Defense wins championships. A good defense gives your team a chance to win; it keeps you in the game. To put this in trading terms, your game plan should keep your losses manageable while waiting for an opportunity to build a position. When you trade with this mindset you will always be in the game and ONE trade could turn around your entire day or your week.
Too often we see trader after trader trying to earn their entire month by gambling big on every single trade instead of seeing the big picture and earning your pay by the month.
There are literally stores and bookshelves filled with trading books and videos about how to earn money in the stock market. If I was forced to put a number on it I would say that 98%of them focus on telling you what to do to be successful as a trader.
We are going to discuss some of the things you can AVOID to give yourself the best chance of netting money on a regular monthly basis.
1. Using maximum leverage all the time: Most retail traders who make the venture into full time trading have a very common belief; "if I had more buying power I would make more money." So when they actually make the jump to a professional firm they can't wait to "load up" a position. All they can see is the dollar signs of what they will earn as the trade moves in their favor. It is just not possible for every trade you take to be one where you should increase your leverage. Placing maximum share size on your initial entry requires you to be amazingly accurate with every entry. Think about that, maximum share size all the time forces you to be perfect. Is that possible?
2. Not using enough leverage: There are however certain times of the day, week and month when you will have the market condition to increase your position size. Keep in mind this will occur on average around 30% of the day, week, and month. Think about that; 70% of the month will NOT be optimal conditions for max share size!! How often does the market, sector, your stock, market internals and volume all line up for this perfect storm?
3. Trading the entry signal instead of the trend: One of the most exciting things to do when trading is obviously getting into a trade, that's what gets your blood pumping. Unfortunately because the entry is so exciting that is where most new traders put most of their focus during the trading day; on the entry signals. This is equivalent to going to the beach and watching the small splashes of water around your ankles and thinking those splashes move the ocean. It is the other way around and that should be your focus. The big picture first and THEN the smaller time frames to enter or exit. Don't even look at the smaller entry time frames until it looks good on the higher time frames.
4. Guessing when a trend will end: When you remove the ego based desire to pick tops and bottoms you will immediately become a better trader. This will add to your net profitability than any other advice you will receive. One of the first mentors I had said it the best; "it is what it is until it's not." In other words assume the order flow the buying or selling pressure is intact until you see a heavy volume pause or exhaustive volume.
5. Trying to scalp AND position trade: Pete Rose was not a home run hitter and Barry Bonds was not paid to hit singles. They both knew very clearly before they went to the batters box what they were trying to accomplish. This is a very important concept to understand before you begin trading for the day it will affect how you manage a position and how you get shares for a trade. If you are a "singles hitter" as a trader you will be trading full size on both entry and exit. If you are a trader who holds positions you will be building a position as the stock moves in your favor and scaling out as well. It is very difficult to scalp and to be a position trader; you will constantly be mixing business plans. This is a quick road to the poor house. Pick a style that fits your personality and trade it like you own it. This will make it much easier to replicate your success.
Spend some time during lunch or after the close and see how many of these five you can remove from your daily trading.
Good luck this week,
Pete
The founders and instructors of Keystone Trading Concepts have managed a profitable short term trading desk for the last seven years. Our specialty is short term intra day to five day stock trades.
http://www.keystonetradingconcepts.com/
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