Sunday, 1 November 2020

175 things you should know about trading before you start

1. The market is always right

2. The market does not owe you a living

3. Risk no more than 10% -20% of your equity on each individual trade

4. If you have three bad opening trades, take yourself out of the market for the day

5. Rumour is the stepchild of real news

6. Market wisdom can be learned but never ignored

7. A trader’s job is to take risk; it’s part of doing business

8. Never place a trade just for the sake of it

9. You can lose 100% of the time as a trader, but you rarely win 100%

10. Higher risk, higher chance of large profits; and larger losses

11. Abandon ‘hope’

12. The market is only a game

13. Don’t over trade

14. Don’t under trade

15. When you can, follow the trend

16. Longer term the market is always bullish

17. Don’t let good profits turn into bad losses

18. Be careful of using stops; the market knows they are there

19. If you can, enter passively; close aggressively

20. Always close a trade decisively; don’t wait for the market to help you

21. Treat other’s market commentary with caution

22. Don’t follow tips; they are likely to be second-hand

23. If a trader gives you a tip, he’s hoping you will help him to sell his stock

24. Listen to what the market is telling you

25. Listen carefully; markets often whisper

26. Don’t be afraid to take a profit; be afraid of losses

27. Don’t average a loser; pyramid a winner

28. Take big profits and small losses

29. Treat profits and losses with equal disdain

30. Don’t buy a stock just because you think it is cheap; don’t sell a stock because you think it is too expensive

31. Run your winners, cut your losers

32. Good money will never come easily; easy money wills never stay with you for good

33. Don’t trade until three out of five of your safety checks are true

34. Back your conviction if you have made all of your checks

35. Understand the market condition and then trade

36. There is a time to speculate and a time to walk away; know each implicitly

37. Run with the herd but leave before they exit

38. If you win three times in a row halve your trade size for the fourth trade

39. Don’t trade too many markets at the same time

40. Don’t trade more than three stocks at the same time

41. Buy the rumour; sell the news

42. Timing is everything

43. You will never make quick money for long

44. Expect to lose; it’s the cost of doing business

45. Someone, somewhere is watching how you trade

46. There’s nothing new in trading

47. The more you lose, the smaller your trades should be

48. When you’re winning, trade like a winner

49. Don’t follow the guy next to you; he’ll be out before you are in

50. Be jealous of your capital; guard it carefully

51. Never hedge when you should be out of the market

52. Keep your tyres to the road or you will travel nowhere

53. Trading can appear to be deceptively easy; don’t believe it

54. Keep in good health; sleep well

55. Never trade when you are drunk; the market loves a drinker

56. Don’t expect to win every day

57. Be ready to modify your approach; the market is like a river with tides and currents

58. If you are right, back your trades with all your conviction

59. Expect only five trades a year to make you ten times your average daily profit; these are the Alpha trades; always anticipate them

60. A good trade feels good from the start; a bad trade, bad.

61. Learn to recognize the other participants in your market; they leave footprints like you

62. Set an exit point but be prepared to extend it; never let your profit fall below it however

63. Think like a human; trade like a machine

64. Big moves, like storms, take time to develop although the sky darkens and the rain falls sometime before they hit

65. Know when to take a loss

66. Losing trades have a habit of sticking together; winners tend to like their own company

67. The market loves a big mouthed sucker

68. Don’t bring ‘home’ into work with you

69. If the market starts to bore you; it’s time for a holiday

70. Make sure you are sitting at your desk at least 20 minutes before the market opens

71. If you are late for the open, don’t trade until you have spent at least an hour catching up

72. Pairs trades are as risky as outright long or short positions

73. Don’t get mad at the market; it doesn’t care

74. Know your trading technology

75. Don’t accept what you don’t understand

76. Respect the market; it has survived longer than any trader

77. You can make money through luck, but not every day

78. Use charts to confirm a move; but don’t rely on them for making decisions

79. Know how to recognize and follow the smart money

80. Understand who moves your market

81. Traders rarely move markets unless they should not be trading

82. Never put your stops on or next to a big number; e.g 500083. Only use a buy/sell stop to get into a position when the market is gathering directional momentum

84. Put in the ground work, study your information sources and revisit your trades

85. New traders who don’t live and breathe the markets will be claiming social security benefits within twelve weeks of starting

86. If a new trader lives and breathes the markets, he will make money within three months

87. Don’t sit on the ‘Simulated trading market’ for longer than three weeks; it will take six weeks to unlearn it

88. Be passionate about trading, or leave

89. If you arrive at your desk after the market opens, don’t expect to make money in the first half an hour other than by luck

90. If you leave before the market close, don’t expect to know how it may open

91. Smoking can kill your trading; cigarette breaks will render 12.5% of your trading day useless;

92. Missing 1 hour of the live market a day for cigarette breaks can mean missing a year of trading over an eight year period.

93. If you don’t drink and drive, why drink and trade? Both are equally hazardous for your (and other people’s) health.

94. A lot happens when you’re not watching

95. A trader who reads through his daily trading log at the end of the trading session relives the market again; he doubles his experience of the market compared to those who do not, and makes money twice as quickly

96. If a trader does not review his market activity at the end of everyday, it will take him twice as long to reach the standard of one that does.

