“Win or lose, everybody gets what they want out of the market. Some people seem to like to lose, so they win by losing” – Ed Seykota Do you know what you want out of the markets? Yes, I know people trade for money, but that is far from the only reason. Maybe you like

Do you have market conditions that you just hate? Maybe the trend is your friend, but your trading gets all in a knot during range bound markets. But what if you could transform the market conditions you hate into the ones that you love the most? I went through this exercise myself, and now the

My girlfriend always laughs at me, but I like to look at charts for relaxation. Much of my trade planning actually comes from chilling on the couch on the weekend looking at charts and catching up on the analysis I like to follow on my iPad. I keep a note pad beside me and write

Like the sea turns from calm to stormy so do markets. As a trader, like the captain of a sailing ship, you want to notice these changes to adapt your strategy as appropriate. In this previous post on market types, I talked about how you identify the market type you are in, and how to

Have you ever been in a trade that has gone to within a few pips of your profit target and then reversed all the way back down and hit your stop loss? Not a pleasant experience at all! But fortunately if you use this simple technique it’s not one that you will have to suffer

“Whenever a trader says “I wish” or “I hope” they are engaging in a destructive way of thinking” – Bruce Kovner, Market Wizard A common mistake for the trader is to treat the market like a personal nemesis. The market is, of course, totally impersonal, but sometimes it can seem like it is out to

I have been having an interesting conversation via email with a gentleman trader who traded on the Floor of the Sydney Futures Exchange (SFE) when interest rates were 18%. He actually spend the majority of his career in a bear market. Here are insights he graciously shared: I loved the panic humans experience in a

One of the beautiful things about Forex is that you can get in on trends that just seem to go on and on. But what’s the good in a having a trend if you can’t stick to it? Cutting profits short is one of the cardinal sins would-be Forex traders engage in (another being letting

“The truth is that, while you can’t quantify reward, you can quantify risk.” – Larry Hite Good traders don’t talk about the money they make in the markets. Not because it’s crass to talk about (though it can be), but because it’s not what they are thinking about when they trade. To the good trader,

“Although the cheetah is the fastest animal in the world and can catch any animal on the plains, it will wait until it is absolutely sure it can catch its prey. It may hide in the bush for a week, waiting for just the right moment. It will wait for a baby antelope, and not

Good trading, like anything else, requires proper research, planning, and execution. A prepared trader can implement a structure to make this happen. Too many traders treat trading as a pastime and not a serious business. They dabble at this and that because it’s interesting, and the leave the real work on the sidelines. But if

When I first started trading I would have spent hundreds of hours poring over charts back-testing my trading strategy. I even enlisted my girlfriends help to record my back test results in a spreadsheet (much to her chagrin). But what exactly is back-testing and does it help? Two types of back-testing There are two main

People get exactly what they want out of the markets. Most people are afraid of success or failure. As a result, they tend to resist change and continue to follow their natural biases and lose in the markets. When you get rid of the fear, you tend to get rid of the biases.—Van K. Tharp,

You know the saying “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results”? Van Tharp (A Market Wizard – yep, they are a real thing) has a new definition for traders: “Expecting the same system to work in all market types is the definition of insanity” So as a follow up

Just a brief note today. How do you spend your time during the system development process? It should be something like this: 30% working on your objectives 30% working on your position-sizing 30% working on your exit rules (So you can trade what’s in-front of you) 10% on your entries To reinforce the point I

I’m always disappointed by the level of the conversation about risk management. Risking 1%-2% per trade is not the magic bullet that Forex educators seem to think it is. Sure, it’s better than risking 5% of your account per trade, but the concept of risking 1% or 2% per trade is much better suited to

Your entry is not king. Nor is your exit. In the realm of Forex trading it is what is in-front of you that is the ruler of your domain. Unless you’re George Soros you don’t have the power to move the markets on your own, so your only choice is to flow with it, otherwise

It’s far too easy to take this Forex thing casually. You can open an account with a broker is the blink of an eyelid and in two more blinks you can be trading Forex. But Forex is a game a skill played by some of the most sophisticated, well connected and intelligent men and women