Trading Educators Blog

Yes! Seasonal transitions create workable Spread strategies. I'll let my Andy Jordan, an expert in seasonal fundamentals, answer. Andy! You have the floor: "Change gives birth to risk – but also creates opportunity. Seasonal transitions create workable spread strategies because markets have to struggle to maintain equilibrium between supply and demand as conditions undergo dynamic change through t...

After the recent harsh correction in the stock markets and cryptocurrencies, many traders and especially investors currently find their accounts in a not so nice drawdown. So I thought this might be a good time to give some advice on how to deal with such drawdowns. What's a drawdown? Here's a quick explanation: You buy one stock of a company at $100 and after a month it's trading at $120. You're ...

Here are two ways to know when prices are getting ready to break out from a trading range.  When prices are in a trading range, count the number of closes above or below a specific price near the vertical mid-level of the trading range. If 70% of the closes are above the mid-level price, and the market cannot rally and close above reaction highs, a severe correction may be imminent. If a mark...

Many traders are aware that trading psychology is the most crucial piece of the puzzle in learning how to become a profitable trader. However, most traders avoid taking the steps that are necessary to correct or improve their response to market behavior and end up paying a hefty price in the end. There are some specific steps you can take to improve your reaction to market action and strengthen yo...

A reader asks: "Hey Joe! I'm pretty new at this. Can you tell me the rules for buy and sell stops?" When the market trades above a buy stop price order, it becomes a market order. The first down tick after the market order price is activated determines the highest price at which the buy stop order may be filled. The rule to remember placing stops is this, "Buy above and sell below." Buy stops are ...

A reader asks: How do you handle fear? I seem to have plenty of it. Let's get one thing straight. Fear, for the majority of traders, is a very real thing. You have it, I have it. Others have it as well. What is it that traders fear? The top three, in order, are: Fear of missing a trade. Fear of losing money. Fear of being wrong and losing face. In order to become a professional trader, you must le...

"Do you think that what this guy wrote below is true? 'You can get ahead of yourself in this game, and it's dangerous to get cocky. But I've had times where for an hour I could do no wrong. I'm trading and 99 percent of the trades are good, they're all for 30 or 50 contracts, and I'll make 10 grand. Then I'll overextend myself and maybe buy 10 or 15 contracts, fighting the trend just because I kno...

One short time ago I received a couple of emails questioning whether or not I believe in support and resistance. In fact, one subscriber said if I didn't believe in support and resistance, then I couldn't possibly believe in trend! Why? Because in all cases the situation ends. Here's what I believe: The trend is your friend until the end. The swing is the thing until it goes "ding." What is suppor...

How does money supply affect trading in the markets? There are two important components of federal market activity which affect long- term economic activity and stock and commodity values; these are interest rates and money supply. A contracting money supply was one of the factors that caused the Great Depression of the 1930's. In the early 1980's most traders focused almost totally on the money s...

This is one of the quotes about trading that stuck with me. I googled it and it's from Ed Seykota, I probably read it in one of the Market Wizards books, which I can highly recommend. The exact quote is "Win or lose, everybody gets what they want out of the market. Some people seem to like to lose, so they win by losing money." Now this applies especially well to the retail world of traders. And i...

You must be disciplined in following the plan of your trade. Once you have closed your position, you should record everything about the trade. Write down where you wanted to enter the trade, what you expected out of the trade, and what you actually did get out of the trade. Make sure to include notes that will help you learn from the trade, reasoning what actually took place once you entered the t...

Success has many faces: peace of mind, high levels of health and energy, loving relationships, financial security, meaningful goals and aspirations, and the feeling that you are growing into all that you are capable of becoming. Becoming all that you can be is called "self-actualization."It is important to recognize that success is not only financial, but exists on many levels. A person may find s...

​There is an old saying that when day trading positions have had negative open equity most of the day, and an opportunity arises to exit the market at break even with less than 30 minutes of trading rises, go ahead and exit the market.  Unless the market is moving rapidly in your direction with expanding-in-length bars, and no more than 5 minutes left, exit immediately and consider the opport...

​A popular concept in the world of trading, especially among technical traders and chartists is to wait for confirmation before entering a trade. This means you have a Signal, for example, a price action pattern and now you wait for the markets to confirm that pattern before you enter. The idea, of course, is to filter out bad trades this way and to gain confidence before entering the trade. ...

​When you get an easy winner do you feel guilty?  Do you ask yourself, "Do I deserve to win?"Do I? The world's most successful traders believe in themselves and their ability to win. In fact, many of them feel that they "own" the market. They are not necessarily being arrogant, but they are sure of themselves and sure that they are able to take profits out of the market. Most important i...

​In general, we are our own worst enemy when it comes to trading. There are many ways to sabotage yourself as a trader. Not creating a trading plan, or creating one and then not following it are two of the most common. Some ways to self-defeat are deep seated; they lurk at the back of your mind and work behind the scenes. These are often self-image problems that can rise from as far back as early ...

Traders want to trade. That's what we feel is our job and that's when we feel that we're actually really doing something. And I think that's why it can be so tough to go through periods of low trade frequency. It just somehow doesn't feel right. Might be missing out on something. For sure the markets keep on moving and others are trading, right? But feelings are often misleading, especially when i...

​The gut actually has its own self-contained nervous system, known as the enteric nervous system. It can operate in the complete absence of input from the brain or even the spinal cord. It is vast, with more than one-hundred million nerve cells in the small intestine alone. Add to that the nerve cells of the esophagus, stomach, and large intestine…the result is that the gut contains more nerve cel...

​One of the most important things to learn in this life is how we ourselves behave, not only when we are acting on our own, but when we are part of the crowd. And what few of us understand is how many of our important daily actions are not thought out in advance. We are all attempting to survive in what is basically a hostile environment. Many of our actions are in response to some sort of stimulu...

​Science has been called the most creative art form.It expresses its creations in technology. Valuable information is the most prized commodity, because it makes the wealth creation process and individual creative process possible.For me, passing on valuable information and seeing someone use it to fulfill his hopes and dreams is my most rewarding endeavor. So far, the computer is technology's ult...