7 Habits of Highly Successful Traders

Aqua-Terra ~ Retesting limits, breakout lvl .565 , supp .475





GMG ~ Rubber power, breakout .12 with big volume






GEMS Tv ~ Superbull, res 1.47/1.54 , supp 1.30/1.19 (vested)





1) Take Complete Responsibility:

For the successful trader knows every action he takes, every decision he makes he , and only he, is responsible for that action. You will never meet a successful trader who is looking to blame someone else, or something else for the consequences of his results. It just will not happen. You see, when you accept 100%, no questions asked responsibility for all your actions you close the door to "excuses" behind you. When something goes wrong instead of looking for someone else to shoulder the blame, you will accept responsibility, note it down and vow never to repeat it again.

Simply, you are willing to accept you are going to make mistakes, but more importantly, you are going to learn and never repeat those mistakes. A vital component of any winning trader. Could you imagine Warren Buffet losing a few million $$$'s on as hare trade and then blaming the general conditions of the market. Or blaming his broker for giving him dud advice? no way! Just not going to happen. I will guarantee when top traders takes a loss the first thing they will ask them-selves is "Did I follow my rules?"

If the answer is yes, then they will look at their rules. Is there something that could be changed in their rules to avoid this loss again? Many times the answer will be a re-sounding no. On the other hand, if after asking the question "did I follow my rules?", If the answer is NO. Then some deep self explanation will be called for.

Why did I fail to follow my rules? How can I stop my-self from doing that gain? Am I likely to do that gain, etc... But do you notice the wording of the questions? How can I, Will I, Why did I. IIIIIII Here the trader knows he takes total responsibility for every trade and is seeking re-assurance that he will not break the rules again.

There's an old saying in trading:" If you have to ask you shouldn't be trading" Think about it. If you have a system that you have tested and proven over the long run that it does outperform the market and it is a system that fits you, why will you EVER have to ask for an opinion? What extra will a third party opinion provide?Apart from confusing you and clouding your opinion?

If you are a long term trend follower then why ask a day trader? If you are a value investor then asking a momentum trader will be a total waste of time. What I am saying is, no two people have the same opinion. Why would you believe some-one else over your trading rules?

It's a fact of life, and even more so in trading, most people want to be told what to do rather than acting on their own. Yet this is a major reason most people fail in the markets. Either accept total responsibility for your trading action or do not trade at all. If your number one rule is"to follow your rules " why will you need to ask a guru what they think of your position? If you EVER find your-self wanting to ask a third party about your position do this:

* Close the position out.

* Review your plan and rules.

* Work out why you lack the responsibility to follow that plan

* When you are convinced you don't need a third party opinion start trading again.

How can a trader learn to accept total responsibility? Have a set of rules and realize THE most important point in trading is following those rules. Once you have a set of firmly established rules you will find your-self not having to follow out-side opinion. In fact I go to great lengths not to listen to outside opinion.

Simply because, I know by following my rules I will be on the right side of the market 95% of the time and I will never miss a big move.Those kind of figures are much better than any out-side source can give you.

So from today, learn to take total responsibility for all your trading decisions. Strive to develop and then religiously follow a set of trading rules, knowing it is the importance of following those rules that ultimately determines whether you will win or lose in the long run.

If you ever find your-self thinking, "they did this" or, "the market caused that loss." Change it to: "Did I follow my rules?" If the answer is yes pat your-self on the back as you are on your way to becoming a market winner (one of the minority). If the answer is NO find out why and strive never to repeat this error again.

Accept total and utter responsibility for every trade you take from today and you'll be amazed at how easy trading really is.

