Trader Mindset

Has this every happened to you? You're in a great trade, you have unrealized gains, and you're feeling good about your execution.  You're about to add to your winner, when the market craps the bed and takes the entire market down so that your gains are wiped out in less than an hour.  Worse, the market rebounds entirely over the next few days as you watch your former position rally to new highs. ...

You will get fired for trading in a way where you don't have a defined edge faster than you will for poor performance.   

Your "leads" or potential clients are not going to understand some of the industry terms that you might use during your presentation, so they are not going to know what questions to ask. They are not going to want to look stupid, so don't expect them to ask you what a certain word means. Here's what I would do: 1) avoid jargon - don't use big words that the average person won't know 2) stay on mes...

This is a brief glimpse of some of what we cover in our courses. No one wants to hear how great a trader or PM you are in a raging bull market. Everyone has it all figured out.  Then something bad happens and they're equity gets hit by 10%... You enter the picture and show people how you can remain calm under pressure and capture the majority of the up moves and not capitulate at the market bottom...

Live instruction from Michael Martin who is joined by Peter Borish and Brynne Kelly. Other lessons by Scott Kaminski and Tony Saliba.  Plus, special guests...

The more frequently you trade, the worse it is.

Peter Borish joins Michael Martin for his weekly visit. 

Any group of unsophisticated investors or traders who are committing real capital can push the markets around based upon what they're reading in social media. You have to respect their collective power.  My job is still to protect capital despite or regardless who I trade against. A group of pikers acting in concert can run me over despite my methodology and 3 decades of experience.   

Glaring at the screen isn't going to generate trade ideas. Volatility does not mean opportunity. Your trading plan has to be set before you take action. 

Risk a fraction of what you're normally risking per trade. You will need to learn how the new component or strategy will work in concert with your existing rules. 

Have a wish list and be prepared when things go on sale

Matt Dula is a former Marine having been honorably discharged from the USMC in 2014 after a 5-year commitment as am an infantry mortarman. He was on 5 different prescription meds when he returned home as a result of a tour in Afghanistan and an MEU in the Middle East. He is currently the CEO of CVRN - the Cannabis Virtual Reality Network. He replaced all 5 of those prescription drugs through the u...

A small allocation is a strategy. A large allocation is a business. How you handle yourself in market corrections instructs allocators how you will handle yourself with their money.  Have a game plan ahead of time. The market is always right - don't deflect blame. Really good traders understand themselves very well. They have ownership of their emotions and trading.  Pairs trading is a good way to...

You have to always manage risk with the odds in your favor. Even if you lose, if you're sticking to your rules, it could be a good trade that just had a bad outcome. Keep putting on trades with high expected values and over hundreds of trades you'll come out ahead.  How you recover from a drawdown is more important that the duration or magnitude of the drawdown. Everyone has drawdowns. Therefore,...

Michael Martin answers the question "How would you trade X commodity or stock?" Also, he discusses how he trades laggards. 

Energy analyst Brynne Kelly discusses term structure in crude oil and natural gas, as well as what happens when markets invert. 

We all run two systems: our trading rules and our emotional rules. I think making money over the long term is about being a master of both systems. In the short run, your trading rules can benefit from luck.  Our habits or paradigms really tell us what we are feeling on a deep level and steer our behavior, and our behavior predicts where we end up in life.  I think this is why you can know some re...

Sometimes the best trades are the ones that you don't enter. I know this might sound cute, but entering orders around big announcements can be a big gamble.  Consider how you feel around trading the EIA, API, NOPA Crush numbers, quarterly earning announcements, and the FOMC announcements.  Are you keeping orders on the book or do you lift them? Is part of the payoff the excitement around the trade...

Advisors to HNW clients are in the business of gathering assets and wrapping them up in a "fee for service" asset management program built around an asset allocation model. I know they like to call themselves "money managers" but they don't know their asses from a hole in the ground about portfolio management. Their sole focus is to get in front of money in motion. That's why they have as many as...

You typically need to register when you are going to be marketing a great deal and holding yourself out to the general public. You can hold off from registration and take advantage of what are called "de minimus" exemptions and avoid paying the fees and doing all the paperwork until you have a certain number of clients over any 12-month period of time.  On the RIA side, you can register by state o...