of trading for a living.
Keeping this advantage in mind will help motivate you to continue improving your trading skills until you master the markets.
The only expectations you need to satisfy are your own, and you can set those expectations to suit your needs. It’s just you, the markets, and no one else. You have complete freedom, and if you can develop winning trading strategies, you will receive immediate rewards with no professional obligations. Almost no other profession offers such freedom. So when you are scouring over charts, and spending long hours honing your trading skills, motivate yourself by remembering that trading offers clear and immediate payoffs.
At Bindal FX, we believe that 90% of trades lose money, It is not that they do not know the strategies or are not aware of the iron-clad trades that they see.
The reason most traders fail, is because of their psychology and not having a correct mindset.. In the E Course, we cover most areas of the Trading Psychology, such as Fear, Discipline, Having a Trading Plan and so on.
Every week we will cover, important areas of Psychology that will help the trader in his quest for profits.
Enjoying Your Trading
Trading requires commitment and persistence. One must build up skills to the point that a trade can be executed effortlessly, with precision, over and over again. It is essential to enjoy trading and trade because it is your passion. The profits should be less important than the fulfillment that trading offers.
You’ve got to want to trade with a passion. If you worry about profits, you’ll never make them. You will want to leave the game before you’ve really started. Sure, you can make a few winning trades, but it’s trading consistently, and over the long haul, that really matters. And that requires commitment, the kind of dedication that is rare.
Rather than considering how trading profits can change your life, focus on how enjoyable the process of trading is. It’s fun; it’s challenging; and when you devote enough time and energy to it, it can be fulfilling.
You should always commit yourself on a regular basis to learn about trading, Repetition is the mother of all skills.
Professional traders put in much less time and effort. And more important, they make huge profits, You know exactly where you stand, and that’s one of the biggest advantages of trading for a living.
Keeping this advantage in mind will help motivate you to continue improving your trading skills until you master the markets.
The only expectations you need to satisfy are your own, and you can set those expectations to suit your needs. It’s just you, the markets, and no one else. You have complete freedom, and if you can develop winning trading strategies, you will receive immediate rewards with no professional obligations. Almost no other profession offers such freedom. So when you are scouring over charts, and spending long hours honing your trading skills, motivate yourself by remembering that trading offers clear and immediate payoffs.
Danger : Accumulating Loss makes Margin Call
I would like to share and discuss here about the questioner which I took one month before, and this is the vote result.
Which one is most difficult ?
Floating your loss 17%
Floating your profit 29%
Cut your loss 35%
Closing your profit 17%
Floating your loss 17%
Floating your profit 29%
Cut your loss 35%
Closing your profit 17%
Quite surprising result, the fact is most traders are still afraid to cut their loss than floating the profit or closing the profit. Actually I also see some people can stand with hundreds minus result and can’t stand to close their profit.
Let’s learn about how our brain works with money fear taken from By Jason Zweig, Money Magazine senior writer/columnist (Your money and your brain) :
1. Which is riskier: a nuclear reactor or sunlight?
2 .Which animal is responsible for the greatest number of human deaths in the U.S.? a) Alligator b) Deer c) Snake d) Bear e) Shark
Now let's look at the answers. The worst nuclear accident in history occurred when the reactor at Chernobyl, Ukraine melted down in 1986. Early estimates were that tens of thousands of people might be killed by radiation poisoning. By 2006, however, fewer than 100 had died. Meanwhile, nearly 8,000 Americans are killed every year by skin cancer, commonly caused by overexposure to the sun.
In the typical year, deer are responsible for roughly 130 human fatalities - seven times more than alligators, bears, sharks and snakes combined. Deer, of course, don't attack. Instead, they step in front of cars, causing deadly collisions.
None of this means that nuclear radiation is good for you or that rattlesnakes are harmless. What it does mean is that we are often most afraid of the least likely dangers and frequently not worried enough about the risks that have the greatest chances of coming home to roost.
We're no different when it comes to money. Every investor's worst nightmare is a stock market collapse like the crash of 1929. According to a recent survey of 1,000 investors, there's a 51% chance that "in any given year, the U.S. stock market might drop by one-third."
In fact, the odds that U.S. stocks will lose a third of their value in a given year are around 2%. The real risk isn't that the market will melt down but that inflation will erode your savings. Yet only 31% of the people surveyed were worried that they might run out of money during their first 10 years of retirement.
Fear: The hot button of the brain
Deep in the center of your brain, level with the top of your ears, lies a small, almond-shaped knob of tissue called the amygdala (ah-mig-dah-lah). When you confront a potential risk, this part of your reflexive brain acts as an alarm system - shooting signals up to the reflective brain like warning flares. (There are two amygdalas, one on each side of your brain.)
The result is that a moment of panic can wreak havoc on your investing strategy. Because the amygdala is so attuned to big changes, a sudden drop in the market tends to be more upsetting than a longer, slower decline, even if it's greater in total.
So… we as a forex trading don’t realize with a slower decline of our margin because of our uncontrolled emotion and money management can caused margin call next day. But we seemed that afraid with one big surprise loss than the accumulation of the smaller one, and that’s our normal brain if in panic situation.
Let’s try to admit and wise to control our stop loss, cutting the loss as minimal you can do is safer and secure than waiting for small latent margin call situation. Trying to manage the margin to get profit after the loss is very important as a profitable trader.
Tame your brain and manage your brain to facing money is very challenge effort for traders (you can read the article before in the blog about 8 ways to tame your brain). But will protect you as a profitable profit not as a contributor fund to your broker again and again until you feel desperate. Keep try traders !
Bahaya Laten : Akumulasi Loss menyebabkan Margin Call
Let’s learn about how our brain works with money fear taken from By Jason Zweig, Money Magazine senior writer/columnist (Your money and your brain) :
1. Which is riskier: a nuclear reactor or sunlight?
2 .Which animal is responsible for the greatest number of human deaths in the U.S.? a) Alligator b) Deer c) Snake d) Bear e) Shark
Now let's look at the answers. The worst nuclear accident in history occurred when the reactor at Chernobyl, Ukraine melted down in 1986. Early estimates were that tens of thousands of people might be killed by radiation poisoning. By 2006, however, fewer than 100 had died. Meanwhile, nearly 8,000 Americans are killed every year by skin cancer, commonly caused by overexposure to the sun.
In the typical year, deer are responsible for roughly 130 human fatalities - seven times more than alligators, bears, sharks and snakes combined. Deer, of course, don't attack. Instead, they step in front of cars, causing deadly collisions.
None of this means that nuclear radiation is good for you or that rattlesnakes are harmless. What it does mean is that we are often most afraid of the least likely dangers and frequently not worried enough about the risks that have the greatest chances of coming home to roost.