(Excerpt from 7 Habits of Highly Successful Traders)

The Science of Chaos: Handling of New Information

The Science of Chaos has proven that material traditionally neglected by classical science as being random behavior and/or unimportant measurement errors may be the most important causative factors in our search for understanding. It pointedly addresses areas that cannot be navigated by classical concepts. It specifically concentrates on what scientists formerly labeled as Chaos. Chaos is one of those unfortunate misnomers that describes more of what IT IS NOT than what IT IS. Chaos is not random behavior. It is a much higher form of order. Instead of thinking of your usual connotation of the word Chaos, substitute instead the more accurate description: NEW INFORMATION. From now on, every time you hear the word Chaos, translate it in your mind to new information.

The universally most common and most prejudiced way to handle new information is to fit it into old categories. We have done this so often that we consider it either the natural thing to do or, more commonly, the ONLY way to handle it. Upon receiving new information, our usual first approach is: "What is it like? It reminds me of ...." According to psychologists, anytime you feel either overwhelmed or bored it is because you are attempting to fit new information into old categories. (Aha! What are you doing with this information at this moment?) Think about that when you are in the market and feeling either bored or overwhelmed. Our first impulse when handling new incoming information is to organize it in some way. You are in the process of organizing this material that you are reading. Once anything, material or otherwise, is organized, it takes on a life of its own. When it takes on this life, its primary purpose and goal is survival. As this chapter is being written, there is a national outcry to do away with the IRS. What do you think the chances are? Before that happens, there will be blood in the street. For any organization, from the most complex to the very simplest, the first goal is to survive. The four largest money gatherers and distributors in the world are:

1. War.
2. Medicine.
3. Insurance.
4. Religion.

These four institutions control more money than the most powerful country in the world. Why do they enjoy this position? Because they have to do with the survival of our most personal organization--ourselves. The purpose of war is to break things and kill people. The purpose of medicine is to repair those who aren't dead, so that they can fight again. The purpose of insurance is to take care of those left by the dead. The purpose of religion is to take care of those who do die. These institutions have the most money because they all have to do with our personal ultimate survival. The real reason that most traders lose consistently is that they are fitting new information into old, inappropriate categories. If our usual way of handling new information is to fit it into old categories, what is the alternate choice? Let the new information organize itself. When that happens, we have a trance-ending experience of a higher form of order. The question then is: How is this done in trading the markets?

The simplest organization I can think of is a hydrogen atom. It contains one proton made up of three quarks and one electron. It just doesn't get much simpler than that. Trillions of these gaseous atoms are floating around in the air in the room where you are sitting. Their first instinct, just like yours and mine, is to keep their current logic organization intact. They seek to remain hydrogen atoms. In this room, there are also trillions of oxygen atoms. They are much larger and more complex, and they, too, seek to keep their current organization intact. As both of these gases circulate and bounce around the room, they occasionally will come into each other's gravitational field (Figure 2-1). This provides new information for both of them(the gravitational pull of the other). And even though they are infinitesimally small and are inorganic, they make what could only be called an intelligent choice--whether to keep their old organization as independent atoms or to permit the new incoming information to change their organizational structure. They keep their current structure 99.99999 percent of the time. About 0.00001 percent of the time, they let this new information (the gravitational pull of the other atom) reorganize their approach to the world. When that happens, these atoms TRANCE-END their old limitations and become something entirely new, with all new characteristics and a totally different organization. They have become H20-- water. Water has virtually no characteristics that are shared by the two former gases. They were compressible, light as air, invisible to humans and so on. Water is not compressible, is heavier than air, is visible, and exists in different states (solid, liquid, gas). The point here is that there are only two ways of dealing with new information:

1. Massage (distort) it so that it will fit into an old organization.

2. Permit the new incoming information to organize itself into a new, different, and unpredictable organization.

Therein lies the difference between a successful approach to trading and the more common losing approach. Traders who let the new incoming information organize their trading will be in sync with the market and thereby will be winners. Attempting to fit new incoming information (Chaos) into old categories distorts both the information and the trading. The surprise that the Science of Chaos found was that there is an underlying structure to what seems, on the surface, to be random behavior or information.

(Excerpt from New Trading Dimension: How to Profit from Chaos)