General Comments
One of the interesting developments of the past ten years is the gradual death of the “life hack” approach. This is a good thing. The reason this movement has died is because most “hacks” simply don’t work. But if you’re trying to develop a trading approach, you need
General Comments
I took part in an interesting exchange in a Facebook group last night, in which a trader was asking “should I buy puts or calls for the spy or qqq?” This trader, by his own admission, was a consistently losing trader. The question began with something like “I’m going
General Comments
How do we learn? For most things, a pretty simple plan works: do something and evaluate the results. Make some changes to what you do, and see how the results change. If your results get better, do more of the thing. If your results get worse, go the other way.
Trader Development
I received a question from a reader, Cian, who asks: … My goal is to become a career trader. I am 30 years old and I am currently unemployed due to the covid 19 situation. I have a lot of free time on my hands and I want to really dedicate
Anti
Today, I want to share some thoughts I’m having on a pattern I usually skip in my own trading. I’m wondering if maybe these are trades I should be taking… The chart above shows a pattern that is almost an anti. (See other examples here.) But not quite.
Psychology
In the face of recent historic moves in stocks, crude oil, bonds, and many currencies, it is a good idea to step back and think about a fundamental question: what really moves markets? The one thing In the short term, only one thing moves markets—buying or selling pressure. In
Psychology
Trading can be emotional. The market often has volatile moves and it seems new highs or the end of the world are just around the corner. In this environment, it’s natural for traders to be emotional. Of all the emotions traders deal with, regret is probably the most common.
Technical Patterns
This might be a more challenging blog post than most, but if you’re interested in really understanding price action I think it’s very important. Over the past several weeks I’ve been doing some deep dive coding and quant work. (Stuff like looking at correlation and cointegration in
Psychology
Creativity is, for me, right at the heart of our growth as humans. In this post, I’ll share some ideas for connecting with your own creativity and bringing the power of a new perspective to problem solving. Right away, we run into a problem. “Creativity” is a problematic word.
General Comments
One of the very positive advances over the past decade is the amount of attention focused on cognitive biases. We are, through the work of some gifted authors and speakers, becoming aware of how easily our brains misfire and cause us to make mistakes. The list of cognitive biases is
Individual Traders
This is a continuation of the little mini-series on getting started in technical analysis. Today I want to talk about the mindset and goals of a successful trader. This is something I wished I had known much earlier when I started trading. Where we start Most of us get started
Trader Development
The secret to success is no secret at all—it’s right there in the open, for everyone to see. To achieve greatness in any field you have to do the right things, work very hard, and sacrifice. As I’m typing this, I have a band-aid on my left