We're no different when it comes to money. Every investor's worst nightmare is a stock market collapse like the crash of 1929. According to a recent survey of 1,000 investors, there's a 51% chance that "in any given year, the U.S. stock market might drop by one-third."
In fact, the odds that U.S. stocks will lose a third of their value in a given year are around 2%. The real risk isn't that the market will melt down but that inflation will erode your savings. Yet only 31% of the people surveyed were worried that they might run out of money during their first 10 years of retirement.
Fear: The hot button of the brain
Deep in the center of your brain, level with the top of your ears, lies a small, almond-shaped knob of tissue called the amygdala (ah-mig-dah-lah). When you confront a potential risk, this part of your reflexive brain acts as an alarm system - shooting signals up to the reflective brain like warning flares. (There are two amygdalas, one on each side of your brain.)
The result is that a moment of panic can wreak havoc on your investing strategy. Because the amygdala is so attuned to big changes, a sudden drop in the market tends to be more upsetting than a longer, slower decline, even if it's greater in total.
So… we as a forex trading don’t realize with a slower decline of our margin because of our uncontrolled emotion and money management can caused margin call next day. But we seemed that afraid with one big surprise loss than the accumulation of the smaller one, and that’s our normal brain if in panic situation.
Let’s try to admit and wise to control our stop loss, cutting the loss as minimal you can do is safer and secure than waiting for small latent margin call situation. Trying to manage the margin to get profit after the loss is very important as a profitable trader.
Tame your brain and manage your brain to facing money is very challenge effort for traders (you can read the article before in the blog about 8 ways to tame your brain). But will protect you as a profitable profit not as a contributor fund to your broker again and again until you feel desperate. Keep try traders !
=================================================
Bahaya Laten : Akumulasi Loss menyebabkan Margin Call
Cukup mencengangkan hasil questioner yang saya ajukan satu bulan yang lalu, di mana pada kenyataannya masih banyak trader yang takut untuk mengambil keputusan menutup posisi loss daripada membiarkan profit berjalan. Saya juga sering membaca banyak trader yang lebih bertahan dengan ratusan minus dibandingkan bertahan dengan puluhan point profit.
Dari artikel mengenai bagaimana cara otak kita bekerja terhadap uang dapat disimpulkan bahwa manusia lebih tidak menyadari bahaya kecil yang berkesinambungan dibandingkan dengan satu kejadian yang langsung membahayakan diri mereka. Dalam forex pun demikian, banyak yang tidak menyadari penurunan margin semakin hari karena tidak adanya kontrol emosi dan management resiko akan menyebabkan margin call pada akhirnya. Tetapi sepertinya kita lebih takut kepada kejadian Margin Call yang besar-besaran dari satu posisi dibandingkan akumulasi dari beberapa kekalahan yang ada. Otak kita senantiasa bekerja dalam kepanikan jika terjadi hal tersebut.
Mari kita mengakui dan bijaksana untuk mengatur stop loss kita, menutup kerugian seminimal mungkin lebih aman daripada harus menunggu bahaya latent yang tersembunyi setelahnya. Memelihara margin sangat penting untuk kembali mencari keuntungan.
Menjinakkan otak Anda dan mengatur otak Anda dalam menghadapi uang adalah tantangan bagi trader tersendiri (Anda dapat membaca artikel sebelumnya dib log ini mengenai 8 cara menjinakkan otak Anda). Namun hal ini akan melindungi Anda terus sebagai trader yang profit, bukan sebagai penyumbang rutin bagi broker Anda sampai Anda merasa putus asa.
Dari artikel mengenai bagaimana cara otak kita bekerja terhadap uang dapat disimpulkan bahwa manusia lebih tidak menyadari bahaya kecil yang berkesinambungan dibandingkan dengan satu kejadian yang langsung membahayakan diri mereka. Dalam forex pun demikian, banyak yang tidak menyadari penurunan margin semakin hari karena tidak adanya kontrol emosi dan management resiko akan menyebabkan margin call pada akhirnya. Tetapi sepertinya kita lebih takut kepada kejadian Margin Call yang besar-besaran dari satu posisi dibandingkan akumulasi dari beberapa kekalahan yang ada. Otak kita senantiasa bekerja dalam kepanikan jika terjadi hal tersebut.
Mari kita mengakui dan bijaksana untuk mengatur stop loss kita, menutup kerugian seminimal mungkin lebih aman daripada harus menunggu bahaya latent yang tersembunyi setelahnya. Memelihara margin sangat penting untuk kembali mencari keuntungan.
Menjinakkan otak Anda dan mengatur otak Anda dalam menghadapi uang adalah tantangan bagi trader tersendiri (Anda dapat membaca artikel sebelumnya dib log ini mengenai 8 cara menjinakkan otak Anda). Namun hal ini akan melindungi Anda terus sebagai trader yang profit, bukan sebagai penyumbang rutin bagi broker Anda sampai Anda merasa putus asa.
Anticipation Vs. Prediction
figure 1
By Scott Black
Technical analysis is a useful tool that allows a trader to anticipate certain market activity before it occurs. These anticipations are drawn from previous chart patterns, probabilities of certain trade setups and a trader's previous experience. Over time, anticipation can eliminate the need for over-analyzing market direction as well as identifying clear, objective areas of significance. It isn't as hard as it sounds. Read on to find out how to anticipate the direction of a trend and follow it through to a profit.
Anticipation Vs. Prediction
Oftentimes, technical analysis is referred to as some sort of black magic used to time the market. However, what many outside of the financial world don't realize is that traders don't try to predict the future. Instead, they create strategies that have a high probability of succeeding - situations where a trend or market movement can be anticipated.
Let's face it - if traders could pick tops and bottoms on a consistent basis, they would be spending more time out in a Ferrari F430 convertible enjoying a nice stretch of highway. Many of you have probably tried picking tops and bottoms in the past and are through with the game. Perhaps you've already following in the footsteps of many professional traders, who attempt to find situations where they can anticipate a move and then take a portion of that move when the setups occur.
The Power of Anticipation
When deciding on whether or not to make a trade, you likely have your own method of entering and exiting the market - you should decide on these before clicking the buy/sell button. Technical traders use certain tools such as the moving average convergence divergence (MACD), the relative strength index (RSI), stochastics or the commodity channel index (CCI) along with recognizable chart patterns that have occurred in the past with a certain measured result. Experienced traders will probably have a good idea of what the outcome of a trade will be as it plays out. If the trade is going against them as soon as they enter and it doesn't turn around within the next few bars, odds are that they weren't correct on their analysis. However, if the trade does go in their favor within the next few bars, then they can begin to look at moving the stops up to lock in gains as the position plays out. ('Bars' are used as a generic term here, as some of you may use candlesticks or line charts for trading.)
