If you're like most traders, you are in this business to make money big money. In all probability, you are ambitious, independent minded, and ready to take on the world. With this ambition usually comes a need to be the best. Only the people at the top of the field achieve the highest level of success. Although striving for expertise is a prerequisite for success, it usually coincides with a need ..read more

When it comes to protecting your money, one of the biggest dangers is so called impulse trading. Resisting the urge to have something right then and there is a skill everyone needs to learn in order to build a strong financial foundation. Recently I watched an entertaining TV show called "Auction Kings." One of the pieces being auctioned off was a 1975 Cadillac Eldorado. Cars don't get much b ..read more

Do you ever feel as if you are just going through the motions, acting without thinking? Are you surprised that you react emotionally, selling prematurely when you meant to hold out a little longer? Or do you jump into a trade too soon, before you have systematically thought out your trading plan? You may be giving into a natural inclination to follow the crowd. I ..read more

Have you been making plans for the coming year? Have you been trying to make sense of where you've been so far? It's useful to ask and answer a few key questions: Where have I been? Where am I going? Where am I going to go next? The answers to these questions aren't always obvious. But consider the plight of Rey Aktiv and Pro Aktiv, brothers, both novice traders with very different personalities a ..read more

How much time do you devote to charts study each day? It varies for me, but ideally, sufficient time to truly consider what is happening in the markets I'm interested in trading. For me, charts study is a part of my self-control and self-discipline efforts. Confidence comes from the self-disciplinary aspect of doing little things consistently right. I believe that when traders do their chart work ..read more

Use all your senses to trade the markets. If trading directly from a screen, watch for the signs of activity in the market. One trader I know booked a $9,500 day trading soybean profit, because he noticed a step up in trading activity as prices were making a new daily high. How could he know that suddenly the market had become very active? He was watching both contract volume and tick volume ..read more

Winners learn more from losses than from wins. When a profit is taken, there may be little room for improvement. When a loss is taken, a trader's self-discipline and self-control are the first things to be examined. The second aspect of studying a loss is to see how the actual price action caused the loss. Was there a trend reversal; an unexpected gap? Most beginning traders sustain losses du ..read more

There are some common mistakes I've seen traders make in the area of money management. First, let's understand what money management is all about. Money management overlaps with risk, trade, business, and personal management, yet it has many aspects that make it unique, distinctly different from all of the other areas of management. In this chapter we want to examine some areas of money management ..read more

If you want to be a successful trader, you must make sure you do not deny reality in any phase of your trading. You cannot deny losses, price direction, mistakes you make, being undercapitalized, or a whole host of things you would rather not think about. Many traders think the best way to deal with unpleasant ideas, events, or personal character flaws is to shut their eyes and pretend they don't ..read more

Everyone is allowed to make one mistake. When the same mistake is repeated a second time, caution should be noted. The third repetition of the same mistake constitutes self-destructive habitual behavior that must be reversed.All trading must stop immediately until the trader's self-discipline is thoroughly examined. Once the reason for the repetitive mistakes&nbs ..read more