By Jeffrey Kennedy
Close to ninety percent of all traders lose money. The remaining ten percent somehow manage to either break even or even turn a profit – and more importantly, do it consistently. How do they do that?
That's an age-old question. While there is no magic formula, one of Elliott Wave International's senior instructors Jeffrey Kennedy has identified five fundamental flaws that, in his opinion, stop most traders from being consistently successful. We don't claim to have found The Holy Grail of trading here, but sometimes a single idea can change a person's life. Maybe you'll find one in Jeffrey's take on trading? We sincerely hope so.
The following is an excerpt from Jeffrey Kennedy’s Trader’s Classroom Collection. For a limited time, Elliott Wave International is offering Jeffrey Kennedy’s report, How to Use Bar Patterns to Spot Trade Setups, free.
Why Do Traders Lose?
If you’ve been trading for a long time, you no doubt have felt that a monstrous, invisible hand sometimes reaches into your trading account and takes out money. It doesn’t seem to matter how many books you buy, how many seminars you attend or how many hours you spend analyzing price charts, you just can’t seem to prevent that invisible hand from depleting your trading account funds.
Which brings us to the question: Why do traders lose? Or maybe we should ask, 'How do you stop the Hand?' Whether you are a seasoned professional or just thinking about opening your first trading account, the ability to stop the Hand is proportional to how well you understand and overcome the Five Fatal Flaws of trading. For each fatal flaw represents a finger on the invisible hand that wreaks havoc with your trading account.
Fatal Flaw No. 1 – Lack of Methodology
If you aim to be a consistently successful trader, then you must have a defined trading methodology, which is simply a clear and concise way of looking at markets. Guessing or going by gut instinct won’t work over the long run. If you don’t have a defined trading methodology, then you don’t have a way to know what constitutes a buy or sell signal. Moreover, you can’t even consistently correctly identify the trend.
How to overcome this fatal flaw? Answer: Write down your methodology. Define in writing what your analytical tools are and, more importantly, how you use them. It doesn’t matter whether you use the Wave Principle, Point and Figure charts, Stochastics, RSI or a combination of all of the above. What does matter is that you actually take the effort to define it (i.e., what constitutes a buy, a sell, your trailing stop and instructions on exiting a position). And the best hint I can give you regarding developing a defined trading methodology is this: If you can’t fit it on the back of a business card, it’s probably too complicated.
Fatal Flaw No. 2 – Lack of Discipline
When you have clearly outlined and identified your trading methodology, then you must have the discipline to follow your system. A Lack of Discipline in this regard is the second fatal flaw. If the way you view a price chart or evaluate a potential trade setup is different from how you did it a month ago, then you have either not identified your methodology or you lack the discipline to follow the methodology you have identified. The formula for success is to consistently apply a proven methodology. So the best advice I can give you to overcome a lack of discipline is to define a trading methodology that works best for you and follow it religiously.
Fatal Flaw No. 3 – Unrealistic Expectations
Between you and me, nothing makes me angrier than those commercials that say something like, "...$5,000 properly positioned in Natural Gas can give you returns of over $40,000..." Advertisements like this are a disservice to the financial industry as a whole and end up costing uneducated investors a lot more than $5,000. In addition, they help to create the third fatal flaw: Unrealistic Expectations.
Yes, it is possible to experience above-average returns trading your own account. However, it’s difficult to do it without taking on above-average risk. So what is a realistic return to shoot for in your first year as a trader – 50%, 100%, 200%? Whoa, let’s rein in those unrealistic expectations. In my opinion, the goal for every trader their first year out should be not to lose money. In other words, shoot for a 0% return your first year. If you can manage that, then in year two, try to beat the Dow or the S&P. These goals may not be flashy but they are realistic, and if you can learn to live with them – and achieve them – you will fend off the Hand.
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For a limited time, Elliott Wave International is offering Jeffrey Kennedy’s report, How to Use Bar Patterns to Spot Trade Setups, free.
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Fatal Flaw No. 4 – Lack of Patience
The fourth finger of the invisible hand that robs your trading account is Lack of Patience. I forget where, but I once read that markets trend only 20% of the time, and, from my experience, I would say that this is an accurate statement. So think about it, the other 80% of the time the markets are not trending in one clear direction.
