Tag: psychology
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Enquiry from a new trader
A new trader (who will remain anonymous) has contacted us to ask for some help. I’ll deal with each point, as it is of value to other new traders but largely for my own reflection. This is what we do, and we do this stuff for free and no obligation – ever! Note that I…
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Time – friend or foe?
Several times over the last year, I’ve had conversations with others about finding new or different ways of making money. Invariably the limitation of time availability comes up i.e. time to learn new skills, gain new knowledge etc. Some of those people were interested in learning about investing or trading (which are different concepts) –…
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The loser’s game
The news has been out from August 2018 that the European Securities and Management Agency (ESMA) has compelled all brokers (subject to its jurisdiction) to reveal their statistics on the percentages of losing trader accounts. See informative article headed, “ESMA Regulations Reveal: Where CFDs Traders Lose the Most“. The reported percentage of losing accounts ranged between…
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Courses, horses – or the mind?
If you’re reading this looking just for the best course to attend, you may be disappointed. I go deeper than the simple issue of ‘which courses‘ or ‘what course is best’. Introduction I’m sharing a summary of my experiences over the last 4 years, so that others can see something more about ‘courses’ – and…
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Extreme volatility
Whilst volatility is necessary in trading there are issues with extreme volatility that traders need to consider. The clickable chart below shows one example of extreme volatility with Copper (CUUUSD). The size of a reasonable stop-loss which is related strongly to account size, is a limiting factor. If your account is say £2000 how much…
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Disentangling currency pairs
Many a new trader will find listen to the news about which currency is doing well or badly. For example the news might say that the US Dollar strengthened, or something like that. Most of these news reports do not say how they know what they are reporting. Traders would normally be setting their brains…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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New traders conned
This morning I receive yet another email from somebody selling a system for beating the markets, subject to terms and conditions. It’s some software that runs on their server, that gives off signals when to enter long or short. Cost? USD $x9x down from $xx9x – and one is offered some ‘ultra’ indicator as free.…
