Slow Trader

Category: How to become a trader

  • One strategy at a time

    Patience is a virtue, is a phrase that is true in trading.

    Trader seminars often provide many strategies based around a trading method. An attendee then looks for a trade, from all of the strategies provided, all of the time.

    A recipe for a series of stressful losses.

    From all of the strategies taught at the seminar, probably only a few are worth the risk; and of those a single strategy might stand out.

    It is better to find that ‘one’ strategy and work it until we’re consistently profitable.

    Only then are we to consider another strategy.

  • Conflicting emotions – from notepad mistakes

    We always see opportunities to exit a trade before target.

    We see that we’re ‘in the money’ and worry that a reversal will take our gain away.

    So, we exit early, grab what we can and then justify that to ourselves.

    On the other hand, if we are out of the money, we more often than not hold until our stop is hit (to exit early is an acceptance of any loss against us and we are in hope that a reversal of price will minimise that loss).

    That is our nature, but makes for a poor strategy.

    We need to reverse this tendency and help to balance the equation.

    We need to discipline ourselves to: (1) hold until target and (2) exit a losing trade early if probability favours the stop being hit.

    Sounds easy, but probably one of the hardest things for a day trader to do.

  • Introduction to ‘notepad mistakes’

    As a continuance of my post on ‘learning from mistakes’ I thought that I ought to share some of the mistakes I’ve made (and occasionally continue to make).

    We pay a lot of money for our mistakes, so we may as well learn as much as we can from them. I would like to think that ‘once’ for each mistake would be sufficient, but no, daft as it seems, I can make similar mistakes many times over.

    The best way for me to learn was to write out the mistake, and lesson it provided, in a note pad. At least that way I’m acknowledging and taking responsibility for the mistake and, hopefully, I will refrain from repeats.

    Such posts will be called ‘note book mistakes’. There may be some lessons here for others (albeit I wouldn’t expect the Slow Trader fund investors to gain solace).

    The mistakes are based on short-term trading with a price action bias. However, they are broad in context and may apply equally to any trade duration or system.

  • Learning from mistakes

    Part of the start of the story

    “Since I have traded full-time, I have gained a lot more experience, mostly by making mistakes and learning from them. I learned that failure is, on the whole, due to not accepting and successfully dealing with realities.

    Achieving success, on the other hand, is a matter of accepting and successfully dealing with all my realities. I believe that great financial traders become great by looking at their mistakes and weaknesses and figuring out how to get around them.”

    The story

    Under the heading of ‘how to make a living trading the financial markets’, and password protected, I recently started to present what is for me an exciting yet simple financial trade strategy. Exciting because it works.

    However, strategy alone did not tell the whole story. If strategy is part of the middle then to be complete the story needed a beginning, the rest of the middle and an end.

    My trading principles, lessons, stratagem and guide are all gifted from mistakes. It is nearing completion. I feel it would be a mistake not to get it finished and get it out there.

  • How to make a living trading the financial markets

    After the holiday season, and over several posts, my aim is to show how to make a living trading the financial markets. I will try to show:

    • How to harness gut feeling, the most important of instincts.
    • How to turn most trades into a positive outcome, a decisive strategy.
    • And, finally, how to make the leap.

    That is the challenge, join me.