I must admit, I am not smart enough to have devised these ridiculously simple trading rules. A great trader gave them to me some 15 years ago. However, I will tell you, they work. If you follow these rules, breaking them as infrequently as possible, you will make money year in and year out, some years better than others, some years worse – but you will make money. The rules are simple. Adherence to the rules is difficult.
“Old Rules…but Very Good Rules”
If I’ve learned anything in my decades of trading, I’ve learned that the simple methods work best. Those who need to rely upon complex stochastics, linear weighted moving averages, smoothing techniques, Fibonacci numbers etc., usually find that they have so many things rolling around in their heads that they cannot make a rational decision. One technique says buy; another says sell. Another says sit tight while another says add to the trade. It sounds like a cliche, but simple methods work best.
Continue Reading →
- They risk too much to try to make so little.
- They trade with the probabilities against them.
- They think trading is easy money.
- Instead of focusing on learning how to trade they focus on getting rich.
- They blow up due to improper position sizing.
- With no understanding of the mathematical risk of ruin they are doomed after the first long string of losing trades.
- Blindly following a guru that leads them down the road of destruction.
- They don’t do their homework.
- They trade opinions not robust systems.
- They go looking for ‘trades’ instead of a methodology.
- They have no trading plan.
- They attempt to piggy back on the trades another trader but don’t understand the risks.
- Most new traders quit when they realized how much work is involved in trading successfully.
- Most traders quit when they learn how many losing trades they will have to have to get to the winners.
- New traders quit if they do not have a passion for trading itself.
- Many new traders will give up the moment they realize that trading does not have guaranteed income, you are an entrepreneur.
- They are not willing to pay the tuition to learn to trade in time, study, and losing trades.
- They are crushed by the learning curve that they do not work hard enough to get through.
- We lose a lot of new traders when they realize that trading is actually harder than their job.
- The traders that don’t make it quit when they were tired, frustrated, and stressed out, the winning traders quit after they had figured trading out.
The original article appears on newtraderu.com and is penned by Steve Burns. It can be accessed here.