Figure 1 is an example of a trade taken on the British pound/U.S. dollar (GBP/USD) currency pair. It uses an exponential moving average crossover to determine when to be long and when to be short. The blue line is a 10-period EMA, and the red is a 20-period EMA. When the blue line is over the red, you are long and vice versa for shorts. In a trending market, this is a powerful setup to take because it allows you to participate in the large move that often follows this signal. The first arrow shows a false signal while the second shows a very profitable signal.
This is where the power of anticipation comes into play. The active trader typically monitors open positions as they play out to see if any adjustments need to be made. Once you had gone long at the first arrow, within three bars you would already be down more than 100 pips. By placing your stop at the longer-term trend moving average, you will probably want to be out of that trade anyway, as a potential reversal might be signaled. On the second arrow, once you were long, it would only take a few days before this trade went in your favor. The trade management comes into play by trailing your stop up to your personal trading style. In this case, you could have used a close under the blue line as your stop, or waited for a close underneath the red line (longer-term moving average). By being active in position management - by following the market with your stops and accepting them when they are hit - you are far more likely to have greater returns in the long run than you would be if you removed the stop right before the market blasted through it. (For further reading, check out Trailing-Stop Techniques.)
Figure 1 illustrates the difference between anticipation and prediction. In this case, we are anticipating that this trade will have a similar result based on the results of previous trades. After all, this pattern was nearly identical to the one that worked before, and all other things remaining equal, it should have a decent enough chance to work in our favor. So did we make a prediction about what would happen in this case? Absolutely not - if we had, we wouldn't have put our stop-loss in place at the same time the trade was sent. Unlike anticipation, which uses past results to determine the probability of future ones, making an accurate prediction often involves a combination of luck and conjecture, making the results much less, well, predictable.
Limited Emotion
By monitoring the trade(s) in real-time and adjusting accordingly, we ensure that emotions aren't able to get the better of us and cause a deviation from the original plan. Our plan originated before the position was taken (and thus had no conflict of interest) so we use this to look back on when the trade is active. Since we already have a plan that involves no emotion, we are able to do as much as possible to stick to that plan during the heat of battle. Make a point of minimizing emotion, but not completely removing it. You're only human, after all, and trading like a robot is nearly impossible for most traders, no matter how successful they are. We know what the market will look like if our anticipation both does and does not occur. Therefore, by using the chart above, you can see where the signals clearly did and did not work as they were happening based on the price action of each bar and its relation to the moving averages. The key is to take ownership of your trades and act based on your trading plan time and time again. (For more insight, see Ten Steps To Building A Winning Trading Plan and Having A Plan: The Basis Of Success.)
Conclusion
Objectivity is essential to trading survival. Technical analysis provides many views of anticipation in a clear and concise manner, but as with everything else in life, it doesn't provide a guarantee of success. However, by sticking to a trading plan day in and day out, our emotions are minimized and we can greatly increase the probability of making a winning trade. With time and experience, you can learn to anticipate the direction of your trades and improve your chances of achieving better returns.
Anticipation Vs. Prediction
Oftentimes, technical analysis is referred to as some sort of black magic used to time the market. However, what many outside of the financial world don't realize is that traders don't try to predict the future. Instead, they create strategies that have a high probability of succeeding - situations where a trend or market movement can be anticipated.
Let's face it - if traders could pick tops and bottoms on a consistent basis, they would be spending more time out in a Ferrari F430 convertible enjoying a nice stretch of highway. Many of you have probably tried picking tops and bottoms in the past and are through with the game. Perhaps you've already following in the footsteps of many professional traders, who attempt to find situations where they can anticipate a move and then take a portion of that move when the setups occur.
The Power of Anticipation
When deciding on whether or not to make a trade, you likely have your own method of entering and exiting the market - you should decide on these before clicking the buy/sell button. Technical traders use certain tools such as the moving average convergence divergence (MACD), the relative strength index (RSI), stochastics or the commodity channel index (CCI) along with recognizable chart patterns that have occurred in the past with a certain measured result. Experienced traders will probably have a good idea of what the outcome of a trade will be as it plays out. If the trade is going against them as soon as they enter and it doesn't turn around within the next few bars, odds are that they weren't correct on their analysis. However, if the trade does go in their favor within the next few bars, then they can begin to look at moving the stops up to lock in gains as the position plays out. ('Bars' are used as a generic term here, as some of you may use candlesticks or line charts for trading.)
Figure 1 is an example of a trade taken on the British pound/U.S. dollar (GBP/USD) currency pair. It uses an exponential moving average crossover to determine when to be long and when to be short. The blue line is a 10-period EMA, and the red is a 20-period EMA. When the blue line is over the red, you are long and vice versa for shorts. In a trending market, this is a powerful setup to take because it allows you to participate in the large move that often follows this signal. The first arrow shows a false signal while the second shows a very profitable signal.
This is where the power of anticipation comes into play. The active trader typically monitors open positions as they play out to see if any adjustments need to be made. Once you had gone long at the first arrow, within three bars you would already be down more than 100 pips. By placing your stop at the longer-term trend moving average, you will probably want to be out of that trade anyway, as a potential reversal might be signaled. On the second arrow, once you were long, it would only take a few days before this trade went in your favor. The trade management comes into play by trailing your stop up to your personal trading style. In this case, you could have used a close under the blue line as your stop, or waited for a close underneath the red line (longer-term moving average). By being active in position management - by following the market with your stops and accepting them when they are hit - you are far more likely to have greater returns in the long run than you would be if you removed the stop right before the market blasted through it. (For further reading, check out Trailing-Stop Techniques.)
Figure 1 illustrates the difference between anticipation and prediction. In this case, we are anticipating that this trade will have a similar result based on the results of previous trades. After all, this pattern was nearly identical to the one that worked before, and all other things remaining equal, it should have a decent enough chance to work in our favor. So did we make a prediction about what would happen in this case? Absolutely not - if we had, we wouldn't have put our stop-loss in place at the same time the trade was sent. Unlike anticipation, which uses past results to determine the probability of future ones, making an accurate prediction often involves a combination of luck and conjecture, making the results much less, well, predictable.
