What do you wish you had been told?

pjchalmers said:
Please forker leave it rest there isnt even a buy button on my site.

Bandit at last we agree on something. To each his own, cheers Im bowing out as its getting stupid but not from you
Paul
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"To each his own" has far more significance than people normally think. In trading, two people can have absolutely opposing opinion, and both be "right" or both be "wrong". In my view this a crucial and extremely difficult lesson to learn.
 
pjchalmers said:
That indicators, theories, analysis, trading manuals and systems are all used and written with knowledge of the past and not the present or future. So therefore are all pretty useless. Thats why 85% + of traders loose and trading gurus can talk so eloquently about rubbish for hours. Thats what would have wanted to be told and not waste so much time on them.
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Whereas you, in your 'ickle trading *room*/clubhouse, talk eloquent 'guru sense' for hours?
 
Bandit yes I agree it is very difficult to get into this mindset as it doesn't fit with the norm. What suits one doesn't suit another. I suppose we are after all only human.
 
FX Bandit said:
"To each his own" has far more significance than people normally think. In trading, two people can have absolutely opposing opinion, and both be "right" or both be "wrong". In my view this a crucial and extremely difficult lesson to learn.
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You've been coming out with some very sage remarks recently. Either you're just naturally perspicacious, or you're lifting them from somewhere :)

To illustrate Bandit's point, read "Market Wizards" - 15 very successful traders and the two things that struck me were that a) they all have different and unique trading styles and b) many of them mention 1% of equity as the optimal bet size.
 
meanreversion said:
You've been coming out with some very sage remarks recently. Either you're just naturally perspicacious, or you're lifting them from somewhere :)

To illustrate Bandit's point, read "Market Wizards" - 15 very successful traders and the two things that struck me were that a) they all have different and unique trading styles and b) many of them mention 1% of equity as the optimal bet size.
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The optimal bet size can be proved to be different by following the Kelly criterion, it;s actually nearer something like 10% but most would have great difficulty dealing with that emotionally.
 
MarketMoverTrader said:
Before you started trading, what do you wish you had been told? - one thing

Or, if you met someone thinking about starting to trade, what is the one piece of wisdom you would share with them?

I'm talking about trading in general, so not market-specific advice.
Try give it some thought.

Mine is probably: Don't believe anything anyone tells you, or anything you tell yourself - everyone has an opinion, but hard data and results over time count.

I'm hoping that newbies can get some guidance from this thread, if it grows nicely.

Also, if you don't like someone's advice, please try not to turn this thread into one that slates others' posts. I've sadly seen that happen and it ruins the original intentions of threads, and clutters them up.

Thanks ahead of time for your contributions!
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to go to www.nobrainertrades.com !!
 
SanMiguel said:
No, like I said, I can't deal with that emotionally but mathematically it's optimal for your system assuming you traded mechanically and could prove your stats of win ratio, av won, av lost, etc.
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work out your worst run of trades and the av lost or won per trade and then add some for safety and emotional stress.
1% means that you would have a 100 losing streak before wiping your account (actually it's a bit less as the % is reduced each time) - 100 trades!
If you're losing more than 10 trades in a row in fact even 2 in a row means you should step back and investigate why - something's probably up with you rather than your strategy.
 
SanMiguel said:
work out your worst run of trades and the av lost or won per trade and then add some for safety and emotional stress.
1% means that you would have a 100 losing streak before wiping your account (actually it's a bit less as the % is reduced each time) - 100 trades!
If you're losing more than 10 trades in a row in fact even 2 in a row means you should step back and investigate why - something's probably up with you rather than your strategy.
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I have the same emotional issue as you. I can see that my Kelly is a lot higher than the 2% I use but I can't handle drawdowns well. I was interested to find somebody on here who does use Kelly. Even a 50% of my Kelly would probably make me weep.
 
robster970 said:
I have the same emotional issue as you. I can see that my Kelly is a lot higher than the 2% I use but I can't handle drawdowns well. I was interested to find somebody on here who does use Kelly. Even a 50% of my Kelly would probably make me weep.
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I think you can probably only trade with a Kelly style trade size on a mechanical strat to take out the emotion side of it.
I think 2-3% would be reasonable though for most traders with good risk/money management. Having said that, it;s not for those liable to revenge trade, which I'm sure we've all had experience of at some point :)
 
robster970 said:
I have the same emotional issue as you. I can see that my Kelly is a lot higher than the 2% I use but I can't handle drawdowns well. I was interested to find somebody on here who does use Kelly. Even a 50% of my Kelly would probably make me weep.
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You have got to have confidence in your methods or else you will carry the emotional burden. The only route to confidence is knowing your strategies through experience. This will give you a thorough understanding of your success rate and the risks you can comfortably apply. Confidence is the key to losing your emotional baggage with trading. You are obviously carrying past failure and there is no other way around it. If I were you I would go back to demo and rack up a years worth of confidence building experience before taking in live trades again.
 
forker said:
You have got to have confidence in your methods or else you will carry the emotional burden. The only route to confidence is knowing your strategies through experience. This will give you a thorough understanding of your success rate and the risks you can comfortably apply. Confidence is the key to losing your emotional baggage with trading. You are obviously carrying past failure and there is no other way around it. If I were you I would go back to demo and rack up a years worth of confidence building experience before taking in live trades again.
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A years worth of demo trading? I have yet to meet anyone with the patience to do that so call me sceptical about that part of your advice ;)
Demo trading will not teach you emotional control, it is only good for practicing a strat and/or money management.
 
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