That may explain why I believe that for any given time frame, there are only two or three really good trading opportunities. For example, if you’re a long-term trader, there are typically only two or three compelling tradable moves in a market during any given year. Similarly, if you are a short-term trader, there are only two or three high-quality trade setups in a given week.
All too often, because trading is inherently exciting (and anything involving money usually is exciting), it’s easy to feel like you’re missing the party if you don’t trade a lot. As a result, you start taking trade setups of lesser and lesser quality and begin to over-trade.
How do you overcome this lack of patience? The advice I have found to be most valuable is to remind yourself that every week, there is another trade-of-the-year. In other words, don’t worry about missing an opportunity today, because there will be another one tomorrow, next week and next month ... I promise.
I remember a line from a movie (either Sergeant York with Gary Cooper or The Patriot with Mel Gibson) in which one character gives advice to another on how to shoot a rifle: 'Aim small, miss small.' I offer the same advice in this new context. To aim small requires patience. So be patient, and you’ll miss small."
Fatal Flaw No. 5 – Lack of Money Management
The final fatal flaw to overcome as a trader is a Lack of Money Management, and this topic deserves more than just a few paragraphs, because money management encompasses risk/reward analysis, probability of success and failure, protective stops and so much more. Even so, I would like to address the subject of money management with a focus on risk as a function of portfolio size.
Now the big boys (i.e., the professional traders) tend to limit their risk on any given position to 1% - 3% of their portfolio. If we apply this rule to ourselves, then for every $5,000 we have in our trading account, we can risk only $50-$150 on any given trade. Stocks might be a little different, but a $50 stop in Corn, which is one point, is simply too tight a stop, especially when the 10-day average trading range in Corn recently has been more than 10 points. A more plausible stop might be five points or 10, in which case, depending on what percentage of your total portfolio you want to risk, you would need an account size between $15,000 and $50,000.
Simply put, I believe that many traders begin to trade either under-funded or without sufficient capital in their trading account to trade the markets they choose to trade. And that doesn’t even address the size that they trade (i.e., multiple contracts).
To overcome this fatal flaw, let me expand on the logic from the 'aim small, miss small' movie line. If you have a small trading account, then trade small. You can accomplish this by trading fewer contracts, or trading e-mini contracts or even stocks. Bottom line, on your way to becoming a consistently successful trader, you must realize that one key is longevity. If your risk on any given position is relatively small, then you can weather the rough spots. Conversely, if you risk 25% of your portfolio on each trade, after four consecutive losers, you’re out all together.
Break the Hand’s Grip
Trading successfully is not easy. It’s hard work ... damn hard. And if anyone leads you to believe otherwise, run the other way, and fast. But this hard work can be rewarding, above-average gains are possible and the sense of satisfaction one feels after a few nice trades is absolutely priceless. To get to that point, though, you must first break the fingers of the Hand that is holding you back and stealing money from your trading account. I can guarantee that if you attend to the five fatal flaws I’ve outlined, you won’t be caught red-handed stealing from your own account.
For more information on trading successfully, visit Elliott Wave International to download Jeffrey Kennedy’s free report, How to Use Bar Patterns to Spot Trade Setups.
Jeffrey Kennedy is the Chief Commodity Analyst at Elliott Wave International (EWI). With more than 15 years of experience as a technical analyst, he writes and edits Futures Junctures, EWI's premier commodity forecasting package.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Updated 2009 S&P 500 Opening Range Chart
S&P 500 Index Bouncing In Yearly Opening Range (click to enlarge)
Soon To Be U.S. Ambassador to Iran
Soon To Be U.S. Ambassador to Iran
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
A Road Map To SENSEX 100,000
By Mark Galasiewski
This article was originally published as a special Interim Report of EWI's Asian-Pacific Financial Forecast on March 23, 2009. Since then the SENSEX has risen as much as 65%. For a limited time, Elliott Wave International is offering a full 10-page issue of the Asian Pacific Financial Forecast, Discover The Bull Markets You’re Missing, free.
