Trading Educators Blog

Develop a Trading Plan The main message, I want traders to understand is how important the disciplined execution of a well thought out trading plan is in today's markets. Nobody knows for sure what a given market will do next. Having a plan of attack will allow you to successfully cope with the uncertainty that is an inherent part of trading. I think it makes good common sense to have a well t...

“You can get ahead of yourself in this game, and it’s dangerous to get cocky. But I’ve had times where for an hour I could do no wrong. I’m trading and 99 percent of the trades are good, they’re all for 30 or 50 contracts, and I’ll make 10 grand. Then I’ll overextend myself and maybe buy 10 or 15 contracts, fighting the trend just because I know prices have hit a support level. Then prices blow th...

There are two important components of federal market activity which affect long- term economic activity and stock and commodity values; these are interest rates and money supply. A contracting money supply was one of the factors that caused the Great Depression of the 1930's. In the early 1980's most traders focused almost totally on the money supply figures, which would cause cash bonds and T-Bil...

Trading requires that you take decisive action. Implementing a successful trading plan quite often requires that you make quick decisions when the right market conditions come into play. The more complicated you make your trading, the harder it becomes to make quick decisions. We all know it can be hard to make trading decisions when your money is on the line. Most of us have a natural desire to a...

Question from a subscriber: "Once I’ve achieved success as a trader, then what? I’ve heard that after a while trading can become boring." I know you would all like to have that problem, but I can vouch for its being true. I always have to find new ways to trade or I do become bored. However, I have never run out of ways to trade that remain exciting, at least for a fairly long time. After the obje...

Dear Friends, Whenever this time of year rolls around, I find myself with an attitude of gratitude. This week we celebrated Thanksgiving Day. Although "Thanksgiving" is not celebrated here in Uruguay, many living here celebrated at various places around the country. There were at least fifty people at the gathering my wife and I went to. Trading and markets have been a major part of my life for al...

As a trader, it's essential that you set specific goals. Trading is chaotic enough without trying to achieve unstructured goals that are difficult to manage and reach. Making profitable investments requires you to prepare carefully. You have to develop hypotheses regarding current market conditions. You have to devise ways of identifying setups and determine how and when to enter and exit the trad...

The main message I want traders to understand is how important the disciplined execution of a well thought out trading plan is in today's markets. Nobody knows for sure what a given market will do next. Having a plan of attack will allow you to successfully cope with the uncertainty that is an inherent part of trading. I think it makes good common sense to have a well thought out plan of attack fo...

From Saturday October 29 until November 5 my wife and I took a vacation trip to Samaná, Dominican Republic. From Santiago, where we live, it takes about a 3 hour drive to get there. I love the region of Samaná because it is still very virgin compared to Bavaro or Punta Cana with only a few hotels. Usually we stay at a hotel on Cayo Levantado, a small island in the Samaná Bay. I love Cayo Levantado...

Careful risk management is a key component you being able to trade at your best. Comfort level is really important when it comes to risk. You need to be comfortable in three areas: Emotional, Mental, and Financial. We could even add Physical to that list without having to make too great a stretch. If there is a real danger that you will lose large amounts of capital, or money that you just can'...

A popular concept in the world of trading, especially among technical traders and chartists is to wait for confirmation before entering a trade. This means you have a Signal, for example a price action pattern and now you wait for the markets to confirm that pattern before you enter. The idea of course is to filter out bad trades this way and to gain confidence before entering the trade. But that ...

I believe trading is far more an art than a science. For one thing, if trading were a science, then we should all be able to enter the same trade at the same time, and exit at the same time getting identical results. We all know that just isn’t so. Yet if trading were scientific, we should be able to get identical results doing the same thing. I believe such expectation describes the “scientific m...

Trading is nothing more than a long, random statistical run. An experienced trader knows that even if he is in a losing streak right now, as long as he sticks to his already approved trading plan, he will come out a winner in the long run. This is why becoming angry is pointless. In fact, it is worse than pointless, because heated emotions often lead to poor decisions in subsequent trades. In such...

We are living in stressful times. However, In times of greatest economic stress, the worst thing you can do as a trader or investor is to panic. Reactions to situations that are born of fear are rarely wise or helpful. Perhaps you didn't sell before everyone else began to, and the market is in a slump. Now you’re facing a huge loss, all in one day. Your first thought may be to call your ...

1. Focus on trading vehicles, strategies, and time horizons that suit your personality 2. Identify non-random price behavior 3. Absolutely convince yourself that what you have found is statistically valid 4. Set up trading rules 5. Follow the rules 6. Don’t be afraid to abandon a rule that is no longer working.   In a nutshell, it all comes down to: Do your own thing (independence); And do th...

When I started out trading I had the illusion that being a successful trader meant to no longer have drawdowns or at least on very rare occasions. And I think most traders start out with that idea in their mind even though they don’t understand what it actually means. In Trading, you are in a Drawdown anytime you don’t make new equity highs on your account, or if you have multiple accounts across ...

Market technicians tend to peer into market detail from the point of view of mathematics and statistics. A market technician will present you with something like: “There are only four range possibilities for a price bar for any chart time frame: The outside bar; the inside bar, the higher high and higher low, and the lower high and lower low. Using only the open, high, low, mid range, and close da...

Sometimes you feel that you are able to throw caution to the wind. That is when you must be careful to not spit into it.One satisfying aspect of trading can be identifying a market (or spread) that is undervalued, at support, trending, breaking out, or behaving seasonally – and then seeing it continue to behave as expected. When it does so, it pays to be aggressive – boldly assuming po...

Many novice traders underestimate how long it takes to become consistently profitable. They assume they can trade profitably in a matter of months, whereas veteran traders will tell you that such consistently profitable trading may take several years. And it's difficult to achieve. It requires great effort and persistence to become a steady winner, yet many aspiring traders think only minimal effo...

As I’m about to go on vacation I thought it’s a good idea to write down my thoughts about trading on vacation. Is it a good idea to do so, or just crazy? I believe it depends. If you’re longer-term position trader and have a couple of positions open that are doing great and you don’t want to close them out now for example, I think there’s nothing wrong managing your position once a day while you’r...