Author: lindsay

How To Have Complete Confidence In Your Trading

Posted on by lindsay

Today we have the pleasure of introducing Dr. Barry Burns from Top Dog Trading. Dr. Burns knowledge has come through extensive study, dubious research, and thousands of his own dollars learning from professionals. His intent was to expand his knowledge and share it with others! Without further delay, please welcome Dr. Barry Burns.

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Good Morning Trader's Club Members!

Traders often get frustrated when they see the market doing the "unexpected."

This occurs because they have a pre-conceived idea of what the market "should do." And when it doesn't behave according to their Wave Count, or their Gann calculations or their Fibonacci cluster or their indicators' clear signals ... well, they just get frustrated.

This comes from a belief that the market has a pattern that is knowable and should be followed consistently.

People much smarter than I have been studying the markets for many, many years. Yet the debate is alive and well as to whether or not the market is simply a "random walk."

The fact the subject has not been settled among the greatest thinkers is significant.

My belief is ... yes, it mostly is chaotic. It is completely unpredictable. It is impossible to forecast.

But, and this is an important "but," there are times ... and it isn't most of the time... but there are times when certain patterns occur that put the PROBABILITIES of a certain action occurring.

Note that this is not predicting or forecasting. The truth is, the market can do ANYTHING AT ANY TIME.

You should never be surprised, confused or frustrated, because that indicates you had some expectation of the future.

Let me clarify ...

You should never be surprised, confused or frustrated about what the MARKET does. You should only be surprised, confused or frustrated about what YOU do. This is because you cannot control the market. The only thing you can control is your own behavior.

Therefore to master trading is not to master the markets, but it is to master yourself. And you will have done this when you only trade when probabilities are clearly on your side, as evidenced from thorough testing that you yourself have conducted to your own satisfaction.

To master yourself means (among other things):

1. Do not pass on trade setups that meet your criteria.
2. Do not trade while tired or under emotional stress.
3. Do not over trade.
4. Master money managment.
5. Keep your stops - maintaining small losses.
6. Let your winners run for big profits.
7. Don't give up on a valid methodology when it goes through a normal drawdown period.

These are just 7 of the most common psychological challenges every trader must wrestle with.

Your success or failure will depend much more on how you handle these challenges than which indicators you use or which time interval you trade.

As someone once said: "The consistency you need is in your mind, not in the market."
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BIO:

Dr. Barry Burns writes a blog and produces videos for Top Dog Trading

He offers a 5-day free video trading course which can be accessed here:
http://www.topdogtrading.com/enter.html

"Saturday Seminars" - Five Basic Trading Patterns & Their Applications To The Markets

Posted on by lindsay

Linda discusses five choice trading patterns she uses. Based on a logical set of market principles, these five patterns work equally well in equity and commodity markets. Understanding these enduring market setups provides you with a solid foundation for trading technically. They simplify analysis for the beginner and give the aggressive trader added confidence. Linda has used these patterns as the core of her intermediate-term analysis but they work well on any timeframe.

Raschke will explore :

  • Double Tops/Bottoms
  • Divergent Buy/Sell
  • Anti Minor
  • Sling Buy/Sell
  • First Cross

Linda Raschke has been a full-time professional trader for over 20 years. She began her trading career on the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange and later moved to the Philadelphia Stock Exchange. Linda was written up in Jack Schwager's book, "The New Market Wizards" and in "Women of the Street" by Sue Herera. In 1995, she co-authored the best selling book "Street Smarts - High Probability Short Term Trading Strategies." Linda continues to trade every day.

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For more audio and video seminars please visit INO TV

Are you trading at the right 'pace'?

Posted on by lindsay

Guest Post by Norman Hallett, CEO of Subconscious Training Corporation

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A group of 1000 traders were recently asked, "What is the single most important mental/emotional concern you have that is preventing you from being the most successful trader you can be?"

The second most frequent response was the fear of blowing out their account. (For the record the first was fear of "pulling the trigger".)

Why all this fear?

The answer is multi-fold, but one of the main causes is likely that we are overtrading or trading too much before we are ready... what I call trading at the wrong "pace".

The more you put at risk, the higher level, or "pace" you are trading at.

When you first start out as a trader, you begin by paper-trading. You put no money at risk and you practice executing your trades the way your trading plan commands that you do. / No stress, no emotions/... there's no money or ego at stake. Your (phantom) "equity" seems to rise with ease.

You're chomping at the bit to up the pace. You're ready to trade with "real" money.

You begin to trade the minimum number of contracts to effectively run your trading plan. For the first time you are now dealing with your emotions and notice that they are causing you to stray from your trading plan.

You recognize that emotions play a big part in your ability to trade successfully and you take the steps necessary to get back to trading with ice-in-the-veins confidence.

When you experience the degree of success you are looking for, you feel you are now ready to step up the pace of your trading again... to the level that you always wanted to trade at. Full speed!

Your first trade in the big-time went well. Wow!... this is great! But then it happens... an unexpected move against you. And it's a big one. You never knew your emotions could be so debilitating!

Thoughts are racing through your head and you're tempted... I mean REALLY tempted... to pull your protective stops because you want the market to rebound and get you out of trouble.

And right before you click the mouse to lift your stop, you screech to a halt. "You MUST follow your trading plan", the voice in your head insists. You comply. You're stopped out and market continues to a free-fall.

You've lost money today... a bit more than you would have liked to, but you're proud of yourself and you actually feel pretty good.

