There is a long-standing and interesting debate on the subject of when to use profit targets and when to use trailing stops for successful trades. There are passionate advocates on both sides of the debate who believe that their answer is correct for all trades, all styles and in all conditions. My personal opinion is […]
Tag: psychology
Profitable ETF Trading Strategies: reflecting on technical and fundamental analysis
To my way of understanding, technical analysis is the application of various forms of mathematical and statistical analysis to the study and description of the price movement of an asset (for me, a stock or an exchange traded fund usually)on a graph or in data tables, with the idea being that we can increase our […]
Profitable ETF Trading Strategies: understanding Average True Range (ATR)
One of the most powerful measurements in the technical trader’s toolbox is Average True Range, invented by Welles Wilder, and found prominently near the top of every major charting package that can be found on the web. Its power is what makes it so popular. I always recommend to traders that they use ATR for […]
Profitable ETF Trading Strategies: 4 ways to measure volatility
Volatility is such an important part of any shorter term trader’s trading strategy that it is worth taking a few moments to consider several different ways that it can be measured and understood. Depending on the typical length of time you plan to hold your positions you may find one or the other of these […]
Profitable ETF Trading Strategies: Respect Volatility, use its power for good
At the most fundamental level, volatility is the fluctuation in the price of an asset. The greter the price swings in the shorter periods of time, the greater the volatility. Periods of great volatility are like thunderstorms. They get your attention. Volatility is an absolute requirement for a trader to make money. Most investors look […]
Profitable ETF Trading Strategies: Good traders know and exploit their edge
As an individual trader, you must be absolutely clear about where your edge is in the market place so that you can ensure your trading strategies are designed to put you into positions where your edge can make the difference against the average market return. Let’s be clear too: your edge must give you a […]
Profitable ETF Trading Strategies: Stalking your way to success
One of the more neglected topics in trading systems development is the concept of stalking. Traders, particularly early in their career will tend to spend lot of time, if not ll of their time, focusing on the entry, reasoning that if they can get that part right they will have some control over the market’s […]
Profitable ETF Trading Strategies: Choose your self-talk wisely
The words we use matter. Words have power to shape our outcomes and direct our way through the future. Language is connected to our deepest emotional centers and affects us in profound ways. Steven Pinker makes the point that it is the artifact of language which distinguishes us from other species far more than the […]
Profitable ETF Trading Strategies: Finding your best mental state for trading
In previous articles I have described my concept of the “zero-state”, and the combination of personal satisfaction and improved bottomline performance I get when I trade from that state. In this article I want to describe some other mental states that traders I know find useful and consider the implications for your own journey of […]
Profitable ETF Trading Strategies: Experiencing the Zero-State
For me, achieving the zero-state is a necessary precondition for trading at my peak. In other essays I have described it as a place where adjective pairs of mental states cancel each other out, leaving only a moment of pure being. It is the space between the words that we know, a moment and a […]