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Prices in India’s SENSEX have just broken above a downtrend line, imitating a pattern from 2004 that led to a strong rally. This interim report updates our wave count for India, since its wave pattern in particular may offer investors a rewarding long-term opportunity.
In the March 2009 issue of The Asian-Pacific Financial Forecast, we showed how pattern, price, time and sentiment considerations were pointing to the end of multi-month, five-wave declines in most major Asian-Pacific indexes by late March. In most cases, those lows have likely been achieved.
Although we have looked for a fifth wave down to below the October low in the SENSEX, it has failed to materialize. That failure plus the recent sharp reversal rally prompts our return to an earlier wave count. The daily SENSEX chart shows how the decline since the 2008 high can be counted as three waves. A three-wave decline opens the possibility of a rally back to near the 2008 highs. But there is reason to set our sights even higher.
Perhaps the best argument for a bull market in Indian stocks is the potential fractal relationship we identified in the November 2008 issue, published just four days after the October low. The weekly chart below is an updated version of the one we showed at that time. Here is our analysis from the November
issue:
“The Wave Principle teaches that the stock market is a self-similar fractal. That means that some pieces of its price record—which Ralph Nelson Elliott called waves—resemble other pieces elsewhere in that record. The weekly chart of India’s SENSEX shows just such an example.Notice how the up-down sequence labeled Intermediate waves (1) and (2) (in the small red box) is a microcosm of the larger up-down sequence from the 2003 low to the present (i.e., waves 1 and 2 , in the large black box). In both cases, the wave-two correction retraced approximately 50% of the wave-one advance. (We have calculated those retracements using the same logarithmic scale shown in the chart: logarithmic charting displays equal percentage moves proportionally).
“If we have identified this “nested fractal” relationship correctly, it means that Indian stocks are about to begin Primary wave 3 of the bull market that began in 2003. Waves 1 and 2 lasted more than four times the duration of waves (1) and (2). If that same proportion holds going forward, the SENSEX may continue advancing for 15 years before reaching the end of wave 5 .”
Since then, the analogy to the 2004 period (“The 2004 Analog”) has become even more interesting.
Just as then, prices have broken down from an apparent triangle, and then reversed and broken out above the downtrend line. In 2004, prices never looked back after the breakout. As long as prices do not fall back below the low of today’s breakout bar, we will assume that the 2003-2008 bull market will continue to provide a road map to the future of India’s stock market.
For more information emerging opportunities in Asian markets, download Elliott Wave International’s free 10-page issue of the Asian Financial Forecast.
Mark Galasiewski is the editor of Elliott Wave International’s Asian-Pacific Financial Forecast and member of EWI’s Global Market Perspective team covering Asian stock indexes.
This article was originally published as a special Interim Report of EWI's Asian-Pacific Financial Forecast on March 23, 2009. Since then the SENSEX has risen as much as 65%. For a limited time, Elliott Wave International is offering a full 10-page issue of the Asian Pacific Financial Forecast, Discover The Bull Markets You’re Missing, free.
**********************************************
Prices in India’s SENSEX have just broken above a downtrend line, imitating a pattern from 2004 that led to a strong rally. This interim report updates our wave count for India, since its wave pattern in particular may offer investors a rewarding long-term opportunity.
In the March 2009 issue of The Asian-Pacific Financial Forecast, we showed how pattern, price, time and sentiment considerations were pointing to the end of multi-month, five-wave declines in most major Asian-Pacific indexes by late March. In most cases, those lows have likely been achieved.
Although we have looked for a fifth wave down to below the October low in the SENSEX, it has failed to materialize. That failure plus the recent sharp reversal rally prompts our return to an earlier wave count. The daily SENSEX chart shows how the decline since the 2008 high can be counted as three waves. A three-wave decline opens the possibility of a rally back to near the 2008 highs. But there is reason to set our sights even higher.
Perhaps the best argument for a bull market in Indian stocks is the potential fractal relationship we identified in the November 2008 issue, published just four days after the October low. The weekly chart below is an updated version of the one we showed at that time. Here is our analysis from the November
issue:
“The Wave Principle teaches that the stock market is a self-similar fractal. That means that some pieces of its price record—which Ralph Nelson Elliott called waves—resemble other pieces elsewhere in that record. The weekly chart of India’s SENSEX shows just such an example.Notice how the up-down sequence labeled Intermediate waves (1) and (2) (in the small red box) is a microcosm of the larger up-down sequence from the 2003 low to the present (i.e., waves 1 and 2 , in the large black box). In both cases, the wave-two correction retraced approximately 50% of the wave-one advance. (We have calculated those retracements using the same logarithmic scale shown in the chart: logarithmic charting displays equal percentage moves proportionally).
“If we have identified this “nested fractal” relationship correctly, it means that Indian stocks are about to begin Primary wave 3 of the bull market that began in 2003. Waves 1 and 2 lasted more than four times the duration of waves (1) and (2). If that same proportion holds going forward, the SENSEX may continue advancing for 15 years before reaching the end of wave 5 .”
Since then, the analogy to the 2004 period (“The 2004 Analog”) has become even more interesting.
Just as then, prices have broken down from an apparent triangle, and then reversed and broken out above the downtrend line. In 2004, prices never looked back after the breakout. As long as prices do not fall back below the low of today’s breakout bar, we will assume that the 2003-2008 bull market will continue to provide a road map to the future of India’s stock market.
For more information emerging opportunities in Asian markets, download Elliott Wave International’s free 10-page issue of the Asian Financial Forecast.
Mark Galasiewski is the editor of Elliott Wave International’s Asian-Pacific Financial Forecast and member of EWI’s Global Market Perspective team covering Asian stock indexes.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Cross Currents - Awesome Article.....
Crosscurrents
The factors driving the dollar seem to vary with the season. Last fall at the height of the financial crisis safe haven flows trumped all considerations; at one point investors accepted zero return for the security of holding US debt. The dollar rose 17% against the euro in a month and made similar gains versus the Pound Sterling, the Canadian Dollar, the Swiss Franc the Australian and New Zealand Dollars. But even at maximum market panic dollar superiority was not total; the imploding yen carry trade drove the dollar down against the yen to 90 to the dollar despite the huge inward flows to US securities.
The dollar’s virtues last fall were very specific; in a catastrophe everyone’s first choice for safety was American debt. The dollar’s competitive value was not the point, only its supposed security mattered. But those conditions could not last, and as the financial crisis became an economic crisis and the threat of financial system collapse waned the fear of wholesale loss of investment principal ebbed. In moderating circumstances the funds that had been stashed in States for safety (and little or no return) began to be withdrawn seeking other more productive currency and investments.
The degree of panic into the dollar last fall guaranteed a reverse move out of the dollar; but until the recent move that began on May 20th, the euro had stayed below the 38% Fibonacci retracement level of the July to October 2008 collapse
The euro US dollar equilibrium held from mid March until mid May with the pair largely confined to the range of 1.3100 and 1.3600. The original burst through that range on March 18th and 19th was prompted by the Federal Reserve announcement that it would buy Treasury Notes in an effort to keep consumer and mortgage interest rates low; this was the so called ‘quantitative easing’ policy. The Federal Reserve Board knew that the amount of US debt scheduled for sale to the credit markets in the months ahead could undermine its low rate policy.
Mortgage rates are not set by Fed fiat but take direction from the credit markets and the most important market benchmarks are US Treasury rates. The initial market reaction to the Fed quantitative policy was extremely negative for the dollar with the euro gaining seven hundred points in two days. But despite the Fed announcement, traders seemed to forget, the market absorbed that news and the dollar regained all that it had lost after March 18th.
Enter the budget of the new American administration and their plans for the US economy. Treasury rates at the long end of the yield curve have been rising since March. The ten year note has gained 1.5% in yield in that time. The bond market clearly anticipated the impact of the government’s financing plans well before the actual auctions began. But it turmoil in the bond market did not dramatically affect the currency markets until last week.
In a classic economic comparison higher interest rates are one of the prime drivers of a currency’s worth. US rates, though not at the Federal Reserve level, are clearly headed higher but the dollar has moved from strength to weakness. Gone is the expectation that the US economy, under the spur of historically low rates and massive fiscal stimulus, will be the first industrial economy to leave the recession. Gone is the credit to the Fed’s early acknowledgement of the financial crisis and actions to mitigate the recession.