Over the next few weeks and months you think back to that day... the day you could have blown out your account... and know that the profit you see now in your account would not be there if you were not ready, MENTALLY and EMOTIONALLY to trade at a full-out pace.

Now this little story is an ideal scenario. It happens to about 2% of real-world traders.

The fact is that most traders up the pace too quickly. They make 30% in their papertrading account in a month and kick themselves for not having the guts to use real money.

"Look at all the money I've left on the table," they cry.

So they move to level 2 (not the minimum number of contract to run their trading plan). The result:

Too much emotion, too soon. Losses result.

I could go on with examples of moving up your pace too quickly and not being emotionally prepared to handle it... but I won't.

I'll just let YOU think back to what got you where you are today and let THAT be your best example.

But don't beat yourself up... just scale back... now.

Then "train your emotions" to fit your trading pace and you too... YES, YOU TOO... can be in the trading elite.

It's not rocket science. It's including the development of your mind in development of your trading plan.

My best,

Norman Hallett, CEO
Subconscious Training Corporation

Makers of TradingMind Software

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Normal Hallett will be speaking at the Orlando 2008 Investors' Super Conference. Read more about the event here.

"Saturday Seminars" - Channel Analysis—The Key to Improved Timing of Trades

Posted on by lindsay

Currencies, fixed income, equities and futures are all characterized by price movement that is simultaneously both random and cyclical. The random movement is, of course, unpredictable. Cyclical movement is somewhat predictable, although not completely because the various cycles undergo gradual changes in amplitude and frequency. Channel analysis provides a simple way of focusing on the predictable. This knowledge will enable the trader to enter and leave the market at the optimum time for maximum profits. Using examples from the currency and stock markets, Brian shows you how the channel analysis method can be applied to both short-term and medium-term trading. You will learn fundamental relationships between short-term and medium-term trends, and how to decide when either type of trend is likely to change direction. You are given guidelines and rules for estimating the future target area in which the trends will again reverse direction. This will enable you to choose the trades with the highest gain potential and lower risk at the time trade is contemplated.

Listen to Brian explain his 6 rules of successful trading...

  • Hold a maximum of 8 stocks in your portfolio
  • Invest approximately equal amounts in each
  • Diversify between sectors
  • There should be a logical reason for every action
  • Should avoid the "manana" attitude
  • Analyze and learn from every mistake

Brian J. Millard earned a Ph.D. in chemistry and was a senior lecturer at London University for fifteen years before beginning to use his scientific training to analyze the stock market. He left the university setting in 1981 to establish his own investment publishing business, writing books and authoring investment software. He is the author of five books: Stocks and Shares Simplified, Traded Options Simplified, Profitable Charting Techniques, Winning on the Stock Market, and Channel Analysis. The latest editions of the latter two books have been widely acclaimed for breaking new ground in the development of prediction tools for the market. John Wiley and Sons has taken over the publishing and distribution of his books, leaving Brian free to concentrate on investment research and software development. Brian is one of the few independent investment researchers in the United Kingdom. His work has advanced the concept of channel analysis, first developed by J.M. Hurst, into the realms of probability and chaos theory. Probability and chaos theory have recently appeared in software as the program Sigma-pTM. This software predicts turning points in long term trends up to six months into the future. Interest in Brian’s work has increased dramatically over the past several years. Traders throughout the United Kingdom and Europe are discovering his low risk, high profit methods through the use of popular channel formulating and drawing software now available. Professional traders throughout the European Common Market have requested that he share his insights and expertise via seminars and personal appearances. --- To access more audios and videos please click INO TV

Trade Volatility not Affordability

Posted on by lindsay

By: Matt Zimberg

www.optimusfutures.com

Today we’re going to discuss the use of stop-losses.

As much as most traders dislike placing stops, they’re part of the building blocks of a successful trading plan, and it does get one used to the fact that there will be situations where you are right in terms of direction yet nevertheless, you can get stopped out in the short term because of high market volatility.

That brings me to the second point. Many traders place stop-losses based on affordability instead of market volatility on the contract.

For example, take the 100oz gold futures contract. From the all time highs, we’ve had corrections of more than $100 ($10,000). So placing stops like $10 (1,000) is not exactly in your best interest. Even if you are a highly capitalized trader, it would be a bit hard to trade ranges like that. What to do?

1) Don’t trade it. If you can’t afford certain market volatility and daily trading ranges, seek those markets where volatility is lower and within your risk tolerance.

2) If you are keen on trading a certain market, you can wait until the volatility has dropped, namely the daily and weekly trading ranges are smaller.

Lastly, I have a certain market belief which is a bit biased, but this is something that I truly believe in. If after placing a trade, the market becomes favorable quickly, you should adjust the stops losses closer to the current price.

If the market’s moving slowly, the stop loss should be kept further away from the current price.

Slower moving markets could signal a fundamental change as opposed to fast moving markets that just signal a highly speculative activity.

I hope this will help you in your trading.

Best,

Matt Zimberg

President

www.optimusfutures.com

STOP LOSS ORDERS MAY NOT LIMIT YOUR LOSSES TO THE AMOUNT INTENDED. CERTAIN MARKET CONDITIONS MAY GET DIFFICULT OR IMPOSSIBLE TO EXECUTE SUCH ORDERS. YOU SHOULD BE AWARE THAT THERE IS A RISK OF LOSS IN FUTURES TRADING. PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS.