The information the market provides us is neutral. Ticks either go up, down or stay the same. It’s us through our beliefs and perspectives who interpret the information and inappropriately add emotion. The market doesn’t care about what you think about it. The reason I am writing this is that I took an over-night long position, at a smaller size with a larger stop loss and limit. I came within 2.8 pips of being stopped out before the market reversed, and came back to my entry position, and beyond. I got out for a little profit so it was hardly a glowing trade. I was so close to getting stopped out but didn’t. Is this something I am sat here now constantly thinking about? No. Do I have any emotion towards it now? No. However, if I had got stopped out by 2.8 pips and the market went in my favour and beyond, would that be different? Quite possibly. I could easily think, ‘just my luck’. The logical progression from then on is to delve into the irrational and highly destructive trading behaviours many do. Things such as, ‘the market is against me’, and, ‘the spread betting companies have taken my stop out’. All non-sense, of course. And I would never think the latter two bold statements. The point is that there are times when we just get stopped out before the market goes in our favour, and there are times when our stop is nearly hit before the market goes in our favour. There is no reason not to treat both scenarios with equal weight. We’ll never find ourselves thinking there is a conspiracy if it works out for us, do we?
Talking about the same trade, I wasn’t present at the screen (I’d like to pretend I was busy but I was asleep still recovering form jet lag) but received a text from a friend telling me I had been stopped out as he knew what trade I was taking. My immediate thought was that I had to go to update my trading record, and turned the computer on to do so. There was no emotion or feeling that I had lost X amount. The ideal place we need to be is to accept losses with no emotion and no fear. I getting better and better at this, but today was the first time I was really, subconsciously, not bothered. My brain had wired itself to go from finding out I had lost, to updating the records, with nothing in between. It was of course nice to see I was still in the trade and slightly in profit but there wasn’t a big relief or other emotion that would be present had I feared and not accepting the loss I thought I had. This has to be a product of the relentless focus on trading psychology that I put myself through. I can’t say this will happen from now on, but I think I’ve experienced for the first time what it truly is like to fully accept the risk of a trade.
I’ve been on holiday for the past two weeks and have not traded. At times, amongst the sun (32C) and steaks (a 20 ounce filet mignon was the highlight), I’ve totally forgotten about trading. This isn’t because I don’t love it, it’s because I can step away and don’t feel the need to always be watching the market. This is a common trading flaw you may have experienced, the feeling of ‘I am going to miss out’. The reality is you aren’t going to miss out. The market will always be there. You can switch off. You need to switch off. Here we like to make our targets and go and do something else. The greatest freedom of trading is that often we can take what we need in a short period of time and then go and do something else.
I have a reflective personality, so not surprisingly, I am always reflecting on things. I am also honest about where I am and where I need to develop. I don’t care that I make reasonable mistakes. It was surprising (perhaps it shouldn’t have been) how much deeper my reflection was when away. A holiday provides us with an opportunity for great mental clarity about our regular lives as it removes us from them. It removes the noise and non-sense we easily get lost in on a day-to-day basis. I realised things that had not occurred to me previously. I also listened to my favourite trading audiobook again and I heard things I’d never heard before. There are moments in life which can be described as ‘a-ha’ moments where things ‘click’ and slot into place. I had at least two of those moments when away and cannot wait to get back into the market and take my trading to the next level. Had I not taken the time to think things through these things wouldn’t have occurred.
The point of this post is that we’re naturally so focused on the future we can forget how far we’ve come. If we’re not honest with ourselves or dare not want to think about our flaws because we don’t want to go through the pain of addressing them, then we’ll never succeed. It is essential to reflect on trading and frequently assess ourselves. This isn’t an external work environment. No one else will do it for us. If you’re willing to be honest with yourself and what you need to work on, and spend the time to think about what has happened in your trading past, then this will be a very powerful tool for you to use to become a consistent and successful trader. Take some time alone to think things through. Turn off the radio when driving to work and don’t get annoyed at the traffic. Think about one thing that would make you a better trader and one thing that you’ve already done to make a you a better trader. You can then go as deep as you want into the underlying dynamics of your psychology.
Very few people put as much into trading psychology as we do, which often comes as a surprise to new members. We’ve either gone through the journey or are going through it. You can have the best strategies in the world. If you don’t have mental processes and systems to manage these strategies you will lose. That is the reality of trading.
Just as I leave to go back to my 14 hour days and no I really dont need to do anything to be honest! Just thought I would post todays members email. No trading calls though LOL
Just about to leave the Land Of Smiles and you know what its crap, pants orwhat other none rude words you can offer in its place. But you know what Ilove it here as you know exactly what the game is after a bit. After allthis is about my 27th time here in 8 years so what is about the place Ilove and how does that apply to the markets please read on.Well here money is No1 just like Simons rule but in reverse, but once youcan be respectful and speak some Thai like I can and now and understand thecustoms then a whole another world opens up. I have had one accident a few years ago in BKK were I fell over after along night out and the pavements here don’t even justify the word andbefore I could even get back on my feet I had 3 people helping me back upto my feet and washing the blood of my face as I had hit my nose reallybad. Offered them money and spoke my pigeon Thai and would they take itnope. I had never seen them before or again.Today I had to check out of my apartment at 12pm so could not enjoy myusual sleep in fact was up at 8am! That’s back to 4 hours a night already LOL So at 11:30am I fancy abeer as its going to be a long trip back so go downstairs and pick one andgo to the counter and realise I have no money “Mai Pen Rai” means noproblem she says to me what is your room number! She gave me the beer Ipromised I would be back in Thai and guess what I did after 30 minutes orso and gave her a nice tip!I then realised I had booked my taxi for 9pm for the midnight flight toDubai when I was actually booked on the 9:20pm flight DOH but again not aproblem if you are respectful here the whole world opens up. So that ischanged to 5pm no cost not a problem. And I booked the Dubai lounge soshould be able to call some levels that is really PMA, STT in action!That is how you should see the markets, they are corrupt, rigged orwhatever the 80% of the losers in this game think, but the trick and noit’s not a trick is realising that is turning that to your advantage andthen like we do make money most weeks and months as no one can win all thetime and that is part of being a world class trader.I hope you are starting to get my point Mike L
Hi due to me being away we not been able to do the regular monthly training schedule but here is what we have for the rest of the month.
Thursday 17th 7pm Free part 1 (but members are always welcome)
Sunday 20th 7pm PMA, STT and other “weird” stuff for 1 hour (members first but if have space will be free)
Thursday 24th 7pm Members only Levels (yes eventually) am free for 1 hour with Q&A (about levels only) after as it will take me 15 mins to explain max as its that simple.
Thursday 31st 7pm Members only Q&A am free for 2 hours but its up to you to bring questions.
All will be recorded and available in the members forum so do not stress if you cant make it live and then normal training schedule will be done next month.
Ok the end of my holidays and I have done a lot of sleeping and visualizing I just love to lie down and close my eyes and get to the point of relaxation where I drift of and in my mind’s eye dream (without being asleep) I think about my thoughts and goals and more importantly the charts!
I just read Robert Sweetman (http://robertsweetman.com) latest blog post where he says you can’t just copy someone else approach or methods and I have to disagree on one point and agree on another. No you can’t just copy someone else trades and that is my we don’t given many public trade calls. We do to members but they know why and importantly it’s for their trading education not just to make a quick few quid.
We call what we are looking for and when we are in, but if you read about the trading turtles you will understand that if you give a dozen people exact 100% rules and even free money they still will not all to be able to follow it.
But what I think Robert has worked out (and its cost him a lot of money I guess) although I have told him before for free. Trading all comes down to the Super Trader Traits (STT as in our twitter) these are a list of points that you need to master forget setups, RSI etc. If you can’t follow these rules you will NEVER MAKE IT AS A TRADER.
The setups and when to get in is the easy bit. I do agree with Roberts points I quote him here.
The average timespan seems to be 3-6yrs to get really good
If you dig a little deeper it’s mostly nearer 6yrs
Those that seem to be consistent threw out the rulebook and developed their own trading methodology from scratch based on personal observations
The majority of these individuals use ‘price action’ rather than charts with loads of indicators and wavy lines
Some only trade one or a very few number of markets with very simple setups/rules
Most of these rules are entirely dependent on experience which reinforces their discretionary approach
However again I think re point 1 that is because they don’t start off with the STT in printed into their skull! You need to live and bleed them and then start to trade. I lost for 3 years before I came across the STT and then combined that with Positive Mental Attitude (PMA) and then the trading part is easy.