Limited Emotion
By monitoring the trade(s) in real-time and adjusting accordingly, we ensure that emotions aren't able to get the better of us and cause a deviation from the original plan. Our plan originated before the position was taken (and thus had no conflict of interest) so we use this to look back on when the trade is active. Since we already have a plan that involves no emotion, we are able to do as much as possible to stick to that plan during the heat of battle. Make a point of minimizing emotion, but not completely removing it. You're only human, after all, and trading like a robot is nearly impossible for most traders, no matter how successful they are. We know what the market will look like if our anticipation both does and does not occur. Therefore, by using the chart above, you can see where the signals clearly did and did not work as they were happening based on the price action of each bar and its relation to the moving averages. The key is to take ownership of your trades and act based on your trading plan time and time again. (For more insight, see Ten Steps To Building A Winning Trading Plan and Having A Plan: The Basis Of Success.)
Conclusion
Objectivity is essential to trading survival. Technical analysis provides many views of anticipation in a clear and concise manner, but as with everything else in life, it doesn't provide a guarantee of success. However, by sticking to a trading plan day in and day out, our emotions are minimized and we can greatly increase the probability of making a winning trade. With time and experience, you can learn to anticipate the direction of your trades and improve your chances of achieving better returns.
Limiting Losses
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By Jason Van Bergen
It is simply not possible for any trader - whether amateur, professional or anywhere in between - to avoid every single loss. The disciplined trader is fully cognizant of the inevitability of losing hard-earned profits and, as such, is able to accept losses without emotional upheaval. At the same time, however, there are systematic methods by which you can ensure that losses are kept to a minimum.
The System
Every trader should employ a loss-limit system whereby he or she limits losses to a fixed percentage of assets, or a fixed percentage loss from capital employed in a single trade. Think of such a system as a circuit breaker, or collar, on the trade. After a certain percentage has been lost from his or her trading account or principal traded, the trader may very well stop trading entirely or may immediately exit the losing position. With this system, exiting a losing position is a single, unemotional decision that is not affected by any hopes that “the market is sure to turn around any minute now.”
A 2% Limit of Loss
A common level of acceptable loss for one's trading account is 2% of equity in the trading account. The capital in your trading account is your risk capital, the capital that you employ (that you risk) on a day-to-day basis to try to garner profits for your enterprise.
The loss-limit system can even be implemented before entering a trade. When you are deciding how much of a particular trading instrument to purchase, you would simultaneously calculate how much in losses you could sustain on that trade without breaching your 2% rule. When establishing your position, you would also place a stop order within a maximum of 2% loss of the total equity in your account. Of course, your stop can be anywhere from a 0% to 2% total loss. A lower level of risk is perfectly acceptable if the individual trade or philosophy demands it.
Every trader has a different reaction to the 2% rule of thumb. Many traders think that a 2% risk limit is too small and that it stifles their ability to engage in riskier trading decisions with a larger portion of their trading accounts. On the other hand, most professionals think that 2% is a ridiculously high level of risk and prefer losses to be limited to around 0.5-0.25% of their portfolios. Granted, the pros would naturally be more risk averse than those with smaller accounts - a 2% loss on a large portfolio is a devastating blow. Regardless of the size of your capital, it is wise to be conservative rather than aggressive when first devising your trading strategy.
Monthly Loss Limit of 6%
So, you have now established a system whereby your loss from each individual trade is limited to 2% of your risk capital. But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that even losing a moderate 1% of your account's value in ten days within a month results in a rather devastating 10% of your account's value within that month (not withstanding any profits that you might have made in the other 12 odd trading days within the month). In addition to limiting losses from individual trades, we must establish a circuit breaker that prevents extensive overall losses during a period of time.
A useful rule of thumb for overall monthly losses is a maximum of 6% of your portfolio. As soon as your account equity dips to 6% below that which it registered on the last day of the previous month, stop trading! Yes, you heard me correctly. When you have hit your 6% loss limit, cease trading entirely for the rest of the month. In fact, when your 6% circuit breaker is tripped, go even further and close all of your outstanding positions, and spend the rest of the month on the sidelines. Take the last days of the month to regroup, analyze the problems, observe the markets and prepare for re-entry when you are confident that you can prevent a similar occurrence in the following month.
How do you go about instituting the 6% loss-limiting system? You have to calculate your equity each and every day. This includes all of the cash in your trading account, cash equivalents and the current market value of all open positions in your account. Compare this daily total with your equity total on the last trading day of the previous month and, if you are approaching the 6% threshold, prepare to cease trading.
Employing a 6% monthly loss limit allows the trader to hold three open positions with potential for 2% losses each, or six open positions with a potential for 1% losses each and so forth.
Making Necessary Adjustments
Of course, the fluid nature of both the 2% single trade limit and the 6% monthly loss limit means that you must re-calibrate your trading positions every month. If, for example, you enter a new month having realized significant profits the previous month, you will adjust your stops and the sizes of your orders so that no more than 2% of the newly calculated total equity is exposed to a risk of losses. At the same time, when your account rises in value by the end of the month, the 6% rule of thumb will allow you to trade with larger positions the following month. Unfortunately, the reverse is also true: if you lose money in a month, the smaller capital base the following month will ensure that your trading positions are smaller.
Both the 2% and the 6% rule allow you to pyramid, or add to your winning positions when you are on a roll. If your position runs into positive territory, you can move your stop above breakeven and then buy more of the same stock - as long as the risk on the new aggregate position is no more than 2% of your account equity, and your total account risk is less than 6%. Adding a system of pyramiding into the equation allows you to extend profitable positions with absolutely no commensurate increase in your risk thresholds.
Conclusion
The 2% and the 6% rules of thumb are highly recommended for all traders, especially those who are prone to the emotional pain of experienced losses. If you are more risk averse, by all means, adjust the percentage loss limiters to lower numbers than 2% and 6%. It is not recommended, however, that you increase your thresholds - the pros rarely stray above such potential for losses, so do think twice before you increase your risk thresholds.
By Jason Van Bergen
It is simply not possible for any trader - whether amateur, professional or anywhere in between - to avoid every single loss. The disciplined trader is fully cognizant of the inevitability of losing hard-earned profits and, as such, is able to accept losses without emotional upheaval. At the same time, however, there are systematic methods by which you can ensure that losses are kept to a minimum.
The System
Every trader should employ a loss-limit system whereby he or she limits losses to a fixed percentage of assets, or a fixed percentage loss from capital employed in a single trade. Think of such a system as a circuit breaker, or collar, on the trade. After a certain percentage has been lost from his or her trading account or principal traded, the trader may very well stop trading entirely or may immediately exit the losing position. With this system, exiting a losing position is a single, unemotional decision that is not affected by any hopes that “the market is sure to turn around any minute now.”
A 2% Limit of Loss
A common level of acceptable loss for one's trading account is 2% of equity in the trading account. The capital in your trading account is your risk capital, the capital that you employ (that you risk) on a day-to-day basis to try to garner profits for your enterprise.
