facebook  youtube  blogger

Trading Educators Blog

#1 Trading Blog Site

Practical Teaching Derived from over 60 Years of Trading Experience and over 30 Years of Mentoring .  Click here to learn about private mentoring with Master Trader Joe Ross.

Oct
31

The Volatile Trader

Note: I believe the article below was written by Adrienne Tograhie, a good friend and great trading coach. The Manic/Volatile trader has learned to create emotional volatility by developing a great imagination. By looping positive and negative stories with more detail, he is very effective in becoming dramatic. With enhanced feelings, he has justified to himself about being right. This keeps him s...

Continue reading
  106 Hits
Oct
16

​Making Choices

When confronted with a choice, how do you decide? Are the choices you make in life in general different from the choices you make in trading? It has been my experience that decisions in life that involve a perception of a possible loss, being wrong, or making a mistake, will very often take the same approach as the decisions you make in trading. Stuck Gary was a "want to be" trader for over twenty...

Continue reading
  160 Hits
Oct
16

​Find Your Biggest Financial Weakness and Fix It!

To position yourself for success in investing (and life in general), it's useful to identify the one key area that's holding you back. These factors can range from needing to free up more money to invest each month, to cutting back on frivolous spending, or even a lack of education on how to best manage your investments. You'd be shocked at how many people are unable to pinpoint obvious blemishes ...

Continue reading
  166 Hits
Sep
04

​What Did the Market Do Today?

In a number of places and at various times, I've mentioned that trading in the past was a lot easier than it is today. When it comes to making money over the long-term, the "instant results" generation is at a huge disadvantage. Most of the focus today (thanks to the business media) is on checking your financial scoreboard frequently. As a result, many modern market watchers are more like gamblers...

Continue reading
  350 Hits
Aug
29

​I Will Never Stop Learning

I will never stop learning. This is my mantra and I will continue to practice it each and every day. Why? Because you never know where your next big opportunity may lie. Constantly learning will benefit you in many areas of your life. You'll uncover new investment opportunities, such as dividend stocks that are attractive for new money. Or, you can acquire new skills that open the door to bigger p...

Continue reading
  668 Hits
Aug
22

​Who You Calling Rich?

Have you ever been a part of a conversation when someone decides to anoint a particular individual with the "rich" label? There's not really anything wrong with it, except for when the next part of the conversation moves on to discrediting how he/she was able to get in their particular position. Yes, sometimes people born into wealth squander their head start and "blow" their family's fortune. How...

Continue reading
  959 Hits
Aug
15

The Complex Emotions of Loss

Losses apply to all traders, regardless of their chosen markets. The story below could apply to Forex, futures, bonds, or stocks. Ray Activ has just taken a big risk and lost. He has been watching a stock for the past month and it's been going down. But today an earnings report was released. Yesterday, Ray had a strong hunch that actual earnings were going to beat analysts' estimates. In preparati...

Continue reading
  1493 Hits
Jul
26

​In a Trading State of Mind

If you're like most people, your moods change throughout the day. There are times when you are extremely energetic and optimistic. You feel as if you can do anything. You're in an optimal state of mind for trading. A "state of mind" consists of a set of moods, feelings, thoughts, and memories. In an optimistic state of mind, you feel powerful and ready for action; you feel enthusiastic and energiz...

Continue reading
  1155 Hits
Jul
26

​The Humble Trader is the Winning Trader

Trading can be frustrating at times. You put in a heroic effort, but it doesn't always pay off in the way that you had hoped. When you finally do win big, you naturally want to celebrate. You may even get a "swelled head," and feel invincible, as if you are on top of the world. Why not celebrate? You deserve it. It's healthy to occasionally pat yourself on the back for a job well done, but don't g...

Continue reading
  999 Hits
Jul
24

​Accepting and Reducing Risk

Trading is risky. Depending on your personality, you may be extremely intolerant of risk. I know a man who uses "riskaverse" for his email address. Most people avoid risks at all costs. Humans had to make prudent decisions in order to survive and evolve. Even though traders know they must risk money to make money, the natural inclination to avoid risk is powerful. How much risk are you willing to ...