I had one new member that have never traded before and as I will do for all newbies. That I made not to trade for the first month, but do all our training, watch all our videos and books. Master the STT and understand how that fits in to this business and then start to trade and follow our spreadsheet. He I don’t think has had a loosing week since. The STT really do work!
I am living proof and this whole website and what we do for members has become a result of the STT and PMA and then honestly the setups are the easy bit combined with simple money management. More importantly than that we have members that have never traded before, traded and lost, and even pros that we have helped and all that really grasp the STT have seen improvements in there trading.
I hope the members agree I have been on fire with calls over the last 2 weeks even while on holiday. Is that because I being clever? Nope it’s because I have had the extra free time to think and help and as in life the more you put into something the more you get back!
We often get asked what we offer our members, and it is detailed on the membership section on this site. But the below is an example of our daily members email that we send pre open which details, our thoughts for the day on direction and key levels that we and the other professional traders will be watching out for.
Good morning Mike
A slightly different members email today as A) its Sunday and B) am in the
lounge at the airport and have 20 hours of travel in front of me so will
100% not be able to look at the FTSE100 tomorrow so am having to call the
levels and direction without the hindsight of Sunday eve price action.
But Friday was a classic I know it was not a typical room setup but more of
a sentiment driven trade but was an easy 30-50 pips to be had on the long
side which we did call in the room and via the members twitter but we did
not take as we have to stick to our rules 100% but I know quite a few did
and as long as the market did not make new lows was fine to be long. Notice
also after the market recovered quickly in then went in chop mode and again
you should also know why that is.
Ok for Monday as long as the price does not move loads over night I expect
a short trade as there is nothing above 5800 until 5900 so I personally
would look to short the market as long as it does not break above 5825 on
the short side target levels are 60 and then down to 20 as 50 is not a
strong level at the moment but it will always effect price so be aware of
that. If it does break to the upside then would have to look again at the
levels.
Unfortunately Emirates does not have Wi-Fi yet on board but I might get a
chance to look at the Sunday price action from Dubai as have an 8 hour stay
over. Simon should be around on Monday and then he is flying away also in
the evening so will be a reduced service but I should be back for the daily
email, live room and members twitter feed for the DAX open and FTSE so UK
time 7-10am
There is no live training this week as we normally do the free part one but
for new members we will do the 3 parts after we get back on the 14th, but
there is plenty in the members forum for you to watch and I will do my best
to record any live trade session we do in the mornings.
As usual if anyone has any questions etc, just send us an email and we do
our best.
We will 100% do a live session on levels at some point when we get back as
many of you have asked how we do them as even we are surprised sometimes
how well they work, but they work not because we say so, but because that
is what the professional day traders are also looking at.
We also have our free session on PMA which will be open to members first
and then if we have enough seats will offer to the public. I know you again
might not understand what and why we do what we do, and even bother with
all this. As yes as some have said “why do you need to even do this”
which is correct we 100% don’t even have to bother but there again there
is a reason as to why and to our success in not having a losing week in 14
months now!
So for those with room access enjoy me not being there to rant but you all
know we do it for the correct reasons and TRADE SAFE!
We occasionally get requests for “free” days in our training room before new people decide if to join us or not. Whilst I can understand some peoples concern about checking us out and see if we are really here. Can do what we say we do before paying their £50 (Silver) or £80 (Gold) for the 1 month minimum term it’s not something we offer and we would like to explain why.
Firstly we are not just a trade alert service; we do call positional trades to our members (regardless of level) via our members twitter feed and morning email (This mornings was a classic long for 30-50 pips). If we were just an alert service then yes like others out there we would be happy to offer a free week or discounted month so you can “check” out our calls as others out there do.
We believe that we are different in that we show and train people in exactly what we do in the first month and have lots of positive feedback from people who have invested as one ex member called the “price of a decent meal out” to come in for 1 month and see what we do.
