The long awaited day had finally arrived… My eldest son (13) was ready for his first ‘proper’ mountain bike ride. So on Sunday we were amongst the snowy peaks of North Wales before sunrise. But when I was getting all our bits and pieces together in...
I often hear traders say things like ‘you can’t go broke by taking a profit.’ And it annoys me. I think the key factor you need to consider is how much money you might be leaving behind by bailing out too soon! Leave too much behind on a regular basis and...
Two groups file into a room…eyeing each other they settle into private booths. They’re about to do battle. To the left we have the psychopaths: the hooligans, the violent serial offenders, and worse. And to the right we have the financial traders. To win this game of...
It all started when Austrian financier Michael Marcovici kicked-off an odd art project. He wanted to show how highly paid jobs could eventually be replaced by machines. But I think even he was surprised by the results achieved in the end. First-hand experience of the...
You might think it’s only an idea, but this concept has been responsible for creating unbelievable fortunes. And it’s particularly well suited for making new trading strategies. What is this special sorcery I hear you ask? Well, think how horticulturalists...
You know, there’s a fine line between trading and gambling. One has you flying by the seat of your pants with almost certain disaster looming. The other has you operating with cool calculated professionalism. But to all intents and purposes you take the exact...
Before I start today, I’d like to invite you to an event. You are very welcome to join me on a free webinar I’ll be hosting tomorrow night, Wednesday 2nd October, at 7pm. We’ll be looking at volume profile analysis: one of, if not THE most powerful technical...
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...
As traders we deal with external stimuli. That means things that are happening outside your mind and body. And your brain filters each individual ‘stimulus’ event in two ways… it’s seen as either a threatening event or a non-threatening event....
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...
There’s lots of talk of a looming global recession at the moment. Not to mention the ongoing Brexit politics circus playing out here at home! So who can blame people for turning to potentially lucrative trading strategies in order to hit and maintain their...
I’ve been chatting to some brand new traders recently. Some of them had the right idea of what trading is all about but a few of them were quite a way off the mark. I thought it would be a good idea to go right back to square one today. If you’re a brand new trader,...
Once upon a time I made myself a ‘million-pound spreadsheet’. It was a beauty to behold. I plotted a graph projecting a (theoretical) rapidly growing trading bank and I virtually worshipped the thing. I could probably dig it up on an old hard drive...
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...
Keeping a journal is absolutely essential for traders. It’s the one guaranteed way you can improve your trading. And I think there are 2 parts to keeping good trading records. There’s 1) The Trading Journal and 2) The Record of Results. At first glance they...
I had a similar conversation with two different people this week… It’s about trends. Or more specifically: a) How do you know which ‘segment’ of a big overall trend to measure and work with? And: b) How far back in time should you go when measuring trends and drawing...
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...
If you already have some experience you’ll know full well it is certainly possible to trade from home around a day-job. You CAN get started with a very small trading bank (and it’s nothing to be ashamed of). And, if I’ve been doing my job properly,...