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Many of todays highly successful traders will tell you that the general key to success in trading is to be able to comfortably take a loss. It is general knowledge among experts in the trading psychology field and among traders that the market is not predictable and it is safe to say that it never will be. In the world of trading, it is expected to take a loss; even those who are highly skilled traders know that it is inevitable. With that said, let us have a look at things you as a trader should be aware of, how you can take a loss effectively and use it towards the greater good of your trading world.

Trading psychology tells us that when a trader loses he begins to become somewhat of a perfectionist in his dealing. Many traders think that in trading, a good day will always be one that is profitable. Trading psychology experts tells us this is not true. A trader should define a good day as one where they have extensively researched and planned with discipline and focus, and have followed through to the entire extent of the plan. Yes, when a trader has mastered the art of accepting losses and working through them with a well thought out plan then good days will become profitable in time.

Because the art of trading in an unpredictable market fluctuates so greatly from one day to the next, experts in trading psychology believe that it is important that you concentrate on what you can control, instead of things that are beyond your control. Looking into the short-term you cannot expect to be able to control the profits of your trading. With that said, look at what you do you have ability to control.

You do have the ability to control the difference between good and bad days. You are able to control this factor by extensively researching the strategies you implement within your trading experiences. By learning to research your chosen strategies, thus controlling the amount of good and bad trading days you experience, you will, in the long-term begin to generate profits, which is the ultimate goal of every trader.

Trading psychology experts tell us that it is important to become realistic in trading instead of becoming a perfectionist. Perfectionist traders, relate a loss with failure, and will become obsessed with the failure, focusing only upon it. Realistic traders understand the unpredictability of the market and taking a loss is simply part of the art. The main key you must remember in trading psychology to be able to effectively limit your losses, instead of becoming obsessed with them. A common thing seen within the trading psychology world is that traders who are obsessed with their losses often have a hard time bouncing back from them, thus losing in the end.

Experts in trading psychology have organized three basic strategies you can use to effectively stop losses. These strategies are:

Price Based
Time Based
Indicator Based

Stops that are priced based are generally used when the other two have not functioned. To make this work you will need to make hypothesiss about the trade and identify a low point in that particular market. Then you will set your trade entries near your points, thus making sure that losses will not be overly excessive if the hypothesis fails.

Time Based stops constitutes making use of your time. Designate a holding period you allow to capture a certain number of points. If you have no achieved your desired profit within that time limit, you should stop the trade. If effectively used you should stop even if the price stop limit has not been achieved.

The Indicator based stop makes use of market indicators. As a trader, you should be aware of these indicators and utilize them extensively within your trading experiences. Look at indicators such as, volume, advances, declines, and new highs and lows.

Experts in trading psychology say that setting stops and rehearsing them mentally is a good psychological tool to use and will help ensure that you follow through.

Day trading most commonly refers to the practice of buying and selling stocks during the day so that at the end of the day you don’t hold any shares overnight; you sell as many shares as you buy. You make money on the difference between the purchase and sales prices.

The main motivation for this style of trading is to make money every day so you don’t sit on the shares , plus of course you eliminate the risk that the shares go down in value overnight. the motivation of this style of trading is to reduce the risk of holding a position overnight where the open price may have significantly changed from the previous day’s closing price.

NASDAQ defined day trading by saying somebody is a Daytrader if he makes more than four buy and sell orders over a five-day period.

Prior to the year 2000 it was not uncommon for some of the most successful Daytraders to make more than a million pounds in a single day.

There were dozens of Daytrading Chatrooms where people were “told” what to buy and when to buy it.
Some Chatrooms had more than 500 members.

And most Daytraders, it is estimated as high as 99%, lost their shirt.
One of the reasons they lost their shirt is because they could trade on Margin.

Trading on Margin means that the brokerage firm which executes your trades will lend you up to 5 times your investment.
So if you had 10,000 in your trading account you could in some cases trade with 50,000.

However, if you lost on your trades, repayment was due immediately.

Since the heady dot com days of the year 2000 DayTrading has gone out of style and out of range.

Most brokerage firms have gone under or have consolidated, and staff has been reduced in the remaining firms by about 80%.

Trades that used to cost 35 to execute can now be had for as low as 4.-

Initially it happened because President Bush talked the economy down and Mr Greenspan kept on raising the interest rate to such a level that all optimism disappeared from the Market.

Up until this time like clockwork 2 or 3 days a week there were Stocks, mainly Internet Stocks, that would rise more than 30% early in the morning and then fall the same amount five minutes before closing so people could take profit.

If you were on the ball you could make a lot of money as a DayTrader.

You could also lose a lot of money.

Those days no longer exist.

It is very rare to see stocks vary more than 30% in one day so the profit potential first of all is not as great, and the ability to catch a percentage of the increase in the price of a stock has also lessened.

