WiseMan Trading

  Most traders move from trading system to trading system, and over time, until they find one that suits them… one that is comfortable to run and tests well over (back-tested, then real) time. Some traders never stop looking for the “right” system. THAT is a problem. There are many systems that can generate nice profits over time. To settle on a trading s that’s right for you: First, you have to believe in the process by which the system generates trades. Who was Fibonacci, and how did he arrive at his methodology? Does it make SENSE to YOU? Maybe you’re a visual sort of person and you are drawn to Candlestick charting. Take the time to understand why the patters mean “reversal” and not just accept the “picture”. Go deep. Choose a guru that you will need to trust 100%. If you choose to take your trades from a guru, understand where his or her godliness is coming from. This can be a dangerous choice in that you are giving up control to another. Choose wisely. Second, whatever system...

  You read about the Gurus of trading.   There’s a group of them that started with their last few Thousands and ran it up to millions because of a simple strategy they can teach you.   There’s another group of Gurus that claim hard work, long study and signing up for their newsletter will lead you to where you want to go. All Gurus want you to “learn from their mistakes.” They ask, “Why should you make all the mistakes I’ve made, when you can benefit from my experiences?” Now being somewhat of a Guru myself, I think there IS a certain truth to this query, but not the way you probably think. Other trader’s experiences can make you aware of what to expect as you embark upon your trading. Knowing what to expect should translate into having less “blindside” occurrences. However, when you come across the forewarned learning experience, emotions will come up. These emotional situations (fear, overconfidence, freezing) are up to YOU to handle. (For me or some people ar...

  Michael Buffer swings the microphone up to his mouth and spurts, ”In the blue corner, from Cleveland, Ohio, standing 5 feet 11 inches tall, weighing 215 p the challenger… “Tryon ‘The-Best’ Ican”!”  Buffer continues, “And in the red corner, with a record of 90 wins, all by knockout, with only 10 losses, and heavyweight champion of the world…”Marcus ‘All-Ways’ Wright!”  Now see yourself as Tryon.. cause that’s what you’re doing, tryin’, and of course, the Market is Marcus, because the market’s always right.  Now you have a shot to win . Not a great shot .But A shot  A hundred fighters have faced Marcus and 90% of them have lost .But 10 have won. What did they do to win ?  I didn't see all the fights, but I know I'm accurate when I say that 9 out of 10 of the fighters (if not all ) that beat " All - Ways " Wright , kept a journal between rounds so that they could improve after every round.  They all knew Wright was tough , so they had to make sure ...

  Traders love to talk about their trading.   It’s much more comfortable for most traders to talk about what COULD BE rather than WHAT IS.  They love to talk about some chart setting up, their view of the political situation surrounding the stock or market…whatever.  We all know that talk is cheap.  Intellectually, we know that the chart says everything we need to know, but as emotional beings, we are always looking for the “insight” or the “intuition” to put us a step ahead of everybody else who are all looking at the same charts we are.  If we don’t have the “ eye to the future ”, maybe a trading friend has it.  Sometimes all you have to do is call up a trading buddy and say, “Hi, how are you today?”  What you’ll get in return will be, “Boy, have you seen the ‘so-and-so’ chart today?  If that breaks the XY level, it’s going to really take off!” He continues, “And with that unstable political situation, this could really be a big trade.” Why...

 Any experienced trader will tell you that being successful is, in large part, a matter of overcoming all the hurdles that get in your way.  Let’s look at a few of them:Now there are two basic types of hurdles:  The physical ones and the mental o and actually, sometimes they get intertwined. 

 There are only a handful of people who give a darn about supplying traders with a way to be more disciplined and focused in their trading.  I’m one of them, so I think I know why there are so few of us.  Heck, I’m in the business of supplying traders with a tool to help improve the mental side of the trading equation… the “human” element.  With (what I think) is such an important service, why am I out here virtually alone?  For a couple of reasons.    First, although most traders will admit that the mental part of trading is key to winning in the long-term, most believe they can “gut it up” and just “shake it off” when negative emotions and behaviors rear their ugly heads.  They don’t need a shrink!  They know what they need to do and by-cracky, they’ll do what needs to be done without any help!  I call this the Macho Syndrome And what’s funny is… I get most resistance to the notion of mental discipline (as formal training) from those t...