The loss-limit system can even be implemented before entering a trade. When you are deciding how much of a particular trading instrument to purchase, you would simultaneously calculate how much in losses you could sustain on that trade without breaching your 2% rule. When establishing your position, you would also place a stop order within a maximum of 2% loss of the total equity in your account. Of course, your stop can be anywhere from a 0% to 2% total loss. A lower level of risk is perfectly acceptable if the individual trade or philosophy demands it.
Every trader has a different reaction to the 2% rule of thumb. Many traders think that a 2% risk limit is too small and that it stifles their ability to engage in riskier trading decisions with a larger portion of their trading accounts. On the other hand, most professionals think that 2% is a ridiculously high level of risk and prefer losses to be limited to around 0.5-0.25% of their portfolios. Granted, the pros would naturally be more risk averse than those with smaller accounts - a 2% loss on a large portfolio is a devastating blow. Regardless of the size of your capital, it is wise to be conservative rather than aggressive when first devising your trading strategy.
Monthly Loss Limit of 6%
So, you have now established a system whereby your loss from each individual trade is limited to 2% of your risk capital. But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that even losing a moderate 1% of your account's value in ten days within a month results in a rather devastating 10% of your account's value within that month (not withstanding any profits that you might have made in the other 12 odd trading days within the month). In addition to limiting losses from individual trades, we must establish a circuit breaker that prevents extensive overall losses during a period of time.
A useful rule of thumb for overall monthly losses is a maximum of 6% of your portfolio. As soon as your account equity dips to 6% below that which it registered on the last day of the previous month, stop trading! Yes, you heard me correctly. When you have hit your 6% loss limit, cease trading entirely for the rest of the month. In fact, when your 6% circuit breaker is tripped, go even further and close all of your outstanding positions, and spend the rest of the month on the sidelines. Take the last days of the month to regroup, analyze the problems, observe the markets and prepare for re-entry when you are confident that you can prevent a similar occurrence in the following month.
How do you go about instituting the 6% loss-limiting system? You have to calculate your equity each and every day. This includes all of the cash in your trading account, cash equivalents and the current market value of all open positions in your account. Compare this daily total with your equity total on the last trading day of the previous month and, if you are approaching the 6% threshold, prepare to cease trading.
Employing a 6% monthly loss limit allows the trader to hold three open positions with potential for 2% losses each, or six open positions with a potential for 1% losses each and so forth.
Making Necessary Adjustments
Of course, the fluid nature of both the 2% single trade limit and the 6% monthly loss limit means that you must re-calibrate your trading positions every month. If, for example, you enter a new month having realized significant profits the previous month, you will adjust your stops and the sizes of your orders so that no more than 2% of the newly calculated total equity is exposed to a risk of losses. At the same time, when your account rises in value by the end of the month, the 6% rule of thumb will allow you to trade with larger positions the following month. Unfortunately, the reverse is also true: if you lose money in a month, the smaller capital base the following month will ensure that your trading positions are smaller.
Both the 2% and the 6% rule allow you to pyramid, or add to your winning positions when you are on a roll. If your position runs into positive territory, you can move your stop above breakeven and then buy more of the same stock - as long as the risk on the new aggregate position is no more than 2% of your account equity, and your total account risk is less than 6%. Adding a system of pyramiding into the equation allows you to extend profitable positions with absolutely no commensurate increase in your risk thresholds.
Conclusion
The 2% and the 6% rules of thumb are highly recommended for all traders, especially those who are prone to the emotional pain of experienced losses. If you are more risk averse, by all means, adjust the percentage loss limiters to lower numbers than 2% and 6%. It is not recommended, however, that you increase your thresholds - the pros rarely stray above such potential for losses, so do think twice before you increase your risk thresholds.
Seven Time-Tested Money Management Rules to Insure Survival over the Long Run
1. Always Preserve Capital. Traders should limit loss to 1% of total capital for any one position.
2. Always trade in the direction of the larger trends, with the most emphasis on the Primary Tide that lasts many months or years. In a Bull Market, look only for opportunities to enter long and close long. In a Bear Market, look only for opportunities to enter short and close short.
3. Always use Actual Stops. Short-term traders should limit losses to a maximum 2% for each position. Longer-term traders and investors should limit losses to 7.2% on the long side and 8.4% on the short side for each position.
4. Always exit losing positions before the close of the day for short-term Ripple traders (with a time horizon measured in days). Longer-term traders should also set a time stop appropriate to the cycle they are trying to capture, in order to avoid tying up capital in positions that are not moving as expected.
5. Always consider Bet Size and Diversification. Commit a maximum of 5% of total capital to any one position.
6. Always calculate your Reward/Risk Ratio. Enter a position only when your analysis indicates 3 points of potential reward for 1 point of risk.
7. Always take a time out from trading any time you lose 5% of your capital. This breaks bad momentum and limits negative spirals into deep holes. It gives us time to calmly reevaluate the situation. A few days off helps clear the head. A time out helps limit revenge trading. The desperate attempt to quickly make back the loss most often causes even more trouble.
Capital conservation should be the first rule in trading and investing. Capital takes time to accumulate, but it can disappear fast if the technical trading rules are not well known and respected. Beginners particularly would be well advised to take these rules to heart and to start trading only a small fraction of their capital using the minimum size orders until they acquire their real-time market education as inexpensively as possible. Ignore this, and the tuition could be substantial.
Ten Steps to Building a Winning Trading Plan
By Matt Blackman
Matt Blackman, the host of TradeSystemGuru.com, is a technical trader, author, keynote speaker and regular contributor to a number of trading publications and investment/trading websites in North America and Europe. He also writes a weekly market letter.
There is an old saying in business: "Fail to plan and you plan to fail." It may sound glib, but those who are serious about being successful, including traders, should follow these eight words as if they were written in stone. Ask any trader who makes money on a consistent basis and they will tell you, "You have two choices: you can either methodically follow a written plan, or fail."
If you have a written trading or investment plan, congratulations! You are in the minority. While it is still no absolute guarantee of success, you have eliminated one major roadblock. If your plan uses flawed techniques or lacks preparation, your success won't come immediately, but at least you are in a position to chart and modify your course. By documenting the process, you learn what works and how to avoid repeating costly mistakes.
Whether or not you have a plan now, here are some ideas to help with the process.
Disaster Avoidance 101…
Trading is a business, so you have to treat it as such if you want to succeed. Reading some books, buying a charting program, opening a brokerage account and starting to trade is not a business plan - it is a recipe for disaster. "If you don't follow a written trading plan, you court disaster every time you enter the market," says John Novak, an experienced trader and developer of the T-3 Fibs Protrader Program.
