General Comments
We are awash in opinion and speculation. Every trader is writing blog posts or tweets about why the market will go up or down, and citing any number of factors. To my way of thinking, simple is better. There is only one thing that matters, and that is whether the
Failure Test
I've focused quite a bit here on quantitative aspects of trading and market analysis, and I've also just scratched the surface of the thorny subject of intuition. Today, I want to look at something slightly different: how we can use some subjective elements in our analysis,
Psychology
Reader Thomas asks: have you ever written about regrets in trading? They seem to dominate mine...missing an entry, not taking the exit, etc Good question, Thomas, and, no, this isn't something I have written about recently. I do think it's an important topic, and worth
General Comments
This post continues the discussion on finding the Art in technical analysis. Read that first, and also this post, on bringing broad intuition into your experience. For quantitatively-inclined traders (such as myself), discretion can be a problem. First, many system rules are slightly counter-intuitive (which may be why they work)
Psychology
Today's topic might appear to be a fun one, but, for the unprepared trader, there is actually serious danger here. What do we do when a trade results in a larger than expected win? What do we do when volatility becomes much larger than when we put the
Psychology
One of the curious elements of human psychology is the tendency to fade moves or to try to pick turning points in trends. When I started trading, this was how I started out--looking for patterns that showed a trend was ending and trying to take a counter-trend position. Over the
Psychology
[dc]I[/dc] want to write a few words today on intuition. This is a slightly thorny subject, because it is not easy to say what is right and what is wrong; one person's approach to and experience of intuition may be very different than another person'
Psychology
I'll paraphrase a question I received from a reader on the trance portion of my trading course: When I do the trance recordings I get so relaxed that I sometimes fall asleep and remember nothing after the session. Rather than reclining, I've tried sitting in a
Market Math
[dc]S[/dc]ometimes, the obvious does need to be said. The S&P 500 cash index touched the big round number 2,000 yesterday. Here we are, in late summer, with very little happening in the world and few economic reports this week, so, of course, the media
Psychology
[dc]P[/dc]eople talk about "learning how to lose" and "losing gracefully". Truth be told, that's a concept I've always had trouble understanding. Though I know there is some wisdom in the idea of losing gracefully, I am a terrible loser.
General Comments
[dc]I[/dc] want to share an important exercise with you today. The journey along the path to trading mastery can be difficult because it requires some conflicting skills—on one hand, you must rule certain aspects of your behavior with iron discipline and must also begin managing your thoughts
General Comments
[dc][/dc]Take a few moments, here at the beginning of a new year, to think about how do you handle your market biases and convictions. We all know the glaring examples of "biases gone bad": Permabears, some of whom have been firmly bearish on stocks since the