Articles for category: Educational

The nature of expectation in financial trading

On several occasions I’ve referred to ‘expectation‘ as against ‘prediction‘. I can expect a delivery of a package at my home this morning (for example) but that does not mean I know it is going to arrive for certain ‘this morning’ or that I predict that it will. ‘Expectation’ means a reasoned position/opinion based in ...

SniperElite

Stalking the microstructure of chaos

On occasions a trader may need to turn up the microscope and look deeply into the chaos. For what? A micro-fracture, a microtrend or a small bubble movement that is like the flap of a butterfly’s wings – from which evolves a hurricane. This is the nature of chaos. The chart below shows a small ...

Microtrends and risk aversion

Many a trader will have looked at the same chart (say AUDUSD) at different times (let’s say 4 hours apart), and had doubts or an urge to change their minds on what to do. This situation occurred recently with BTCUSD. On one day it appeared that there was as strong microtrend on a 2H time ...

So did you get it right?

Did you get it right? This is an important question for new and seasoned traders to think about – but there is a problem with it. So you made your best risk assessment, decided your entry point and stop-loss and you entered the trade. What happens next? Many a new trader would spend some time ...

SniperElite

Better than a million minds

Are you better than a million minds? The chart below shows the recent extreme volatility on Wall Street. Millions of minds are into this ‘game’ of stocks/shares. They all want one important thing: profit on their positions. We don’t know these people (obviously); how can we. Yes – their interests may be represented by brokers ...

Patience in trading

What is patience? According the Cambridge English Dictionary, it means: “the ability to wait, or to continue doing something despite difficulties, or to suffer without complaining or becoming annoyed.” Patience is of course a psychological characteristic. It certainly isn’t something physical. The opposite of patience is of course impatience. Why is patience important? As a ...

Coping with volatility – the value of experience

This post continues from ‘Is volatility your friend?‘ The emphasis here is on copying with volatility. ‘Coping’ is a psychological thing. New traders will have emotions and it is no good denying this or avoiding it. The screencast below brings out what tends to happen with new traders when price moves in the ‘opposite’ direction (full ...

SniperElite

Is volatility your friend?

Every trader knows that volatility is the thing that is necessary in order for the price to have movement. But there are different kinds of price movements. Some instruments move in fairly neat directions up, then retrace and move up again. We all love these. There are some others that are ‘all over the place’. ...

Learning about trends – smelling them

It’s often thrown around that ‘The trend is your friend’. I had heard or read these words several times in the last three years. I understood the words and the idea behind it. It is not a difficult thing to understand that the prices of instruments in markets move in trends. This is easy to ...

No courses, no horses.

Over the last few months there has been much reflective practice. This is about looking back at what one has done in the past, learning and re-learning from mistakes, and understanding how novices to financial trading approach it. A mistake is usually, in simple language, recognising a genuine error that has happened. Learning from a ...