John and his wife Melinda, who is also his business partner in Nexgen Software Systems, run a number of educational trading chat rooms to help traders learn how to use their software and, more importantly, learn how to trade. In a nutshell, their software identifies Fibonacci areas of support and resistance in multiple time frames and provides traders with specific areas to enter and exit the market. Once a trader knows where the market has the potential to pause or reverse, he or she must then determine which one it will be and act accordingly.
"Even with the best program, market data and analysis, odds for consistent success range from slim to none without a written plan," says Novak. The Nexgen website offers examples of trading plans and useful market information for the benefit of both clients and non-clients alike.
"Like the markets, a good trading plan evolves and changes, and should improve over time," says Melinda Novak.
A plan should be written in stone while you are trading, but subject to re-evaluation once the market has closed. It changes with market conditions and adjusts as the trader's skill level improves. Each trader should write his or her own plan, taking into account personal trading styles and goals. Using someone else's plan does not reflect your trading characteristics.
Building the Perfect Master Plan
What are the components of a good trading plan? Here are 10 essentials that every plan should include.
1.Skill assessment - Are you ready to trade? Have you tested your system by paper trading it and do you have confidence that it works? Can you follow your signals without hesitation? If not, it's a good idea to read Mark Douglas's book, "Trading in the Zone", and do the trading exercises on pages 189–201. This will teach you how to think in terms of probabilities. Trading in the markets is a battle of give and take. The real pros are prepared and they take their profits from the rest of the crowd who, lacking a plan, give their money away through costly mistakes.
2. Mental preparation – How do you feel? Did you get a good night's sleep? Do you feel up to the challenge ahead? If you are not emotionally and psychologically ready to do battle in the markets, it is better to take the day off - otherwise, you risk losing your shirt. This is guaranteed to happen if you are angry, hungover, preoccupied or otherwise distracted from the task at hand. Many traders have a market mantra they repeat before the day begins to get them ready. Create one that puts you in the trading zone.
3. Set risk level – How much of your portfolio should you risk on any one trade? It can range anywhere from around 1% to as much as 5% of your portfolio on a given trading day. That means if you lose that amount at any point in the day, you get out and stay out. This will depend on your trading style and risk tolerance. Better to keep powder dry to fight another day if things aren't going your way.
4. Set goals – Before you enter a trade, set realistic profit targets and risk/reward ratios. What is the minimum risk/reward you will accept? Many traders use will not take a trade unless the potential profit is at least three times greater than the risk. For example, if your stop loss is a dollar loss per share, your goal should be a $3 profit. Set weekly, monthly and annual profit goals in dollars or as a percentage of your portfolio, and re-assess them regularly.
5. Do your homework – Before the market opens, what is going on around the world? Are overseas markets up or down? Are index futures such as the S&P 500 or Nasdaq 100 exchange-traded funds up or down in pre-market? Index futures are a good way of gauging market mood before the market opens. What economic or earnings data is due out and when? Post a list on the wall in front of you and decide whether you want to trade ahead of an important economic report. For most traders, it is better to wait until the report is released than take unnecessary risk. Pros trade based on probabilities. They don't gamble.
6. Trade preparation – Before the trading day, reboot your computer(s) to clear the resident memory (RAM). Whatever trading system and program you use, label major and minor support and resistance levels, set alerts for entry and exit signals and make sure all signals can be easily seen or detected with a clear visual or auditory signal. Your trading area should not offer distractions. Remember, this is a business, and distractions can be costly.
7. Set exit rules – Most traders make the mistake of concentrating 90% or more of their efforts in looking for buy signals but pay very little attention to when and where to exit. Many traders cannot sell if they are down because they don't want to take a loss. Get over it or you will not make it as a trader. If your stop gets hit, it means you were wrong. Don't take it personally. Professional traders lose more trades than they win, but by managing money and limiting losses, they still end up making profits.
Before you enter a trade, you should know where your exits are. There are at least two for every trade. First, what is your stop loss if the trade goes against you? It must be written down. Mental stops don't count. Second, each trade should have a profit target. Once you get there, sell a portion of your position and you can move your stop loss on the rest of your position to break even if you wish. As discussed above in number three, never risk more than a set percentage of your portfolio on any trade.
8. Set entry rules – This comes after the tips for exit rules for a reason: exits are far more important than entries. A typical entry rule could be worded like this: "If signal A fires and there is a minimum target at least three times as great as my stop loss and we are at support, then buy X contracts or shares here." Your system should be complicated enough to be effective, but simple enough to facilitate snap decisions. If you have 20 conditions that must be met and many are subjective, you will find it difficult if not impossible to actually make trades. Computers often make better traders than people, which may explain why nearly 50% of all trades that now occur on the New York Stock Exchange are computer-program generated. Computers don't have to think or feel good to make a trade. If conditions are met, they enter. When the trade goes the wrong way or hits a profit target, they exit. They don't get angry at the market or feel invincible after making a few good trades. Each decision is based on probabilities.
9. Keep excellent records – All good traders are also good record keepers. If they win a trade, they want to know exactly why and how. More importantly, they want to know the same when they lose, so they don't repeat unnecessary mistakes. Write down details such as targets, the entry and exit of each trade, the time, support and resistance levels, daily opening range, market open and close for the day, and record comments about why you made the trade and lessons learned. Also, you should save your trading records so that you can go back and analyze the profit/loss for a particular system, draw-downs (which are amounts lost per trade using a trading system), average time per trade (which is necessary to calculate trade efficiency), and other important factors, and also compare them to a buy-and-hold strategy. Remember, this is a business and you are the accountant.
10. Perform a post-mortem – After each trading day, adding up the profit or loss is secondary to knowing the why and how. Write down your conclusions in your trading journal so that you can reference them again later.
Parting Notes
"No one should be trading real money until they have at least 30 to 60 profitable paper trades under their belts in real time in real market conditions before risking real money," says Novak.
Successful paper trading does not guarantee that you will have success when you begin trading real money and emotions come into play. But successful paper trading does give the trader confidence that the system he or she is going to use actually works.
The exercises in "Trading in the Zone" walk the trader through trading a system based on a simple indicator, entering the market when the indicator gives a buy and exiting when it gives a sell. Deciding on a system is less important than gaining enough skill so that you are able to make trades without second guessing or doubting the decision.
There is no way to guarantee that a trade will make money. The trader's chances are based on his or her skill and system of winning and losing. There is no such thing as winning without losing. Professional traders know before they enter a trade that the odds are in their favor or they wouldn't be there. By letting his or her profits ride and cutting losses short, a trader may lose some battles, but he or she will win the war. Most traders and investors do the opposite, which is why they never make money.
Traders who win consistently treat trading as a business. While it's not a guarantee that you will make money, having a plan is crucial if you want to become consistently successful and survive in the trading game.
Matt Blackman, the host of TradeSystemGuru.com, is a technical trader, author, keynote speaker and regular contributor to a number of trading publications and investment/trading websites in North America and Europe. He also writes a weekly market letter.
There is an old saying in business: "Fail to plan and you plan to fail." It may sound glib, but those who are serious about being successful, including traders, should follow these eight words as if they were written in stone. Ask any trader who makes money on a consistent basis and they will tell you, "You have two choices: you can either methodically follow a written plan, or fail."
If you have a written trading or investment plan, congratulations! You are in the minority. While it is still no absolute guarantee of success, you have eliminated one major roadblock. If your plan uses flawed techniques or lacks preparation, your success won't come immediately, but at least you are in a position to chart and modify your course. By documenting the process, you learn what works and how to avoid repeating costly mistakes.
Whether or not you have a plan now, here are some ideas to help with the process.
Disaster Avoidance 101…
Trading is a business, so you have to treat it as such if you want to succeed. Reading some books, buying a charting program, opening a brokerage account and starting to trade is not a business plan - it is a recipe for disaster. "If you don't follow a written trading plan, you court disaster every time you enter the market," says John Novak, an experienced trader and developer of the T-3 Fibs Protrader Program.
John and his wife Melinda, who is also his business partner in Nexgen Software Systems, run a number of educational trading chat rooms to help traders learn how to use their software and, more importantly, learn how to trade. In a nutshell, their software identifies Fibonacci areas of support and resistance in multiple time frames and provides traders with specific areas to enter and exit the market. Once a trader knows where the market has the potential to pause or reverse, he or she must then determine which one it will be and act accordingly.
"Even with the best program, market data and analysis, odds for consistent success range from slim to none without a written plan," says Novak. The Nexgen website offers examples of trading plans and useful market information for the benefit of both clients and non-clients alike.
"Like the markets, a good trading plan evolves and changes, and should improve over time," says Melinda Novak.
A plan should be written in stone while you are trading, but subject to re-evaluation once the market has closed. It changes with market conditions and adjusts as the trader's skill level improves. Each trader should write his or her own plan, taking into account personal trading styles and goals. Using someone else's plan does not reflect your trading characteristics.
Building the Perfect Master Plan
What are the components of a good trading plan? Here are 10 essentials that every plan should include.
1.Skill assessment - Are you ready to trade? Have you tested your system by paper trading it and do you have confidence that it works? Can you follow your signals without hesitation? If not, it's a good idea to read Mark Douglas's book, "Trading in the Zone", and do the trading exercises on pages 189–201. This will teach you how to think in terms of probabilities. Trading in the markets is a battle of give and take. The real pros are prepared and they take their profits from the rest of the crowd who, lacking a plan, give their money away through costly mistakes.
2. Mental preparation – How do you feel? Did you get a good night's sleep? Do you feel up to the challenge ahead? If you are not emotionally and psychologically ready to do battle in the markets, it is better to take the day off - otherwise, you risk losing your shirt. This is guaranteed to happen if you are angry, hungover, preoccupied or otherwise distracted from the task at hand. Many traders have a market mantra they repeat before the day begins to get them ready. Create one that puts you in the trading zone.
3. Set risk level – How much of your portfolio should you risk on any one trade? It can range anywhere from around 1% to as much as 5% of your portfolio on a given trading day. That means if you lose that amount at any point in the day, you get out and stay out. This will depend on your trading style and risk tolerance. Better to keep powder dry to fight another day if things aren't going your way.
4. Set goals – Before you enter a trade, set realistic profit targets and risk/reward ratios. What is the minimum risk/reward you will accept? Many traders use will not take a trade unless the potential profit is at least three times greater than the risk. For example, if your stop loss is a dollar loss per share, your goal should be a $3 profit. Set weekly, monthly and annual profit goals in dollars or as a percentage of your portfolio, and re-assess them regularly.
5. Do your homework – Before the market opens, what is going on around the world? Are overseas markets up or down? Are index futures such as the S&P 500 or Nasdaq 100 exchange-traded funds up or down in pre-market? Index futures are a good way of gauging market mood before the market opens. What economic or earnings data is due out and when? Post a list on the wall in front of you and decide whether you want to trade ahead of an important economic report. For most traders, it is better to wait until the report is released than take unnecessary risk. Pros trade based on probabilities. They don't gamble.
6. Trade preparation – Before the trading day, reboot your computer(s) to clear the resident memory (RAM). Whatever trading system and program you use, label major and minor support and resistance levels, set alerts for entry and exit signals and make sure all signals can be easily seen or detected with a clear visual or auditory signal. Your trading area should not offer distractions. Remember, this is a business, and distractions can be costly.
7. Set exit rules – Most traders make the mistake of concentrating 90% or more of their efforts in looking for buy signals but pay very little attention to when and where to exit. Many traders cannot sell if they are down because they don't want to take a loss. Get over it or you will not make it as a trader. If your stop gets hit, it means you were wrong. Don't take it personally. Professional traders lose more trades than they win, but by managing money and limiting losses, they still end up making profits.
Before you enter a trade, you should know where your exits are. There are at least two for every trade. First, what is your stop loss if the trade goes against you? It must be written down. Mental stops don't count. Second, each trade should have a profit target. Once you get there, sell a portion of your position and you can move your stop loss on the rest of your position to break even if you wish. As discussed above in number three, never risk more than a set percentage of your portfolio on any trade.
8. Set entry rules – This comes after the tips for exit rules for a reason: exits are far more important than entries. A typical entry rule could be worded like this: "If signal A fires and there is a minimum target at least three times as great as my stop loss and we are at support, then buy X contracts or shares here." Your system should be complicated enough to be effective, but simple enough to facilitate snap decisions. If you have 20 conditions that must be met and many are subjective, you will find it difficult if not impossible to actually make trades. Computers often make better traders than people, which may explain why nearly 50% of all trades that now occur on the New York Stock Exchange are computer-program generated. Computers don't have to think or feel good to make a trade. If conditions are met, they enter. When the trade goes the wrong way or hits a profit target, they exit. They don't get angry at the market or feel invincible after making a few good trades. Each decision is based on probabilities.
9. Keep excellent records – All good traders are also good record keepers. If they win a trade, they want to know exactly why and how. More importantly, they want to know the same when they lose, so they don't repeat unnecessary mistakes. Write down details such as targets, the entry and exit of each trade, the time, support and resistance levels, daily opening range, market open and close for the day, and record comments about why you made the trade and lessons learned. Also, you should save your trading records so that you can go back and analyze the profit/loss for a particular system, draw-downs (which are amounts lost per trade using a trading system), average time per trade (which is necessary to calculate trade efficiency), and other important factors, and also compare them to a buy-and-hold strategy. Remember, this is a business and you are the accountant.