97. Drink plenty of fluids; hydration will mean better cognitive functions

98. Never trade when you are hungry or tired; you can be distracted by strong natural urges

99. You can forget, ignore or renounce your trading performance, but you can’t hide it

100. Don’t treat the market like an intellectual challenge; it’s not a conundrum

101. Theorists are theorists because they aren’t traders; good traders are rarely theorists because they rely on fact and knowledge

102. The market is different but nearly the same, one day to the next

103. Common sense does play a part in markets; normally after they are closed.

104. Markets confound

105. Even the best trading strategy has a flaw; 9 times out of 10 that flaw is unknown until it’s too late

106. The big players can be wrong; but they have a softer cushion to hide it under

107. Don’t take the big boys on; there’s nothing they like better than a loaded dog-fight

108. Pride will ruin you; humility will quietly support you

109. A trading idea has a limited lifespan; like an option, it runs out of theta

110. A trade will have its moment; when that moment is over, kill it

111. Look for confirmation in three places before committing to a large trade

112. Keep a journal of your past successes and failures; you never know when the same conditions may arise

113. Don’t trust a sudden uptrend in a bear market; it can change direction in an instant

114. Sometimes markets are so strong you have to go with them

115. If you have a long term winning trade, don’t wait until the last moment to take your profit; exit swiftly and leave a little of your profit for the market

116. A charting average is of little value to anyone

117. If you can’t make money from the best trading stocks of the day, then you should not be trading 118. Watch out for the wrong turn; the market leads many a trader down a dead end

119. Time wasted trading the wrong stock will ruin your chances of picking the right stock in the short term

120. If a stock has had a significant positive run, don’t be surprised if it gets tired

121. If you place a trade for certain reasons and those reasons don’t change, don’t cancel your trade

122. There is no such thing as a good long-term investment; conditions always change, and when they do, a good long-term investment can fall 99% in value

123. Investors are bigger gamblers than speculators; they expect their investments to take care of themselves

124. When in doubt, don’t trade

125. Don’t trade when you sense danger; if you are wrong, you can always get back in

126. Hesitation will ruin you; impatience, destroy you

127. Successful trading relies on a correctly timed and weighted response to opportunity

128. Listen to your instinct; you will know when you are wrong

129. Never make speculation a part-time hobby unless you are happy to donate funds to the professionals

130. Speculation can be fun for those that don’t take it seriously; however, it will never be rewarding

131. If you are serious about trading, make it your full-time focus; you wouldn’t expect a successful surgeon to learn his trade part-time

132. If your broker sends you a margin call, close your trade; it’s a bad one

133. If you have made a good trading decision you are likely to show a profit from the start

134. Look, listen and learn; there are clues everywhere.

135. Try and learn something new about trading every day.

136. Seek out and use the best sources of information

137. If the best sources of information cost you, pay; they will pay for themselves 100 times over

138. Don’t let trade costs interfere with your trading decisions

139. Don’t let small losses create big problems

140. When you have taken a good profit, be satisfied; never re-enter the market to better it

141. Don’t try and justify your losing trades to others; they are not criticizing you for them

142. Don’t brag about winning trades; it will sound like you don’t have that many

143. Be judge and jury on your own trades but spare yourself the gallows

144. Give yourself a break; work with yourself rather than beat yourself up over losses

145. Self criticism is meant to be constructive; be kind; after all, you have yourself to live with

146. Personal victories are the best

147. Take time to practice; top class athletes do not race everyday

148. Create a trading plan for every market condition

149. Build a toolbox of trading strategies

150. Think successful thoughts when you do think about trading

151. Commit fully; or gradually fail

152. Skilful traders get their reputation from the market’s storms and tempests

153. Trading is psychology; yours and everyone else’s

154. Ask yourself a question before you sleep; the morning will have your answer

155. The mark of a good trader is how he deals with his losses

156. Traders must get used to making decisions with incomplete information

157. Like nature, there are no straight lines in markets

158. If you double your money, draw half of your profit and place it in reserve (Jesse Livermore)

159. Trading is a performance discipline that responds directly to training

160. Trading performance is influenced by the methods a trader uses to learn

161. Training translates trading talent into skills (Brett Steenbarger)

162. Winning in trading demands sustaining enhanced learning processes

163. Trading success in the present so rarely ensures future success

164. Traders experience emotional conflict when they depart from their trading plans

165. A trader will only improve if he pushes himself into uncomfortable territory

166. The trading day does not stop when the market closes

167. Good traders don’t accept defeat lightly

168. Good losers usually lose (Vince Lombardi)

169. Practice is the cornerstone of expertise because it multiplies experience

170. The tape never lies (Jesse Livermore)

171. Be patient; the right moment to trade will arrive sooner than you think

172. There is always a signal at the start of any race; learn the signals

173. An important market move will not end in a day (Jesse Livermore)

174. Never buy more than you can easily sell back to the market

175. Risk the profits not the losses 
Source: 

The Little Book of Trading Wisdom

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