Ten Characteristics I See Among Successful Traders

By Brett Steenbarger, Ph.D.

There's no one formula for trading success, but there are a few common denominators that I've tracked in my years of working with traders:

1) The amount of time spent on their trading outside of trading hours (preparation, reading, etc.);

2) Dedicated periods to reviewing trading performance and making adjustments to shifting market conditions;

3) The ability to stop trading when not trading well to institute reviews and when conviction is lacking;

4) The ability to become more aggressive and risk taking when trading well and with conviction;

5) A keen awareness of risk management in the sizing of positions and in daily, weekly, and monthly loss limits, as well as loss limits per position;

6) Ongoing ability to learn new skills, markets, and strategies;

7) Distinctive ways of viewing and following markets that leverage their skills;

8) Persistence and emotional resilience: the ability to keep going in the face of setback;

9) Competitiveness: a relentless drive for self-improvement;

10) Balance: sources of well-being outside of trading that help sustain energy and focus.

Over the years, I've learned to respect more the traders who sustain success over many years than the traders who have blow-out individual years of profitability. The above criteria are a kind of check-list one can use to determine if you share the qualities I see among those career successes.

Source: http://traderfeed.blogspot.co.uk/

10 Lessons to Teach Your Kids About Money

Four Guiding Principles:
1. Educate yourself. You can’t teach something you don’t know about yourself. Learn as much as possible about budgeting, about saving, about investing, about cutting expenses, about reducing debt. Armed with knowledge, you’ll be a good teacher.

2. Set a good example yourself. It’s one thing to tell your kids something, but if you are doing the complete opposite, they’ll learn more from your actions than your words. To teach them about controlling spending, you have to do so yourself. Lead by example.

3. Teach them one habit at a time. Your kids are not going to become skilled financial planners overnight, or in one month, or even in a year. Your goal should be to teach them these lessons over the course of their childhood and adolescence. So teach one thing at a time, until they’ve learned the skill, and then move on to the next. There’s no rush.

4. Let them learn by doing. You can’t teach by telling. You have to tell (briefly), then show, then let them do. Let them make mistakes. And then talk about those mistakes. Soon enough, they’ll learn why those mistakes were actually mistakes, and if you set it up right, they’ll learn better habits on their own, by doing.

So with those principles to guide you, here are 10 valuable lessons you can teach your kids about money.

Edited article from: http://www.tflguide.com

Quote for the day

“Fundamental analysis: Very powerful in terms of determining long-term direction, but lacks short-term applicability.” - John Forman