10. Perform a post-mortem – After each trading day, adding up the profit or loss is secondary to knowing the why and how. Write down your conclusions in your trading journal so that you can reference them again later.
Parting Notes
"No one should be trading real money until they have at least 30 to 60 profitable paper trades under their belts in real time in real market conditions before risking real money," says Novak.
Successful paper trading does not guarantee that you will have success when you begin trading real money and emotions come into play. But successful paper trading does give the trader confidence that the system he or she is going to use actually works.
The exercises in "Trading in the Zone" walk the trader through trading a system based on a simple indicator, entering the market when the indicator gives a buy and exiting when it gives a sell. Deciding on a system is less important than gaining enough skill so that you are able to make trades without second guessing or doubting the decision.
There is no way to guarantee that a trade will make money. The trader's chances are based on his or her skill and system of winning and losing. There is no such thing as winning without losing. Professional traders know before they enter a trade that the odds are in their favor or they wouldn't be there. By letting his or her profits ride and cutting losses short, a trader may lose some battles, but he or she will win the war. Most traders and investors do the opposite, which is why they never make money.
Traders who win consistently treat trading as a business. While it's not a guarantee that you will make money, having a plan is crucial if you want to become consistently successful and survive in the trading game.
Lessons From A Trader's Diary
By Boris Schlossberg, Senior Currency Strategist
Almost every successful businessman will tell you that record keeping is critical to running an efficient business. Whether designing sophisticated aeronautics or simply selling scented soap, all businesses record and analyze their transactions to refine and optimize execution. When it comes to trading FX, however, very few traders diligently record and review their trades. FX trading, with its instantly dealable rates and self-organizing accounting software, makes it easy to forsake the discipline of keeping a trading diary. Yet a diary can improve a trader's performance far more than any piece of advanced technical analysis software or even a $2,000-per-day trading seminar. This article will outline what to record in your journal and will provide an example from the writer's own trading diary.
Why is keeping a trading diary so valuable? First, as human beings with faulty memories, we simply forget many of the circumstances surrounding our best and worst trades and, as a result, we learn little from them if they are not recorded. Second, the gap between what we think we do and what we actually do during trading can be embarrassingly large - a problem that can easily be identified with proper note taking. Finally, the mere act of keeping a diary introduces a methodical element to trading that prevents us from trading randomly and impulsively - the culprit behind most trading disasters.
Keeping a diary need not be cumbersome or complicated. Here is a list of three key issues that should be covered in every trade:
1. What did you trade and why?
The reason for a trade can be either fundamental or technical (preferably both), but there must be a reason. Too many retail traders put on a trade because they think that prices have either risen or fallen "enough", without any technical or fundamental justification for their opinions. Worse, many traders get into positions out of sheer boredom, forcing a trade and then spending the rest of the time trying to justify it. Even if boredom is the primary driver for the trade, having a diary will make the trader record that fact and he or she will be able to see the consequences of such behavior.
2. Where is your stop and limit and why?
It is astonishing how many traders get into a trade without any clear idea of where to take a profit or when to get out if the trade moves against them. However, by writing down specific stop and limit orders, the trader consciously plans ahead for any contingency that may occur. Even if a trader disregards the initial stop in the heat of the battle, the act of recording all of that activity will be invaluable in doing post-trade analysis and enforcing better discipline on the next trade.
3. Did the trade work out as planned?
There is often an enormous gap between how the trade setup looks on charts or through the prism of backtesting software and the emotional reality of having money at risk. Comparing the difference between the two can help traders understand their strengths and weaknesses and improve long-term performance.
Because trading is such a visual craft, attaching a chart with annotations will complete the diary process by providing a pictorial reference point for further study.
Conclusion
The act of maintaining a diary crystallized my dominant behavioral patterns, clearly showing that I am not capable of holding most of my positions long enough to achieve a 2:1 risk/reward pattern. In my case, it is even more critical to choose only the highest probability setups that have an expectancy rate of better than 60% in order for my trading to succeed.
For other (more patient) traders, the diary process may reveal that they should expand their risk parameters in order to allow for the possibility of capturing larger gains. Regardless of the conclusion, the process of diary writing reveals the true human nature of trading that those clean, crisp charts and the coldly efficient results of backtesting systems simply cannot convey. It also demonstrates why computerized systems have such a difficult time trading markets. In fact, I have witnessed the results of hundreds of systems trade in real time and not one of them was profitable in the long term. Trading requires all of our emotional and analytical capabilities in order to produce success. The act of keeping a trading diary helps us better understand the demons that drive us and, in turn, makes us better traders.
Comment attachment from Bigdaddy11 & Article : What Trading Teaches Us About Life
This was a comment for blog topic : Avoid Making the Prediction in the Market from my friend Bigdaddy11. Since he attached a good article, so I publish it in to one topic it self, so you read directly from this blog.
Comment :
Predict the market is nonsense.....
even it's just for entertaining.
So...instead of thinking how to predict the market, better we learn what trading teachs us about life:
What Trading Teaches Us About Life
By Brett N. Steenbarger, Ph.D.
Trading is a crucible of life: it distills, in a matter of minutes, the basic human challenge: the need to judge, plan, and seek values under conditions of risk and uncertainty. In mastering trading, we necessarily face and master ourselves. Very few arenas of life so immediately reward self-development--and punish its absence.
So many life lessons can be culled from trading and the markets:
1) Have a firm stop-loss point for all activities: jobs, relationships, and personal involvements. Successful people are successful because they cut their losing experiences short and ride winning experiences.
2) Diversification works well in life and markets. Multiple, non-correlated sources of fulfillment make it easier to take risks in any one facet of life.
3) In life as in markets, chance truly favors those who are prepared to benefit. Failing to plan truly is planning to fail.
4) Success in trading and life comes from knowing your edge, pressing it when you have the opportunity, and sitting back when that edge is no longer present.
5) Risks and rewards are always proportional. The latter, in life as in markets, requires prudent management of the former.
6) Happiness is the profit we harvest from life. All life's activities should be periodically reviewed for their return on investment.
7) Embrace change: With volatility comes opportunity, as well as danger.
8) All trends and cycles come to an end. Who anticipates the future, profits.
9) The worst decisions, in life and markets, come from extremes: overconfidence and a lack of confidence.
10) A formula for success in life and finance: never hold an investment that you would not be willing to purchase afresh today.
hope it's usefull.....
**bigdaddy11**
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