One of the reasons also is that Internet Stocks which were totally overvalued are no longer overvalued and as a matter of fact have risen much less than any other type of Stock.

Another reason is that there are very few IPO’s and even Google’s IPO did not take off for quite some time.

If it was not for the spectacular performance of Google , Internet Stocks lost more than 8% in 2005.

Even Ebay lost more than a quarter of its value.

However, if you are shrewd, you can still make money as a DayTrader but it ain’t easy.

What do you think happens when a company invents a car that runs on water?

If you could get news about this company very early you could make a lot of money.

Not many people know that you can trade the NASDAQ Stock Market as early as 6 AM.

So if you are a Stock Market News Hound and like to get up really early in the morning and have nerves of steel you could buy the stock at 6 AM and sell it at 9.29 AM to everybody else starting a regular trading day.

This will not happen very often, the fact that there is spectacular news.

But if you are patient it may happen once a month.

Never try to fight against a trend.
It may be tempting to buy a falling stock in order to average your costs. In fact, many investors seem to recommend such a step. In practice, in a majority of situations this only results in throwing good money after bad.

Always have a stop loss, for every stock. If your stock moves down, at what price must you definitely sell? If you do not use historical data and technical analysis to arrive at investment decisions, you must have at least a fixed-amount method. Meaning, before you buy you will have to decide how much loss you can comfortably take on that stock, and stick to it.
Never hold on to a stock position that has moved beyond your comfort level.

As the saying goes, take care of your losses and the profits will take care of themselves.

Keep track of your stocks. Even if your stop loss has been triggered and you have exited the stock, the stock could reverse trend and start a fresh uptrend.

As a momentum investor, you should resort to periodical profit booking. When a stock is losing steam, book profits. Later, if the stock shows signs of picking up momentum again, you can always enter, even at higher levels. Your decisions are based on the potential upside from that price.

Always remember that there is an “opportunity cost” to any position. If you have invested in a stock, you have effectively “blocked” that money from being invested in another stock with, perhaps more, potential.

Once again, to repeat: Take care of your losses, and the profits will take care of themselves.

There has been a steady rise in the use of stock options by investors to maximize their leverage and returns over the past twelve months. Chicago Board Options Exchange confirms this observation when they recently reported that the month of March was their busiest on record with volume up 55% over the same month last year. In fact all previous stock option trading records were broken when over 5.6 million stock option contracts were traded in a single day.

Stock option trading enables investors to increase their leverage and thus their rate of return over simple stock trading. If an investor has a solid approach to picking stocks that go up in the short term, the returns can be increased by 10 to 15 times using stock options. The trade off for this increased return is that the investor has to also judge the time period over which the increase will occur.

Being able to pick the stock, direction, and time period are all critical for successful stock option trading. A recent statistical analysis of over 30 years of stock data has revealed certain reoccurring patterns that can yield high returns in stock option trading. The analysis was done with custom developed software and then the strategy was applied to all stocks for the last five years. Stock trading resulted in an average return per trade of 3.2%, but with stock option trading the average return per trade was over 55% for 2005.

Investors have already begun to exploit the patterns found in this research and are reporting highly profitable trades. Whenever investors find inefficiencies in the market, there is a rush to take advantage of those inefficiencies.

Although stock options are not available on all stocks, about half of the stocks found in the analysis did have tradable options. If the trend of increasing use of stock options by investors continues, we should see even more stocks add options for investors. It is easy to see that 60 to 70 percent of actively traded stocks will have option contracts available in the coming year if this trend continues.

Investors are advised to look carefully at the open interest and volume when considering which option contract to buy. A low volumeopen interest will generally result in large spreads between the bidask prices and thus reduce profits, plus it may make it difficult to sell the option contract.

Another consideration in selecting the option contract is volatility. Stocks with high swings in prices will translate to more expensive options since the options will have a greater likelihood of being in the money. If you have a reliable method of forecasting stock movement, this higher price may not be a consideration.

INTRODUCTION

Having been trading stocks and options in the capital markets professionally over the years, I have seen many ups and downs.

I have seen paupers become millionaires overnight

And

I have seen millionaires become paupers overnight

One story told to me by my mentor is still etched in my mind:

Once, there were two Wall Street stock market multi-millionaires. Both were extremely successful and decided to share their insights with others by selling their stock market forecasts in newsletters. Each charged US10,000 for their opinions. One trader was so curious to know their views that he spent all of his 20,000 savings to buy both their opinions. His friends were naturally excited about what the two masters had to say about the stock markets direction. When they asked their friend, he was fuming mad. Confused, they asked their friend about his anger. He said, One said BULLISH and the other said BEARISH!

The point of this illustration is that it was the trader who was wrong. In todays stock and option market, people can have different opinions of future market direction and still profit. The differences lay in the stock picking or options strategy and in the mental attitude and discipline one uses in implementing that strategy.

