Luck plays an enormous role in trading success. Some people were lucky enough to be born smart, while others were even smarter and got born lucky.
The trend is your friend except at the end where it bends.
The biggest secret about success is that there isn’t any big secret about it, or if there is, then it’s a secret from me, too. The idea of searching for some secret for trading success misses the point.
Markets are fundamentally volatile. No way around it. Your problem is not in the math. There is no math to get you out of having to experience uncertainty.
Losing a position is aggravating, whereas losing your nerve is devastating.
Trying to trade during a losing streak is emotionally devastating. Trying to play ‘catch up’ is lethal.
Systems don’t need to be changed. The trick is for a trader to develop a system with which he is compatible.
Everybody gets what they want out of the market.
If you want to know everything about the market, go to the beach. Push and pull your hands with the waves. Some are bigger waves, some are smaller. But if you try to push the wave out when it’s coming in, it’ll never happen. The market is always right.
Trend following is an exercise in observing and responding to the ever-present moment of now.
I turn bullish at the instant my buy stop is hit, and stay bullish until my sell stop is hit.
The idea of searching for some secret for trading success misses the point.
It’s all about sticking to your plan and experiencing feelings as they arise. If you are unwilling to feel your feelings, the temptation is to avoid them by jumping off your system.
It is a happy circumstance that when nature gives us true burning desires, she also gives us the means to satisfy them. Those who want to win and lack skill can get someone with skill to help them.
Trends become more apparent as you step further away from the chart.
Good traders trade. Good letter writers write letters.
Fundamentals that you read about are typically useless as the market has already discounted the price, and I call them “funny-mentals”. However, if you catch on early, before others believe, you might have valuable “surprise-a-mentals”.
Psychology motivates the quality of analysis and puts it to use. Psychology is the driver and analysis is the road map.
There are old traders and there are bold traders, but there are very few old, bold traders.
I would add that I consider myself and how I do things as a kind of system which, by definition, I always follow.
Dramatic and emotional trading experiences tend to be negative. Pride is a great banana peel, as are hope, fear, and greed. My biggest slip-ups occurred shortly after I got emotionally involved with positions.