 It’s on the bottom of every piece of commodity trading literature, every commodity, Mutual funds  investment  advertisement, as demanded by the SEBI.. etc…  WARNING:  Only risk capital should be used for this kind of trading. might as well be Area 51 when it comes to investors caring the warning!  Over my trading career, I’ve talked to many traders just beginning their quests for riches and too many of them approach the market with “money they’ve saved up” for the purpose of speculation.  That may be all well and good, but before you start on your journey of pain and joy, get one thing straight.  You’re going to get emotional… just HOW emotional will be largely a function of whether your risk capital is “comfortably losable,” when you are faced with a step back on your road to profit.  The more mental and emotional investment you have in not wanting to lose your stake, the more you are likely to lose it.  OK.  You’ve got a trading ...

 If you’re a new trader, you’ve got to pay your dues.  Seasoned traders know this and that’s why we love you so much. Look at your charts, mimic the experts, and buy those expensive traderecommendation newsletters. (ahaha this one is fav) Dream your dreams.  But PLEASE just keep trading, because as you trade, we’ll be on the other side, putting YOUR cash into OUR pockets.  I’m not kidding.  So the thing is, you don’t want to stay a “new trader” for long? (there are many ways to it few maybe getting mentored and mentioned below )  

 What would you rather have the perfect trading system or the perfect soul-mate?   Don’t answer that out loud!  I would venture to say that most traders are so “into” their trading that they would hesitate and ponder that question.    By the way, the answer is the perfect soulmate. That’s because there is no perfect trading system.  The perfect trading system is the right system for YOU.  Let’s assess.  Are you the Impatient Type?    Let me stress here that by impatient, I mean that you don’t like the notion of waiting more than, say, a day, to see your trade results.  You use logic like “I don’t like to stay in a trade overnight, because that’s where the risk is…anything can happen in these crazy times.”  Or…  “My signals are just as valid with a 60 second chart as they are with a weekly chart and I’d rather be able to keep adjusting.”    These things that you say to yourself (valid or not) come from your inner-...

Coping With Losses: A Major Key to Successful Trading Be warned.     “Part of overall winning is taking losses along the way.”    “If you have 55% winning trades, you’ll win in the long run.”    We’ve heard it said a million times in a hundred different ways.    In any trading system, we will experience losing trades as well as winning trades. We know this.    So why is it that as we moved forward from trade to trade, we become frozen with doubt when the losing trades appear in bunches?    If you think about it, when winning trades appear in bunches, we get motivated and we look for reasons to find the next trade. We’re on a roll and we love it. We’re on top of the world.    The words “genius” and “professional trader” seem to fit us perfectly.    Conversely, when losing trades appear in bunches, we become fearful of the next trade and look for reasons to shy away from following our system.   ...

   It’s why we all signed up for the battle against the markets.  In the beginning, we read an article or saw a sales leaflet about a guy who took his last few dollars and parlayed it into millions in the markets.   It usually involved a simple secret that when revealed to you (for a few hundred dollars), you could have the same success.  Most of the time, we would chuck the article/leaflet into the trash as garbage, but at some low ebb in our psyche, the article read like the answer to our prayers.    Most of us joined the fray for the “big hit”.   Whether we 1-2-3-counted with Ken Roberts, waved with Prechter, seasoned with Bernstein, or banded with Bollinger, we all soon realized that if we were going to stay in the game, we needed something more than desire and a dream…   We needed a back-tested system that we could have confidence in.   We realized that we needed to take our emotions out of trading and look at tr...

It occupies a chapter in just about every trading book or blog ever written.   It’s been preached by every lecturing market guru since the Aden Sisters danced to the music of the gold market.   Go ahead and hire a personal trading coach and likely the second thing he or she will utter will be these chosen words (right after “Trading is speculative and only risk capital should be used.”)…   And those words are…    “Limit your losses and let your winners run” .   OK. We’ve been told.   But you didn’t have to tell us. It makes perfect sense.   “On a roll”… “Go with the flow”… “Ride the wave”… “Get out while the getting’s good”… we’ve heard both sides of those golden words massaged in numerous different phrases. We get it.   During my trading and coaching days, I re-visit students that I trained weeks or months previously and, low and behold, I would discover that many of them were actually doing the opposite......

  You’ve done your homework.    Countless hours of seeking out the right guru (or piecing together your own system). Weeks of monitoring your guru’s daily trade picks (or papertrading and back-testing your homemade system). You’ve done it by the book.      No seat of the pants trading for you!     OK, now you’re confident. It’s time to put your money where your homework is.     You’ve had your coffee and your first trade signal is before you.    Confidence high. Trade made. First loss. Not a problem.     You understood before you started that successful traders both win and lose and “losing is part of the overall winning”. You’ve also heard more then once that “successful traders don’t win on every trade.”     Moving on, still confident. Next trade made. Another loss, but…     This one hurt your pride a little because you got stopped out early in the trade, and then the mar...