Sometimes you’re simply out of step with the market. It could be your strategy just isn’t suited to current conditions (even though you are executing with iron-willed discipline). Or it could be caused by something more personal: you might be a bit off-colour health wise, or you might have other demanding things going on in […]...
You might know I’m not a massive fan of technical indicators… (I’m talking about things like Stochastic Indicators, MACD, RSI and all those other exotic sounding tools.) If you’ve been following my stuff for a while you’ve probably noticed I lean more towards pure ‘Price Action’ when it comes to technical analysis. Now I’m not […]...
There’s talk of a looming ‘Great Depression.’ So who can blame people for turning to trading in order to maintain their financial goals? One thing concerns me though. Two things actually… 1) New traders coming to the markets with their unrealistic expectations. You’ve heard me rant on about this one before, I’m sure. So I’m […]...
There is much to be said for trading with real money. Even ‘small money.’ It’s a completely different world to demo trading because of the mental aspects of assuming risk. But expose yourself in a SMALL way to begin with. Especially since it’s so easy to trade micro-lots with most brokers these days. Build up […]...
There’s a not-so-secret secret to achieving smooth growth to your trading account that I’d like to tell you about. Well, there’s more than one ‘secret,’ actually. But let’s take things one step at a time. So, for today, imagine a typical ‘advanced beginner’ trader… He’s been out and about in the markets. He has a […]...
I had similar conversations with two different people recently… About trends. Or, more specifically: a) How do you know which ‘segment’ of a big overall trend to measure and work with? And: b) How far back in time should you go when measuring trends and drawing trendlines? They’re two questions that address at the same […]...
The artist scrutinises his almost-complete masterpiece… Holding hand to chin and with narrowed eyes he steps away from the easel. He gives his canvas a good check-over from a few paces back. He steps to the left and dips his head for an alternative view that catches the light in a certain way. Next, he […]...
It can be a real pain to carefully record the details of every single trade you take. But keeping accurate records, and referring back to them frequently, is hands-down the fastest way I know to improve your performance. If you capture a record of all your trading activities faithfully and with complete honesty (that means […]...
Imagine… you’ve learned to swing a golf club. You can strike the ball pretty good. 7 times out of 10 it even goes in the approximate direction you wanted. ‘Great stuff,’ you tell yourself. ‘Time to pack my bags and join the professionals on the PGA tour’ What…? Don’t you think it’d be a bit […]...
“If I’d only exited at hard target I’d have made twice as much on this trade!” [Two hours later…] “If I’d only trailed a stop on this trade I’d have trebled my profit. The exit at hard target has cost me dearly on this one!” Argggh! It’s so frustrating, isn’t it? There never seems to […]...
A question arrives from a TN reader: ‘Aren’t you contradicting yourself when you’re dissing off the peg “forex systems” at the very same time you’re promoting the use of them?’ It’s a fair point and one that probably needs a bit of explanation. My outlook can be stated like this: -> System = closed-book, inflexible […]...
Our lives are ruled by cycles. The annual cycle of the Earth circling around the Sun… The cycle of the Moon… The monthly cycle of your salary landing in your bank – hooray! And then watching it go whizzing out again as the cycle of direct debits and standing orders kick in – boo! The […]...
Remember Nav Sarao… The otherwise unassuming 36 year old trader operating from his parent’s house in the London suburbs who was scooped up and arrested back in 2015? They blamed him for single-handedly causing the 2010 ‘flash crash’ in the US equities markets which wiped £570 billion from the value of US companies inside 5 […]...
You see them all the time these days in stocks and shares. It’s not unusual to see a market sell-off insanely only to bounce back moments later. They even have their own special name: flash crashes. It’s easy to blame the big players – investment banks and the like – for ganging up on us […]...
It’s easy to ‘marry’ an opinion. The trouble is it blinkers you to any other possibility but the one you foresee happening. With trading, you might analyse the markets yourself or you might invest in the outlook of a market commentator. And at a specific moment in time it might make perfect sense. The logic […]...
