Trading Educators Blog

When trading the markets, it's vital to stay grounded in reality. You can't get caught up in dreams. For instance, it may sound "easy" to people outside the profession to make money by trading Google, but there are a couple of real obstacles to taking home huge profits. First, risk should always be considered when making a trade, and while trying to manage risk, some traders would not want to take...

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...

When trading the markets, you can't merely sit back and wait for the profits to roll in. You have to take an active approach to trading. You must search the markets for new opportunities. That can mean looking through stacks of boring reports, scanning through a hundred charts, or working as an amateur specialist to see if anything can give you an insight as to how prices will move. If you want to...

In trading, hopelessness is not brought about by the situation, but rather by your interpretation of the situation. How you explain the cause of a bad situation accounts for how you cope with it. If you think, "I've always been incompetent and this is just another one of those times that proves how incompetent I've always been," you will tend to view the situation as hopeless and just want to give...

Inaction - not putting on a trade - is one of the greatest, most powerful tools you possess. Many large funds have to always be invested with at least some percentage of their capital. Moving into or out of a trade, without their own actions moving the market, is much more difficult for them. They are usually not able to quickly jump in and out of a market. This is an important advantage a smaller...

​Which would you be willing to part with first, your money or your self-esteem? If you are like most traders, you are likely to let your money go before your self-esteem. Trading stories are full of traders who gladly fed losing trades to avoid admitting the fact that they made a mistake. They hoped against hope that a losing trade would turn around if they could merely wait long enough. In the en...

Are you ready to tackle the markets at any time? Bring it on, right? It would be ideal if we were ready to trade at any given moment, but the human mind has its limits. You don't have an endless supply of energy. After a marathon stretch of trading, for example, you may not be able to tackle the markets in earnest. You may not be able to concentrate fully. You may be easily distracted, and while y...

​Seasoned traders observed long ago that after a series of wins, a trader is vulnerable to over-confidence and trading errors. It's quite understandable. Trading is a competitive business, and when you win, someone else loses. Market participants trade because they are greedy for profits, but often sell out of a fear of losing. How do many traders deal with the inevitable feelings of uncertainty a...

​Short-term winning traders have guts. They have to. No one has a crystal ball. You can guess what the markets will do, but you can never know what will happen with complete certainty. Only the traders who risk enough money, and make enough winning trades can hope to achieve glory. And living under these conditions takes guts. Trading can be about 90% market psychology. Do fundamentals play a role...

You're in the midst of a perfect trade. You entered where you had planned, and you know when to exit. All you have to do now is wait for the price to reach 53 and sell. But it's not moving fast enough. It seems to be hovering around 51 and 50. You're starting to wonder whether or not it will ever move up. Panic sets in and you sell. About an hour later, the price hits 53 and it now seems obvious t...

​What is your tolerance for pain? Consider the following scenario. You have 10% of your account balance on the line. For the past two days, prices have been going in the direction you had anticipated, but today, an announcement was made that caused a market move that caused all your profits to be wiped out in an hour. What will you do? See if prices will move back to where you are okay again? At t...

Don't get irritated or angered because you haven't put on a new trade in a long time. Whenever there is nothing to trade, don't trade. Accept it and stay on the "sideline." There will be an attempt by the "trading gods" to wear you down by giving you bad markets over and over, and for extended periods of time. This will happen, and it will happen on numerous, often successive occasions. Know this ...

​How should a trader deal with "overconfidence?" Maybe a better question about confidence--trading and otherwise--is not why people are overconfident to begin with, but why they stay overconfident. You see, the problem with overconfidence is not the innate bias toward optimism that most people seem to possess. That's a good thing it keeps the world moving forward. The problem is the inability to t...

​"The Rorschach test (also known as the Rorschach inkblot test, the Rorschach technique, or simply the inkblot test) is a test in which a subject's perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex scientifically derived algorithms, or both. Some psychologists use this test to examine a person's personality characteristics and emotional functioning....

When it comes to trading the markets, nothing is certain. How do you cope with uncertainty? Many traders are overconfident. Rather than face the possibility of losses due to market uncertainty, they fool themselves into thinking they are omnipotent. Behavioral economists Brad Barber and Terrance Odean illustrated how novice traders are especially overconfident. They analyzed account records from a...

Pro Active and Ray Active are both wannabe traders, but their approach to trading is quite different. Ray is consumed with trading for profits. He imagines himself achieving great wealth, and thinks that when he amasses the riches he is after, he'll finally get the respect and recognition he always wanted from his wife, family and friends. He thinks, "If I can only make it as a trader, I can show ...

How much time do you spend preparing for the trading day? Do you spend hours scouring the markets for a winning trading opportunity? Do you watch hours of commentary or read all the major financial newspapers? You don't need to spend hours and hours reading about the markets if it doesn't directly lead to a profit. For example, most media coverage of the markets is for entertainment value, so spen...

​In the movie "Wall Street," Gordon Gekko argues, "Greed is good." Greed can motivate you to strive for perfection and keep you persisting in the face of adversity, but greed has its downside. It is often said that the markets are driven by fear and greed. The masses have a natural desire for wealth and all the advantages that money can buy. In their zeal, the masses invest in stocks and believe t...

Winning traders are disciplined. Discipline means controlling impulses and fighting the urge to abandon your trading plan prematurely. Maintaining discipline is often easier said than done, especially when the market is moving in your favor. It's hard to avoid closing a trade out early in order to lock in profits. Some winning traders face more losers than winners, and when you hit upon a winner, ...

Good trading times may be just ahead. Are you ready? It's times like these when the right mental edge can make all the difference. If you want to take advantage of trading opportunities for the New Year, it's vital that you approach trading with the proper mindset. Be ready to work hard and do whatever it takes to come out a winner. Unfortunately, many traders aren't up to the challenge. They don'...