We would and do say to any new perspective member that emails us that they should come in for 1 month and ideally 2 or 3, not that we are after the money far from it. We will show you regardless of membership level exactly what and how we do what we do and how we have not had a losing week in about 14 months now.
We have helped people that have never traded before to sit and watch and learn for a month, then start trading following our rules, setups and trading spreadsheet and they are in profit from month 1. No is not easy but that is basically unheard off for any new trader to achieve whilst doing it on their own.
We then have members that have been losing and about to give up, but are now making money. All the way to people that are professional traders for 4 years or more that have joined us, as they like our simple no nonsense approach to what we do. We had one professional trader in our live room say the other day that he had learnt more about “real” trading in this last month than in his last 2 years of doing his own education.
So in a way with all the people that we have helped over the last 4 months we don’t need to offer 1 or 2 free days in the room, as we know we do exactly what we say we do. But we also have 7 years of our personal investment in trading experience, in our member PDF setup book, 8 hours of live training, and 20+ hours of member’s videos and member forum, setup guides etc.
If we gave free days these would all be available for someone to come in and just take, watch, download etc. We don’t think that is fair. So the minimum membership is for 1 month and we would recommend any perspective member to take the month and check us out and we so far and never expect anyone that comes in for the month to be unhappy with what we have returned for their payment.
Check out our membership page for exactly what we offer and it now also includes direct live Q&A at the start of our live training sessions, were you can ask our team anything trading related you like and even Skype me if required.
We have a policy with our site that we never try and sell anything but we believe we offer so much more than our competitors and hope perspective new members can see why we don’t offer the “free trial” service
Thursday 26/04/2012 - The end of the trading month
I’ve had my best month so far. I am pushing an 80% increase on my account since I began to trade here in February. That’s on a nice smooth, steadily increasing equity curve, too. I wouldn’t have believed that was possible when I joined, but why shouldn’t we believe we can achieve such returns if we have the right setups and discipline? There’s a lot of psychological theory about having to believe in what we feel we are worth and can achieve. I guess it comes down to being positive and confident and knowing the only limit with trading is we. For many, that degree of accountability and responsibility is off-putting – you can’t blame anyone else for trading poorly. Well, you can, but then you’re kidding yourself.
One of the reasons for this month’s success is not because I made more pips – I made the same as the first month – but because I lost fewer. It’s easy to focus upon ‘how can I make more?’, but sometimes the more important question is ‘how can I lose fewer?’ How do you approach using stops and closing losing trades? Do you justify moving stop losses? Do you let your full stop loss get hit even though the trade is invalidated? Have you ever considered thinking from a different perspective? Consider this; would you be better off focusing on when your trade is invalidated at all times rather than practice the common, destructive psychological flaw of trying to justify why to stay in a losing trade? Think how many pips you could save if you thought like this. Every pip saved from an invalidated trade reduces your average loss. This makes it easier for your average win to be higher. Knowing when a trade is invalidated is a skill in itself, of course, but that’s a separate conversation.
As it is the end of the month and it is time for me to go through every single trade I’ve made. I keep detailed records and this will take a few hours. But I am committed to improvement so the time is no issue. I know I need to let my winners run more. I know this is my key area for development and will happily admit when I need to improve in an area rather than pretend it isn’t an issue. I will see how much more profit (in accordance with my targets) I could have had from each trade had I held on longer. This isn’t retrospective trading; this is a part of reviewing what I do and trying to tweak the way I manage my trades. It is essential, especially when learning, to record and review what we do. Detailed record keeping allows me to do that.
I am away for a couple of weeks and will not be trading. I don’t think I’ll miss it as I know the market is always there. That’s not to say I don’t love trading, but I don’t have the ‘need to trade’ urge and constantly have to be in the market. I will use this time to reflect on what I have done over the past 3 months and hopefully get some more clarify on what I need to do to further improve. Either way, the next time I trade I’ll have a nice tan and have eaten a Cow-worth of steak.
