What I Learned My First Year Trading

[NoDoji]

Before all else, erase the words “right” and “wrong” from your belief system.

Master “support” and “resistance”.

A price cannot be too high or too low.

Honor thy stops.

“Every big loss was a small loss once.”

If in doubt, get out.

Once in a trade, place a stop at the price that invalidates your original signal for putting on the trade.

If you place a really wide stop at a ridiculous price that could not possibly be reached, prepare to lose that amount of money.

Finding yourself checking the Yahoo message boards when holding a losing trade is one of the strongest exit signals available.

 

[college_trad3r]

I would add a few more

-Use money monagement
-You can only blame youself 100% for failure
-sell in may go away
-undercapitalized trading will quadruple+++ your chance of failure
-common sense trading is advised, you need to ackowledge every system has weaknesses and know ways to minimise weaknesses

 

[gkishot]

Quote from NoDoji:


If in doubt, get out.

Isn't one always in doubt? Otherwise he wouldn't be using stops.

 

[bennie83]

good thread

 

[ang_99]

Quote from NoDoji:

“Every big loss was a small loss once.”

and most gains were once small losses so this statement is meaningless.

 

[gkishot]

Quote from ang_99:

and most gains were once small losses so this statement is meaningless.

All statements are meaningless because their meaning is limited by individual judgment.

 

[NoDoji]

Quote from ang_99:

and most gains were once small losses so this statement is meaningless.

A small loss is not the problem, realized or unrealized.

 

[gkishot]

There is no way one can know real-time whether small loss becomes a big loss or big gain.

 

[ang_99]

Quote from gkishot:

There is no way one can know real-time whether small loss becomes a big loss or big gain.

Thats my point. If you exit on every small loss to avoid larger losses you're never going to have any gains.

 

[sumosam]

What I have learnt also, is that there is a difference between knowledge and application. There are lessons that have to be internalized....we learn alot more from our poor trades....as long as we don't keep repeating them