Blog Archives

A Trader’s Educational Path

I received the following in an email from a member of my mailing list. Because I think …

Software for Backtesting and Order Generation

I get quite a few questions about trading resources. Since I don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of …

Trading Simply and Using the Right Trading Tools

The other day Brett Steenbarger referenced a post by Trader X in which he talks about simplifying …

Trader: The Paul Tudor Jones Documentary Video

Once upon a time a documentary about Paul Tudor Jones was filmed. It became a video titled Trader. Today, Trader …

Using Unusual Options Activity to Predict Large Stock Moves

Options have become an increasingly larger focus among stock market traders of late. Recently a question came …

Afraid to Trade? Build Your Trading Confidence

Confidence is a HUGE factor in trading. On the one side, the lack of it can create …

currencies

Most Active Forex Currency Pairs

It is often asked what the most actively traded currency pairs are in the forex market. This post provides answers to that very question.

Want Trading Advice? Answer These Questions

If you’re a new trader asking me for advice about how you should move forward I’m almost …

The Trade that Hurts the Most

Way back in the day I was a newbie trader. I know, it’s hard to believe, but …

Borrowing to Fund Your Trading or Investing

I’ve recently been thinking about some things related to my own personal finances in regards to taxes, investing, …

MD

Book Review: The Motley Fool Million Dollar Portfolio

Stuff that’s been said before many times in other places

Exiting Option Trades

In keeping with the recent theme, here’s an option trading question I received over the weekend. Hello John, …

Defending Options Trading Against Blogger Attack

A fellow trading blogger wrote some things which really irked me. I’m not going to say who …

A few useful links

Rob at Quantifiable Edges has posted a really good write-up about how using stops doesn’t always make …

Trading With Pivot Points, MAs and Oscillators

The other day a trader named Sam put the following question to me: I day trade via …

Penny Stock Research

The other day Tim Sykes answered a question he says he often gets: Why Is There So …

Learning Trading from Scratch and Starting Small

Here’s a pair of questions I received recently. They are from a brand new trader and really …

One Trader’s Path – Guest Post

One of my list members answered the call to contribute some thoughts on trading and trader development …

An Inquiry for Active Forex Traders

I need to do a some research for my employer. If you’re an active forex trader, I …

Happy Accidents are Rare in Trading

Brian Shannon at AlphaTrends recently wrote the post Bad Trade Gone Good (with some luck). In it …

Motley Fool Acting the Part

I recently had the opportunity to pick up a free copy of the latest Motley Fool book, …

Choosing Day Trading

Ray Barros, in his post Day Trade?, brings up the subject of why people choose to become …

One Question Before Investing in that Stock

The Jutia Group blog recently suggested the One Question You Need to Ask Before Buying Any Stock Now. That …

Good Trading Goals: Focus on what you can control

Alex at My Trader’s Journal got me thinking about objectives with his 2009 Goals blog post. In …

Dangerous trading myths which aren’t so dangerous

I’ve been receiving a series of emails from a person trying to get me to sign up …

Some Not-So-Great Tips for Using Stop Orders

Stock Trading to Go posted 10 Great Tips For Using Stop Loss Orders Successfully the other day. …

Keeping things simple in your trading

Beanieville posted Don’t Let All Those Technical Analysis Gurus Confuse You on Tuesday with the primary suggestion …

Forex Market Seasonal Patterns – Really!

Much of the time, when the idea of seasonal patterns is brought up in trading and the …

Looking forward to the new year

Welcome to 2009! If last year wasn’t a great one for you, then I hope this one …

Opening Gap – Will it hold or will the market retrace?

A reader of this blog posted a question via comment the other day about trading opening gaps in stocks. …

Can I optimize position sizing during development?

Here’s a second trader question on the subject of evaluating trading system performance test results. Is there a …

Trading system equity performance

A member of my mailing list asked me this question about trading system performance: For the systems …

What is the front futures contract?

The other day I got a question about futures contracts from a member of my mailing list on …

If it’s icy out there you have to take small steps

In case you haven’t heard, the Northeastern U.S. was hit by a bit of snow over the …

Trading During the Holidays

The question gets asked every year around this time: Is it worth trading during the holiday period? …

Can you learn trading by reading books?

Here’s a question that is often debated in trading circles, and I’m sure in other subject areas …

The difference between discretionary and system traders

There are, generally speaking, two types of traders in the markets. One is the discretionary sort. The …

What do you think of X market?

The following note/question came in from a reader named James over the weekend. His question brings up …

Negative T-Bill rates?

Near zero and negative Treasury Bill (T-Bill) rates have been all the talk this week. Here’s a …

Watch your risk when trading multiple forex positions

The other day I received an email from a fellow in which he was describing his trading …

The key concept of The Essentials of Trading

As part of a big set of questions submitted by a reader (I’ve mentioned how that seems …

Markets and timeframes for price distribution charting

I received a set of questions following on my How to identify price targets for your trades post …

How to identify price targets for your trades

The following is an article I contributed to Trading Markets last week that I thought would be …

Are CFD’s good trading vehicles for new traders?

In response to the post I wrote on whether forex is the best market for new traders, …

How do you set position sizing in Metastock system testing?

Developing and testing trading systems is about more than just entry and exit points. It also has …

Forex is the easiest market for new traders, right?

Here’s an interesting question on the forex market asked by a reader named Rod. It’s one I’m …

Trading with Fibonacci methods

I received an email yesterday asking about trading with Fibonaccis. While I’m familiar with fibos, they are …

Efficient Markets: Should you even bother trading?

The question of whether the markets are efficient was broached again by a fellow blogger recently. The …

More trading rules that you might want to ignore

There was a post on the Trading Goddess blog  the other day which included “the four cardinal …

Revisiting the impact of these markets on traders and investors

The other day I asked the question “How have these markets impacted your trading?” (if you haven’t …