Even though Market-Neutral Traders may not be picking a direction, we are dealing with price movement. Knowing what directional traders are thinking and where there are likely to be areas of high volatility can be extremely beneficial. Knowing the market conditions you’re entering into, in advance, can help you to modify your entry or avoid entering a trade that’s not … Read More
Enhancing Trader Performance with James Montier
*****David Blair, The Crosshairs Trader, is a blogger/trader/educator who does a wonderful job of sharing research on elite performance and how it relates to trading. Below is his latest post for the SMB trading community.***** — Editor’s Note If you are not studying the markets with those who study market participants you are missing out on a vitally important aspect … Read More
The Importance of a Well-Thought-Out Trade Plan
Have you watched “Star Trek: The Next Generation”? One of my favorite episodes is when the Enterprise gets into a battle with The Borg. The USS Enterprise is getting hammered. Fires are breaking out, sparks are flying everywhere and people are running around screaming. Then there’s the Captain Picard, sitting in the Captains chair, confidently doing the tasks that will … Read More
Enhancing Trader Performance with Brett Steenbarger
*****David Blair, The Crosshairs Trader, is a blogger/trader/educator who does a wonderful job of sharing research on elite performance and how it relates to trading. Below is his latest post for the SMB trading community.***** — Editor’s Note In the past week Brett Steenbarger, well-known trader and psychologist, announced his return to the blogosphere from a multi-year hiatus. For years, Dr. Steenbarger … Read More
Risk Tolerance VS Risk Capacity
To be successful at trading, long term, it’s extremely important that our risk tolerance is in line with our risk capacity. Risk “tolerance” has to do with the amount of draw down we can withstand prior to the loss psychologically effecting our trading. Risk “capacity” has to do with the amount of draw down we can withstand prior to the … Read More
Trading with Fear and Anxiety
It’s important to understand the difference between fear and anxiety when we’re trading. Legitimate fear is our friend. Legitimate fear serves a warning to tell us something’s wrong. It’s the signal to be alert , to review our positions and plans. If we find something wrong, we can fix it. If not we let go of it and move on. … Read More
Six Reasons Traders Fail That Most Traders Don’t Think About
1. Lack of direction. Traders often fail to establish clear goals and create plans to achieve those goals. When traders fail to develop complete business and trading plans before entering the market they are setting themselves up for failure. 2. Impatience. This occurs when traders try to accomplish too much too soon, or expect to get results far faster than is truly possible. … Read More
Why set goals? Not just in trading but in any part of life?
“Top scientists estimate that we’re bombarded with over 400 billion bits of information every second. There is no way we could possibly pay attention to this much information. It would literally drive us insane. In fact, we are only capable of consciously processing approximately 2,000 bits of information. That’s only 0.0000005% (5 ten-millionths of 1 percent) of the world around us. This means that we … Read More