What has been the most significant factor in ur trading life so far?

[grubs50]

Has there been an event, book,system or even trading tutor/seminar that u believe changed your trading around. what is it that u think improved your trading significantly i.e improved your consistency and profit making........By telling us u might be giving some of us d benefit of your experience.
Thanks

 

[purplekiwi]

T2W!

 

[Nildes]

Bitter experience.
You can read it in the books, but nothing beats facing up to your mistakes and learning from them. :idea:

 

[Zenda]

Being asked for £2906.....

For a one day course with Vince Stanzione .......!!! still can't get off the floor laughing.. :cheesy:

And finding out some people pay for it.....

 

[tradesmart]

Discovering ‘patience’…..! – if you want to go long, there’s always going to be a lower price to get in……….and if you want to go short, you know what to do…..just wait a bit………

no position can be an investment (until the right time comes of course……!)

 

[BBB]

Too many people trying to make a simple series of transactions too complex. That was my lesson.

 

[grubs50]

can u elaborate more?, BBB

 

[BBB]

Well, if I was to do that, I'd only be making things more complicated LOL!

What I mean is trading is just about people buying and selling stuff. Doesn't matter if it apples, pears, milk, house prices or futures.

Have you ever seen a car dealer (or any other merchant/trader) applying fib ratios and RSI to the prices of a Ford Mondeo? No. Does he look at some wierdo wave theory? No. He looks at the market and decides what he can get away with. What prices does the market accept and reject. Gut feel/intuition.


Do you know at which price the next trade will be? No. So there's no chance we know what will happen 10 mins or 10 days from now. So dont introduce daft theory some nutter bangs on about in that book/seminar hoping this will tell you the unknown.

 

[donaldduke]

To win at trading you need confidence or otherwise you just
end up trading scared.

To get confidence you need to trade a system that you know
will make money in the long term. Because you either understand
why your system works and/or have back tested it.

In the beggining i would just try to trade breakouts but that
didnt get me anywhere because my system wasnt defined properly,
i couldnt reproduce my successul trades.
You need to have a clear entry signal a clear exit stragey (loss or
profits etc), and you need to have some position sizing rules.

Once you have a system you are confident in youll find it alot
easier to get through the rough periods and make money in
the long run.

 

[axthree]

Doing it MY way.
I did quite well last year till I listened to an expert or three and got info. overload. Disaster.
Went away and thought about it.
This year MUCH better. No longer trading just for the sake of it.
I now lurk a bit till some poor Plc gets beaten up. Then go in early in the correction and take a small profit.
Same in reverse.
I make enough not to have to use the teabags twice.

 

[Naz]

Saving big costs on every single trade by trading the US market instead of the UK(it all adds up).Discovering the Nasdaq.
Learning live from two great US traders and not a book.

 

[dp1]

Naz

Are you still doing the One-One's ? I did Email T2W, not sure they got it ?


Regards


David

 

[grubs50]

Naz, so which 2 great US traders did u learn from? .......... why and how did u make the decision to go to them?

 

[Dow Dog]

The most significant factor that I have learnt from my trading to date is that the market is capable of anything and is entirely unpredictable.

As long as you keep this thought at the forefront of your mind then you should be ok.

For example, just because a stock has been strongly trending up for the past 10 days, it doesn't necessarily mean that it will continue along this path on day 11. It might collapse.

Just because a stock has a nice ATR of around $ 1.50 and has been nice and consistent, there is nothing to stop it having a high/low spread of $5.00 on any given day.

This unpredictability has impressed upon me the need to keep looking at my system and keep evolving ( and sometimes revolving ) it.

Donaldduke is correct about confidence and fear. You cannot trade effectively if you are petrified of losing a few bucks.

There is no need to fear the market if you understand its capability for the unexpected. But you MUST always respect the market.

Lose respect for the market and you will lose your money - and then you will be scared. Big time !!

 

[grubs50]

lol..........d man failed to fall 4 my trick question!!!

 

[chump]

I don't qualify by virtue of experience,but for what it is worth the realisation that there is no shortcut.Like most businesses you have to do the grunt work,the preparation,if you want to get the performance. I am not there yet,but I have absolutely no doubts that I now have the mindset to get there because I enjoy the work immensely.

Cheers

 

[Ertai]

Trading Forums!

And of course:

MACD the most simple and best indicator of all, the only and true "Holy Grail" :cheesy:

 

[Naz]

Yes i am still doing the beginner 1-2-1's.
The skills work on any market.
Anyone can pm me about it.

DP1 i've pm'd you about it.

Grubs50.
Why did i decide to go and see these two US traders?
Because i wasn't progressing fast enough. I'd learnt so much but it did'nt help me trade.

You can learn all the theory, fundamentals and t/a you like,but in the end you have to trade it.
These two were very,very good traders and that was the bit i needed.Their names i will only give out privately to respect their privacy.

Everyone is different in how they behave,but i guarantee that in 1 day i can show nearly anyone why they are loosing or not progressing,what they are doing wrong and get them to take trades they have never seen before and trade them correctly.(Including a section from the live markets)

 

[Rainmaker]

Reading Market Wizards / New Market Wizards (in answer to the original question).

 

[rog1111]

a) Meeting Tom Williams & reading his book (The undeclared secrets that drive the stock markets). Wyckoff methods basically, but the book helped me to form some beliefs (right or wrong) about how the markets work. A great book for the conspiracy theorists among you !

b) Reading Van Tharp's book - TYWTFF. This helped me to start managing my risk in a more sensible way.

c) Backtesting ! This gave me the confidence to persist with a system. Also, in particular (for me anyway), it has highlighted the advantages of using stop orders & not market orders after a signal has been generated (daily charts)

GL
rog1111