Continue reading
  1077 Hits
Jul
18

​The Art of Knowing

If you're an eternal optimist, you hate bad news. But bad news is relative. What is bad news to some people is mere information, and possibly good news, to others. Some traders hate bad news, and do anything to avoid hearing it. It takes many forms, and at Trading Educators we have heard them all. Some traders keep losses on paper to avoid acknowledging them. Other traders avoid looking at perform...

Continue reading
  1196 Hits
Jul
10

​Taking the Plunge

The experienced private trader doesn't have to trade all day, every day. Market conditions change, and it is wise to stand aside until your trading methods, your risk tolerance, and your objectives match market conditions. At other times you might be feeling "off," and it might be better to watch the market than to trade it. Trading is a matter of moving from studying and observing to actively par...

Continue reading
  1178 Hits
Jul
04

​Socially Responsible Trading

Of all the email I receive, I dread most the ones that are sent to me by traders and investors who want to be (and want me to be) socially responsible. "Socially responsible" is cousin to being "politically correct." However, I am not a good judge of what is socially correct. I can measure moral correctness only in terms of the Bible. I have held Philip Morris, Altria, and Lorillard stocks at one ...

Continue reading
  1167 Hits
Jun
27

Working Your Brain "Muscle"

A couple of years ago I read an article on "thedailybeast.com", which discussed the debate of whether or not the brain acts like a muscle. An interesting part of the article described a program that was set up for a low-performing elementary school in Oakland. Over the course of eight weeks, twice a week, kids would go into one of two rooms to play board games, video games, and card games. Each ro...

Continue reading
  1265 Hits
Jun
16

Cool

This morning, I happened to catch a video on YouTube. It was something about the coolest guy on Earth. It made me think about being cool and having your act together as a trader. Trading can be fast-paced. As an active trader, you may sift through a barrage of information from media reports to earnings statements to unexpected national events. It's sometimes hard to make sense of it all, and to se...

Continue reading
  1593 Hits
Jun
12

​Guilt

In the trading profession, profits are hardly a sure thing. Even the most experienced traders make big mistakes and pay the price. Professional traders, as well as independent short-term traders, can mount huge losses. If you are experiencing a severe drawdown, don't feel badly about it. You're not the first person, and you won't be the last, to experience a severe drawdown. Emotionally, it is dif...

Continue reading
  1563 Hits
Jun
06

Checking Your Performance

How good a trader are you? Everyone eventually must ask and answer this question. The answer may be unpleasant, but sooner or later you have to face your limitations. Some traders feed their accounts every month to avoid looking at how poorly they are doing. It's natural to take such measures. We all want to be successful, and it can be devastating to discover that, despite our best efforts, we ju...

Continue reading
  1565 Hits
May
29

Appreciating The Beauty of The Markets

Have you ever had one of those days in which you wished you had stayed in bed rather than executed your first trade of the day? Perhaps you excitedly put together a trading plan the night before, only to get a poor fill when the markets opened the next morning. Maybe you were just in a bad mood and frustrated that nothing was going right. Some trading experts warn against trading while upset or fr...

Continue reading
  1647 Hits
May
23

Cut Your Losses

In trading, it's not whether you win or lose, but how much you profit on a winning trade compared with how much you lose on a losing trade. If you can cut your losses and move on, you'll survive. It makes sense, logically, but psychologically, many traders have trouble cutting their losses. We hate to lose, and we will do almost anything to avoid losing, even it means denying that we've lost. Some...

Continue reading
  1778 Hits
May
12

Making a Choice

Would you rather have a job that pays a low salary but provides a steady income, or a high-paying job that might not be around next year? The answer to this question reveals a lot about your preferred trading style. If you are like most short-term active traders, you don't mind exchanging a little bit of security for a higher salary. Compared with typical jobs, short-term trading is risky, and one...

Continue reading
  1760 Hits

Derivative transactions, including futures, are complex and carry a high degree of risk. They are intended for sophisticated investors and are not suitable for everyone. There are numerous other factors related to the markets in general or to the implementation of any specific trading program which cannot be fully accounted for in the preparation of hypothetical performance results, and all of which can adversely affect actual trading results. For more information, see the Risk Disclosure Statement for Futures and Options.