"Hi Stewie,
Ok, so, i have to start by saying you are one of the few people i follow that makes me money. So thank you..
i will continue to be a subscriber because i am making money with you !! But i need help.. I am still making too many mistakes.
1) I am following too many people and I am overwhelmed and confused
2) i am paying some people and i don’t see what they are doing, i don’t see where they get their price points.
3) i need to develop a trading plan that works for me… something that i can use in all situations.
4) i feel like i am reacting rather than letting the trade take me to where it wants to go, i understand that what i want it to do means nothing to the market or the stock
5) I need to simplify and make smart decisions…
6) Why do i feel bad when i bought an option earlier this week in $AMZN and it tripled and i sold it…. how was i to know it would continue to go up and i could have had
an option that would have increased nearly 10 fold ?
7) If you had to choose 3 patterns to watch for what would they be ? i I would guess the PEG and the falling channel would be 2 of them ?
8) When setting up a trading plan what criteria should I use ?
Thank you !
Dan
My response back to Dan's email
Hi Dan,
1) "I am following too many people and I am overwhelmed and confused"
Following too many people is NOT a very good idea in my opinion, especially in trading. You are very likely going to suffer from "Information Overload" and also the "Noise".... no doubts about it! You will get too many conflicting signals and opinions and at the end, you'll up confused and when things get tough you'll surely suffer from "deer in headlights syndrome". I suggest you spend some time and look to narrow down your twitter followers and trim them down to the ones who you feel will match your style of trading and cut out the ones who you think will merely add "noise" to your stream! When it comes to trading, LESS IS MORE!
2) i am paying some people and i don’t see what they are doing, i don’t see where they get their price points —
I actually used to subscribe to MANY trading services earlier in my trading career and learned A LOT from many of them! I'm a big believer in using trading services BUT have to spend a little time and subscribe to the very good ones with good reputations. There are many good ones there. Look for trading services that give EXACT buy and SELL points and the ones that focus on EDUCATING the trader.
3) i need to develop a trading plan that works for me… something that i can use in all situations.
Working on a trading plan is a GREAT IDEA and a must for all traders: When you said, you want a trading plan for "All situations": that kinda makes it sound like you want a strategy that will work in ALL market conditions.... Frankly, i think that's not possible as all trading systems will have good and bad streaks. However, there are things that a trader can do when the trading environment is NOT good for your style or system, like reducing activity or position size(which is something I do often here at AoT). I truly think THE HARDEST part about trading is a trader's ability and self-discipline to NOT do much when are no good signals/setups to trade and put money at risk.
I love this quote from my friend: Assad Tannous:
"Great traders understand difference between looking for a trade and seeing the trade. Remain patient, they always come. When they do, it's obvious."
This is great because we ALL know what those "awesome" trade setups look like, we've traded these setups or signals many many times before and they have been very good to us BUT the question is, what are you doing when these signals/setups are not present? Are you forcing trades? Are you looking too hard for something that isn't there? Trading out of boredom and always feeling like you "must" be trading all the time is where MOST traders get it all wrong and get frustrated as "paper cut" losses start to accumulate and that's when negative emotions start to take over. Traders are always mindful to avoid a "big loss" on any single trade but traders have to also be mindful of "death by a 1000 cuts" as well ! This generally happens when over-trading, reacting to every little tick on the charts etc. Work on sitting patiently when your system is not generating any good setups or signals.
4) i feel like i am reacting rather than letting the trade take me to where it wants to go, i understand that what i want it to do means nothing to the market or the stock
Micro-managing trades, watching every little wiggle and turn will that to traders. Unless intra-day scalping or day trading is your goal, it's better to not watch the market or stock tick by tick, it'll drive you crazy.
I suggest zooming out your time frames and use more 60 minute, daily, weekly and even monthly charts. This is especially true in strongly trending markets.
5) I need to simplify and make smart decisions…
It's my # 1 rule : Keep the routine SIMPLE. Don't over-think it. Trading is simple but so many traders want to complicate it. "LESS IS MORE" when it comes to trading.
Consider journaling your trades for a little while and i bet you'll start to see things that you didn't see before. Such as which stocks or ETFs hurt you or help you, what time of day is most profitable for you and not profitable. What setup worked works well and not for you. You get the idea. journal all your trades, reason for entries, exits, stops, time, date, stock, length of time holding the trade etc etc.
I bet you start to uncover some very interesting things about your trading.
6) Why do i feel bad when i bought an option earlier this week in $AMZN and it tripled and i sold it…. how was i to know it would continue to go up and i could have had an option that would have increased nearly 10 fold ????
Sometimes stocks will surprise you and run much further than you expected. I think most people would be VERY happy to triple their money on a trade. It's totally normal to feel "bad" that you sold it too soon. Selling too soon is something that you'll hear MOST traders get frustrated by. I think it's MORE important to focus on following the trade plan and whether you sold your position because it hit your targets. It's impossible to SELL a stock that's running at the EXACT top, don't even try thinking it's possible. Better to focus on setting targets and exiting your trades at targets or by TRAILING stops and TRIMMING size as the trade reaches targets.
7) If you had to choose 3 patterns to watch for what would they be ?
My favorite patterns for trading are FALLING WEDGE patterns, BULL FLAGS patterns and HAMMER reversal candles.
PEG(Power Earnings Gaps) is how I generate my watchlists and I've discussed those in previous blog posts.
8) When setting up a trading plan what criteria should I use ?
8) When setting up a trading plan what criteria should I use ?
There are many things to consider when making a trading plan. You are gonna have to tinker with it and make adjustments as you move along but i think start with making sure you KEEP THE ROUTINE SIMPLE, know how much you want to risk on each trade and what will you do if you hit a rough spot: For example, in my system, if you take 3 losses in a row, I will shut it down for 1 full day to make adjustments and see what went wrong. What are patterns will you be trading? Will you be day or swing trading? Will you short? Are you going to trade triple leverage ETFs? Are you going to trade sub-$3 stocks? Will you be focusing on Momentum trading or pullback trading or both? How quickly will you raise stops to B/E once a trade is profitable? Will you be selling ALL shares at a single price or will you be trimming to leave runners? Are you going to use physical stops or mental stops?
These some things to consider.....
I really hope this helps, Dan !! Thank you again for being a loyal ART OF TRADING member !!
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