Individual Traders
Trading for a living—this is why many of us come into the market in the first place. It's the fuel that drives a lot of marketing, good and bad, and it's an ideal to which many traders aspire. So let me just put the conclusion
Trader Development
Consistency in trading results requires consistency of process. If you are doing something different every time you trade, it’s hard to evaluate your results. A simple pre-trade checklist can help to shape what you do and to guide you toward that oft-elusive consistency. My checklist is not your checklist.
General Comments
There’s an interesting discussion over on my MarketLife forum, in which someone asked the question “does anyone really succeed at trading?” This snippet pretty much summarizes his question: What if trading is an illusion that cannot be mastered at all? Do you know (personally) anyone who lives from trading?
Trader Development
One of the things I’ve been thinking about recently is how to evaluate the quality of our decisions. This is a topic that traders probably don’t think enough about. Furthermore, much of the traditional advice is very bad and actively works against the trader trying to correctly evaluate
Individual Traders
Working with a mentor, trading coach, or teacher can cut years off the learning curve. For many, it’s the difference between ultimate success and failure. This is an important and powerful relationship, and I want to share some ideas for how you can get the most out of your
Trader Development
I have received several questions about overtrading over the past few weeks. Each question touched on a different aspect of the problem,; this is a serious question that many traders are asking about (and many more are facing and don’t realize it!) Rather than choosing one question to answer,
Trader Development
Here’s the first in a series of posts answering reader’s questions. Bob asks: Adam, question for ya if thats alright… I was noticing on part of your free course it was referring to writing down closing prices of a few select financial instruments each day… what is the
Trader Development
As I’ve been working on the new book, one of the themes that keeps coming up is all the different ways that people make money in the markets. We often think of some of the big, basic divisions; we might say “I’m a fundamental investor” or “I trade
Trader Development
My recent blog generated more concern and controversy in my inbox than anything I’ve done in recent memory. Most of the messages I received were extremely well-intentioned, but, at least in my opinion, also misguided. I think this points to some fundamental principles behind mastery and hard work. Let
Individual Traders
I’ve been thinking a lot about failure recently, and I wanted to share a few of those thoughts with you today. It’s a little glib to simply say “failure isn’t bad” and “don’t be afraid of failure.” Failure is no fun, and, in some pursuits (skydiving?
Trader Development
A few nights ago I decided to sharpen my knives. As many of my readers know, I spent some time in a professional kitchen, and there was a time when I did this knife sharpening routine several times a week, and often every day. But now I cook casually at
Trader Development
Mistakes are a part of trading. They’re a bad part of trading, and we generally do everything we can to reduce those errors. In fact, for developing traders at certain stages, the difference between profits and losses can simply be eliminating errors. Over the years, I’ve made every