How many of us actually treat that rule as the most serious thing we need to do when trading, and approaching trading as a business like we should? Without capital, we can’t trade. Well, until we totally lose the plot and start risking money we can’t afford (perhaps that’s rule number 3). Sometimes it’s necessary to reflect on the records we should be keeping and see how well we are doing for the month. I did this today. It’s easy to keep looking into the future and what could be made. Nothing wrong with this as we can’t change the past, we can however, protect it. I am having my best month so far. Regardless of what opportunities I am offered to make it an even better month in the remaining days, I have today said I will keep it my best month. How will I do this? By following rule number 1, by preserving capital. I have made X pips this month. I will not risk any more than 10% of those for the remaining trading days this month. If I lose 10% of what I have made this month I will stop trading for the month. It’s as simple as that. I ensure I keep my best month alive, protecting the past no matter what, and still have the opportunity to make more profit.
A good day in the live room. The direction was called early as our view on today’s market was short. I was holding a small overnight trade from Friday which I closed when the spreads tightened on the open. Then it was simply picking a couple of entry points and riding on the back of the market. Can you spot any of the likely areas for entry on the chart? I made my daily targets before 9am so that was broker closed, done for the day. Why would I want to be sat at the computer all day and risking my profit (sound familiar?)? Yes, the market has gone further down since I had my shorts but do I care? No. My rules mean I win over the long term. I can see beyond today. Whilst we often have a view on the market, ‘is it an uptrend, downtrend or range bound?’, and that view is nearly always correct, we accept the market is boss and ultimately tells us what is happening. We’re have no ego and aren’t afraid to admit when we are wrong.
What I’ll finally say is what a difference a group of positive, helpful and ‘can-do’ people can make to a learning-environment. Today a member helped me do some more complicated automation on my Spread Sheet I use to keep my trading records. Nothing too major, but sums up the group of people we have here and why this site is growing so well and many people are taking their trading forward so well. Trading can be very isolated and having a group of peers sharing the same experiences is invaluable.
I will be posting some reviews on this page from today forward. The reason for this is that I am consistently and profitably trading from what I have been taught at FTSEday over the past few months, and have been a member from the launch of the live room at the beginning of February. The idea is to give you, who are no doubt here to learn and develop your trading, a view from someone who is going through the same process. I have only been trading since August 2010 and made the usual mistakes every trader goes through. I was fortunate enough to discover this site and Mike a few months ago and am on the right track to trading at levels that will provide me with financial independence, and for the right reasons. My role here beyond my own learning is to help integrate people and new members with what we do here. I know what you’re going through, and I know what it’s like to come out of the other side. If you wish to speak / email someone who is going through what you are (but the right way) then email is at traders@ftseday.co.uk I will not be trying to sell you anything if you want to talk as FTSEday is here to help people trade and be different from a lot of trading sites that are set-up purely for commercial reasons.
I have a lot to write and hope it will be of value to you. I will be writing about some of the trades I’ve taken, trading psychology and other facets of what it is to be learning to trade, and learning to do so here.
Thursday 19/04/2012
Today’s market was one we would happily see every day. So many chances to make our targets with the set-ups we use based on the patterns that repeat day after day. Some patience was required from the start to allow the market to show us what we wanted. This is a key skill in trading and without it you will fail. Blunt but true. We’ve all been there, wanting to get stuck into the market as soon as it opens. We all have the stereotypical images in our heads of hectic trading floors (that don’t really exist anymore), then the flashing screens come alive on the platforms we use and before we know it, we’re in a trade for no other reason than the desire to trade. Sometimes we can make our targets off the bat, but often is we may have to wait a while for the market to offer us what we want.
We called the 50 level as being important to a range-bound market on the public Twitter account (every further level call on the member’s Twitter was uncannily accurate, as they are 90% of the time). This played a part and gave is at least two trading opportunities throughout the day. I took two trades today. One based around the 90 level (can you see what it is and how simple it is?) and one based around 50 level. That was me done for the day. There were more trading opportunities but I have a plan, and I stick to it as I know it is key to being successful. And why would I want to be at my computer all day after I’ve made my targets?
We don’t always get days that offer so many opportunities, but it’s important to be able to recognise when a day is a really good one and take full advantage and be in the 20% (or fewer) of people who win in this game.
Every day I write down what I’ve learnt – even if it is to just reinforce what I already know. The market will teach us something new every day. Today reinforced the need to be patient even though I really wanted to trade from the off. This patience was rewarded, I stuck to my plan and FTSEday methodology and was rewarded. I will do this the next day I trade.