The currency market is now concerned about the US debt, about the degree of Fed quantitative easing and potential for future inflation and not about rising Treasury interest rates. There is little confidence that a government as indebted as Washington will be able to withdraw the liquidity flooding the US financial system. The may even be the suspicion that Washington will realize that monetizing the debt is probably the only politically realistic course to alleviate the debt burden
The same proactive Fed and government policies that only a few months ago were seen as strongly supportive of the US economy and the US Dollar are now the dollars nemesis. Fear for the funding needs of the Treasury, even if that fear produces higher rates, is the new driving force behind the dollar’s fall.
Joseph Trevisani
FX Solutions, LLC
Chief Market Analyst
Joe@fxsol.com
The factors driving the dollar seem to vary with the season. Last fall at the height of the financial crisis safe haven flows trumped all considerations; at one point investors accepted zero return for the security of holding US debt. The dollar rose 17% against the euro in a month and made similar gains versus the Pound Sterling, the Canadian Dollar, the Swiss Franc the Australian and New Zealand Dollars. But even at maximum market panic dollar superiority was not total; the imploding yen carry trade drove the dollar down against the yen to 90 to the dollar despite the huge inward flows to US securities.
The dollar’s virtues last fall were very specific; in a catastrophe everyone’s first choice for safety was American debt. The dollar’s competitive value was not the point, only its supposed security mattered. But those conditions could not last, and as the financial crisis became an economic crisis and the threat of financial system collapse waned the fear of wholesale loss of investment principal ebbed. In moderating circumstances the funds that had been stashed in States for safety (and little or no return) began to be withdrawn seeking other more productive currency and investments.
The degree of panic into the dollar last fall guaranteed a reverse move out of the dollar; but until the recent move that began on May 20th, the euro had stayed below the 38% Fibonacci retracement level of the July to October 2008 collapse
The euro US dollar equilibrium held from mid March until mid May with the pair largely confined to the range of 1.3100 and 1.3600. The original burst through that range on March 18th and 19th was prompted by the Federal Reserve announcement that it would buy Treasury Notes in an effort to keep consumer and mortgage interest rates low; this was the so called ‘quantitative easing’ policy. The Federal Reserve Board knew that the amount of US debt scheduled for sale to the credit markets in the months ahead could undermine its low rate policy.
Mortgage rates are not set by Fed fiat but take direction from the credit markets and the most important market benchmarks are US Treasury rates. The initial market reaction to the Fed quantitative policy was extremely negative for the dollar with the euro gaining seven hundred points in two days. But despite the Fed announcement, traders seemed to forget, the market absorbed that news and the dollar regained all that it had lost after March 18th.
Enter the budget of the new American administration and their plans for the US economy. Treasury rates at the long end of the yield curve have been rising since March. The ten year note has gained 1.5% in yield in that time. The bond market clearly anticipated the impact of the government’s financing plans well before the actual auctions began. But it turmoil in the bond market did not dramatically affect the currency markets until last week.
In a classic economic comparison higher interest rates are one of the prime drivers of a currency’s worth. US rates, though not at the Federal Reserve level, are clearly headed higher but the dollar has moved from strength to weakness. Gone is the expectation that the US economy, under the spur of historically low rates and massive fiscal stimulus, will be the first industrial economy to leave the recession. Gone is the credit to the Fed’s early acknowledgement of the financial crisis and actions to mitigate the recession.
The currency market is now concerned about the US debt, about the degree of Fed quantitative easing and potential for future inflation and not about rising Treasury interest rates. There is little confidence that a government as indebted as Washington will be able to withdraw the liquidity flooding the US financial system. The may even be the suspicion that Washington will realize that monetizing the debt is probably the only politically realistic course to alleviate the debt burden
The same proactive Fed and government policies that only a few months ago were seen as strongly supportive of the US economy and the US Dollar are now the dollars nemesis. Fear for the funding needs of the Treasury, even if that fear produces higher rates, is the new driving force behind the dollar’s fall.
Joseph Trevisani
FX Solutions, LLC
Chief Market Analyst
Joe@fxsol.com
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