Articles

The subject of this article is the “Stop Loss”. By this we mean the exit point for a trade if it goes wrong after it is initiated. Without a stop loss as part of your trading routine you are in danger of a huge capital and worse, psychological loss. Even if you have a very high hit rate of s...

In a previous article I outlined the attributes of successful traders namely, a personalized approach, discipline and passion. In this article I want to take a deeper look into the actual performance dimensions that lead to consistent and growing profits. Firstly, let me quickly review the attrib...

I really enjoy reading biographies by or about prominent business people, sportsmen and women, and coaches in various fields especially the elite coaches. I’m keen to understand the ingredients of success and how coaches instil these ingredients in their charges. I am in particular searching to...

On Becoming Professional
What does it mean to be Professional Here are some key synonyms expert, specialised, qualified, proficient, skilled, trained, practiced, and certified. We can go further. A professional is in a paid occupation that requires a high degree of skill and competence. Th...

A model to create your success.
Knowing that your journey is doable because others have done it, do you have to go on it blindfolded Certainly not I would like to share with you a model that I use to help individual traders become professional and to reach for success.

Why don’t most win at trading when they know what’s required cut losses and let profits run It seems simple but only relatively few who commence the trading project go on to become consistently profitable. Why is that the case

It is worth reminding you of the strategic basis for making profits by trading in financial markets. In fact the basis for profit for any trading business whether it is in financial markets or in any other medium is to buy the discount and sell the premium. In any business not only do you have to...

I have been asked by a reader to comment about developing a trading plan. This prompted me to recall the old quip “How do you make God laugh Answer Show Him your plans” Insert the word Market instead of God and you have a good idea
about how many relate to the market.

A YTE reader, Josh, has asked me to comment as a coach on how to start out in the share market. There must be hundreds of novice traders like Josh who, while daunted by the plethora of directions and opportunities, are enticed by the possibility of
financial success and freedom that seems ...

It may seem strange that I am writing about the task of trading, and that I need to remind you what the purpose of this activity is. Given the fact that 90% of people who ‘trade’ lose, then it is imperative that I relate to you what the job requires.
Here is the task it is to make PROF...

I am often asked as a success coach why success is so difficult in trading and active investing. The answer is quite complex. In essence those who join the top 10% of successful traders must be doing something special, something different to the 90% who don’t succeed.

Performance enhancement coaching is a rapidly growing phenomenon in business and industry, as well as in the personal arena. The benefits are increased productivity, success and personal satisfaction. At a time when interest in the stock and other markets has never been higher, coaching makes sen...

I am often asked as a trading coach the question “Can anybody win” Underlying this question there are three subtexts that I want to explore with you. These are the subsidiary questions. 1 “Does anybody win” 2 “Who wins” and finally the crunch question 3 “Can I win”

Is there a link between intuition and success at speculation If so can action based on intuition be part of the repertoire of a successful trader In an industry where so many place their trust in mechanical trading systems based on analysis via mathematical algorithms, would an example of consumm...

Whether it be in life in general or in trading it is true that you can’t consistently behave in ways that are inconsistent with your beliefs.

People undertake projects in their lives to satisfy their personality needs that are derived in part from their heredity and in part from their environment. Satisfaction of needs is a very powerful driver, yet needs reside well below the tip of the iceberg of observable behaviour. An unmet need g...

Our guest speaker at the 2006 SuperTrader Retreat was Mark Douglas who of course wrote that excellent primer “Trading in the Zone”. Coincidentally another famous trading coach Ari Kiev gave his trading book the same title. This begs the questions,
what is the Zone, why is it important ...

When a hedge fund manager who lost all in the 1997 Asian meltdown and a financial journalist get together and write a book about speculation, you would expect an informative, entertaining, and interesting book. Victor Niederhoffer and Laurel Kenner combined their talents with ‘Practical Specula...

In my job as a success coach for market participants I have noted a phenomena that is so frequent that it is worth reporting to you and analysing. It is this many serious traders initially make a lot of money and then proceed to give their winnings back to the market, and then some. Now I’m not...

Markets are undoubtedly fascinating to watch. Furthermore there is rich reward, monetarily and psychologically, in making accurate predictions about the future direction of markets. However this is not easy to achieve because markets are
interactions of human beings who operate in the pres...

When you read about expert traders in books such as “Market Wizards” you must be amazed with the ease and poise with which they conduct their business. Why are theyexperts, and how did they get there

I am often asked as a success coach why sustainable success is so difficult to achieve in trading and active investing. The answer is the ‘human element’ within theindividual whereby fear and the ensuing impatience and procrastination prevent the
trader form doing his or her job properly.

Did you happen to see the Reuters report back in September titled “Wanted psychopaths to make a killing in markets.” The article outlines research that shows people who have emotional impairment in their brains or who are just unemotional ‘functional psychopaths’ make good financial decis...

There is a common belief that only 10% of people who set out to become traders actually achieve their initial desire for consistent high returns over the long haul. Objective data to verify this belief would be extremely difficult to obtain in practical terms. In fact I haven’t seen any hard d...