I share here the basic stock and option trading principles I follow. By holding these principles firmly in your mind, they will guide you consistently to profitability. These principles will help you decrease your risk and allow you to assess both what you are doing right and what you may be doing wrong.

You may have read ideas similar to these before. I and others use them because they work. And if you memorize and reflect on these principles, your mind can use them to guide you in your stock and options trading.

PRINCIPLE 1

SIMPLICITY IS MASTERY

When you feel that the stock and options trading method that you are following is too complex even for simple understanding, it is probably not the best.

In all aspects of successful stock and options trading, the simplest approaches often emerge victorious. In the heat of a trade, it is easy for our brains to become emotionally overloaded. If we have a complex strategy, we cannot keep up with the action. Simpler is better.

PRINCIPLE 2

NOBODY IS OBJECTIVE ENOUGH

If you feel that you have absolute control over your emotions and can be objective in the heat of a stock or options trade, you are either a dangerous species or you are an inexperienced trader.

No trader can be absolutely objective, especially when market action is unusual or wildly erratic. Just like the perfect storm can still shake the nerves of the most seasoned sailors, the perfect stock market storm can still unnerve and sink a trader very quickly. Therefore, one must endeavor to automate as many critical aspects of your strategy as possible, especially your profit-taking and stop-loss points.

PRINCIPLE 3

HOLD ON TO YOUR GAINS AND CUT YOUR LOSSES

This is the most important principle.

Most stock and options traders do the opposite

They hold on to their losses way too long and watch their equity sink and sink and sink, or they get out of their gains too soon only to see the price go up and up and up. Over time, their gains never cover their losses.

This principle takes time to master properly. Reflect upon this principle and review your past stock and options trades. If you have been undisciplined, you will see its truth.

PRINCIPLE 4

BE AFRAID TO LOSE MONEY

Are you like most beginners who cant wait to jump right into the stock and options market with your money hoping to trade as soon as possible?

On this point, I have found that most unprincipled traders are more afraid of missing out on the next big trade than they are afraid of losing money! The key here is STICK TO YOUR STRATEGY! Take stock and options trades when your strategy signals to do so and avoid taking trades when the conditions are not met. Exit trades when your strategy says to do so and leave them alone when the exit conditions are not in place.

The point here is to be afraid to throw away your money because you traded needlessly and without following your stock and options strategy.

PRINCIPLE 5

YOUR NEXT TRADE COULD BE A LOSING TRADE

Do you absolutely believe that your next stock or options trade is going to be such a big winner that you break your own money management rules and put in everything you have? Do you remember what usually happens after that? It isnt pretty, is it?

No matter how confident you may be when entering a trade, the stock and options market has a way of doing the unexpected. Therefore, always stick to your portfolio management system. Do not compound your anticipated wins because you may end up compounding your very real losses.

PRINCIPLE 6

GAUGE YOUR EMOTIONAL CAPACITY BEFORE INCREASING CAPITAL OUTLAY

You know by now how different paper trading and real stock and options trading is, dont you?

In the very same way, after you get used to trading real money consistently, you find it extremely different when you increase your capital by ten fold, dont you?

What, then, is the difference? The difference is in the emotional burden that comes with the possibility of losing more and more real money. This happens when you cross from paper trading to real trading and also when you increase your capital after some successes.

After a while, most traders realize their maximum capacity in both pounds and emotion. Are you comfortable trading up to a few thousand or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands? Know your capacity before committing the funds.

PRINCIPLE 7

YOU ARE A NOVICE AT EVERY TRADE

Ever felt like an expert after a few wins and then lose a lot on the next stock or options trade?

Overconfidence and the false sense of invincibility based on past wins is a recipe for disaster. All professionals respect their next trade and go through all the proper steps of their stock or options strategy before entry. Treat every trade as the first trade you have ever made in your life. Never deviate from your stock or options strategy. Never.

PRINCIPLE 8

YOU ARE YOUR FORMULA TO SUCCESS OR FAILURE

Ever followed a successful stock or options strategy only to fail badly?

You are the one who determines whether a strategy succeeds or fails. Your personality and your discipline make or break the strategy that you use not vice versa. Like Robert Kiyosaki says, The investor is the asset or the liability, not the investment.

Understanding yourself first will lead to eventual success.

PRINCIPLE 9

CONSISTENCY

Have you ever changed your mind about how to implement a strategy? When you make changes day after day, you end up catching nothing but the wind.

Stock market fluctuations have more variables than can be mathematically formulated. By following a proven strategy, we are assured that someone successful has stacked the odds in our favour. When you review both winning and losing trades, determine whether the entry, management, and exit met every criteria in the strategy and whether you have followed it precisely before changing anything.

In conclusion

I hope these simple guidelines that have led my ship out of the harshest of seas and into the best harvests of my life will guide you too. Good Luck.