“If I’d only exited at hard target I’d have made twice as much on this trade!” [Two hours later…] “If I’d only trailed a stop on this trade I’d have trebled my profit. The exit at hard target has cost me dearly on this...
It’s easy to ‘marry’ an opinion. The trouble is it blinkers you to any other possibility but the one you foresee happening. With trading, you might analyse the markets yourself or you might invest in the outlook of a market commentator. And at a...
Trading is a very personal endeavour. What suits one person perfectly might torment and irritate another because it doesn’t fit their trading ‘personality’. But when you can chop bits from one system and slot them straight into another there’s...
Our natural response to risk and uncertainty is excellent at keeping you away from harm in many real-world situations. It is what has kept the human race alive for millennia. But it’s not so good when it comes to working with risk as a tool to make money, like...
You might know I’m not a massive fan of technical indicators… (I’m talking about things like Stochastic Indicators, MACD, RSI and all those other exotic sounding tools.) If you’ve been following my stuff for a while you’ve probably...
In an ideal world the market moves nice and smooth. It sets off strong in one direction (up or down, we’re not fussy) and we wait for a pause. We look for a little pullback. And then we enter the trade. This is the Continuation signal we’ve been examining...
An email arrives from a worried reader… He’d been watching an online trading video where it told him – shock! – that financial markets were being manipulated. That sometimes, when the price went up, it shouldn’t really be going up. And...
I have never seen anything like it in my life… In fact, I don’t think anyone else can claim to have seen it either! Last night, as the May 2020 Crude Oil Futures contract approached expiry, the price went NEGATIVE for the first time ever. At tea time here in the UK...
I’m not going to turn this week’s email into yet another “what to do in the face of Covid-19” missive. I’m sure your inbox is crammed full of that kind of stuff already. Mine certainly is! What I’m going to suggest instead is that...
As traders we’re taught to perform in an almost robotic way. We each have our system for approaching the markets and here are many different systems. But is such a ‘mechanical’ way of doing things really best? In 99% of cases I think it is. But I...
Let me tell you about ‘scaled exits’. There is nothing new about scaled exits. You’ll read about the old masters of trading scaling out of their trades, they were doing it a hundred years ago or more. And scaling has always been a permanent fixture...
I first set off trying to find my own way through the trading jungle, just like you probably have. I bought the books, followed the ‘gurus’, set about looking for the Holy Grail (you know, the one system to rule them all!) But it was only when I stepped back and took...
Let me tell you a bit about Richard Dennis… If you’ve not heard of him before Dennis was one of the guys behind the infamous ‘Turtle Traders’ experiment. He had a bet with his partner William Eckhardt that traders were made, not born, and he...
Let’s face it – it’s so tempting to find amazing entry points for trades… But how much time do you spend considering your management of open positions? The management of your trades is where you’ll almost always find (or lose) the...
How do you learn to be a really good trader? A typical experience might be to learn a trading strategy, apply it to a demo account (or paper trade it) and then take it live once some virtual profits have been seen. And that’s a perfectly sensible way to go about...
Remember the classic 80’s film Trading Places? Two rich old brothers swap the lifestyles of a beggar and a fancy commodities broker to settle a twisted $1 bet. They set out to prove once and for all whether nature or nurture dictates how successful a person can be....
I set off hacking my way through the trading ‘jungle’… I bought the books, followed the ‘gurus’, set about looking for the Holy Grail. You know, the ‘one system to rule them all!’ But it was only when I stepped back and took a good long...
Give this question a bit of thought… What it is you actually want to achieve by trading? I know making money is sure to feature somewhere in your answer. But even that is going to mean vastly different things to different people. So before you think I’ve...
A question arrives from reader Tony B… “If the market was above the eurusd figure [the price he wants to buy at] how could I have placed the limit buy orders please? Should I put an alert on to wait for the market to drop?” Now Tony is one of our...
Scaled exits are nothing new. It’s not some cutting edge technique I’ve just invented. But scaling isn’t often discussed when it comes to Forex trading. You’ll read about the old masters of trading scaling out of their trades – they were doing...
A question arrives from a TN reader: “I’ve got this trade that’s well into profit. My usual strategy is to trail the stop loss so I can lock in some of the profits and then give the trade chance to turn into a long-term position. But what do you...
Everyone has the ability to make money from trading. These days the financial markets are a genuine ‘open access’ opportunity to one and all. Making money is simply a matter of repeating the same effective steps time after time. It’s all about...
I’ve been reading Market Wizards by Jack Schwager again recently and in the book one of the traders mentions getting to know just one individual market really, really well. So, is this still a good way to start? Should you focus on just one Forex market or learn...
A question arrives from TN reader Tony T: “I’m getting ready to trade again tomorrow [after the long Easter weekend] and feel a bit slow and ‘out of touch’ but I’ve heard some traders say they get better after taking a break. Is it normal...
