Dennis Gartman
Dennis Gartman
2. Trade like a mercenary guerrilla. We must fight on the winning side and
be willing to change sides readily when one side has gained the upper
hand.
3.The objective is not to buy low and sell high, but to buy high and to sell
higher. We can never know what price is "low." Nor can we know what
price is "high." Always remember that sugar once fell from $1.25/lb to 2
cent/lb and seemed "cheap" many times along the way.
6.Sell markets that show the greatest weakness and buy those that show
the greatest strength.
7.Try to trade the first day of a gap, for gaps usually indicate violent new
action. when they happen (especially in stocks) they are usually very
important.
8.Trading runs in cycles: some good; most bad. Trade large and
aggressively when trading well; trade small and modestly when trading
poorly. In "good times," even errors are profitable; in "bad times" even the
most well researched trades go awry.
12. Respect and embrace the very normal 50-62% retracements that
take prices back to major trends. If a trade is missed, wait patiently for the
market to retrace. Far more often than not, retracements happen... just as
we are about to give up hope that they shall not.
15. Bear markets are more violent than are bull markets and so also
are their retracements.
18. The market is the sum total of the wisdom ... and the ignorance...of
all of those who deal in it; and we dare not argue with the market's
wisdom..
19. Do more of that which is working and less of that which is not: If a
market is strong, buy more; if a market is weak, sell more. New highs are
to be bought; new lows sold.
20. The hard trade is the right trade: If it is easy to sell, don't; and if it
is easy to buy, don't. Do the trade that is hard to do and that which the
crowd finds objectionable.
21. All rules are meant to be broken: The trick is knowing when... and
how infrequently this rule may be invoked!
GOLDEN RULES FOR SUCCESSFUL TRADING
1. Amount of capital to use: Divide your risk capital into 20 equal parts and never
risk more than onepart of your capital on any trade.
4. Never let a profit run into a loss. After once you have a profit of 1:3 or more,
book partial profit so that you will have no loss of capital.
5. Never buy or sell if you are not sure of the trend according to your charts.
10. Don't close your trades without a good reason. Follow up with a stop loss order
to protect yourprofits.
11. Accumulate a surplus. After you have made a series of successful trades,
put some money intosurplus account to be used only in emergency or in times
of panic.
13. Never average a loss. This is one of the worst mistakes a trader can make.
14. Never get out of the market just because you have lost patience or get into
the market because youare anxious from waiting.
16. Never cancel a stop loss order after you have placed it at the time
you make trade. Put stop loss in the system not in mind.
17. Be just as willing to sell short as you are to buy. Your objective is to keep with
the trend and make money.
18. Never buy just because the price of a stock is low or sell short just because the
price is high.
19. Be careful about pyramiding at the wrong time. Wait until the stock is very
active and has crossed Resistance Levels before buying more and until it has
broken out of the zone of distribution before selling more.
20. Never hedge. If you are long in one stock and it starts to go down. Do not
sell another stock tohedge it. Get out at the market; take your loss and wait for
another opportunity.
21. Avoid increasing your trading after a long period of success or a period of
profitable trades.
22. Never change your position in the market without a good reason.
23. Select the stocks with small volume of shares outstanding to pyramid on the
buying side and the ones with the largest volume of stock outstanding to sell
short.
When you close a trade with a loss, go over these rules and see which rule
you have violated; then do not make the same mistake the second time.
Experience and investigation will convince you of the value of these rules,
and observation and study will lead you to a correct and practical theory for
success in stock market
Golden Rules for Traders
2. Know why you are in the markets. To relieve boredom? To hit it big? When you can
honestly answer this question, you may be on your way to successful futures trading.
5. Do not overtrade.
6. Take a position only when you know where your profit goal is and where you are going
to get out if the market goes against you.
7. Trade with the trends, rather than trying to pick tops and bottoms.
10. Calculate the risk/reward ratio before putting a trade on, then guard against holding it
too long.
11. Establish your trading plans before the market opening to eliminate emotional reactions.
Decide on entry points, exit points, and objectives.
12. Follow your plan. Once a position is established and stops are selected, do not get out
unless the stop is reached or the fundamental reason for taking the position changes.
13. Use technical signals (charts) to maintain discipline - the vast majority of traders are not
emotionally equipped to stay disciplined without some technical tools
. 14. Have a disciplined, detailed trading plan for each trade; i.e., entry, objective, exit, with
no changes unless hard data changes. Disciplined money management means intelligent
trading allocation and risk management. The overall objective is end-of-year bottom
line, not each individual trade.
15. When you have a successful trade, fight the natural tendency to give some of it
back.
20. Do not overstay a good market. If you do, you are bound to overstay a bad one also.
23. Program your mind to accept many small losses. Program your mind to 'sit still' for
a few large gains.
42. Analyze your losses. Learn from your losses. They're expensive lessons; you paid
for them. Most traders don't learn from their mistakes because they don't like to think
about them.
43. Survive! In futures trading, the ones who stay around long enough to be there when
those 'big moves' come along are often successful.
Rule 11: Avoid hot stocks in hot industries. Great companies in cold, non-
growth industries are consistent big winners.
Rule 12: With small companies, you are better off to wait until they turn a
profit before you invest.
Rule 13: If you are thinking of investing in a troubled industry, buy the
companies with staying power. Also, wait for the industry to show signs of
revival. Buggy whips and radio tubes were troubled industries that never came
back.
Rule 14: If you invest $1000 in a stock, all you can lose is $1000, but you
stand to gain $10,000 or even $50,000 over time if you are patient. The
average person can concentrate on a few good companies, while the fund
manager is forced to diversify. By owning too many stocks, you lose this
advantage of concentration. It only takes a handful of big winners to make a
lifetime of investing worthwhile.
Rule 15: In every industry and every region of the country, the observant
amateur can find great growth companies long before the professionals have
discovered them.
Rule 16: A stock market decline is as routine as a January blizzard in Colorado.
If you are prepared, it can't hurt you. A decline is a great opportunity to pick up
the bargains left behind by investors who are fleeing the storm in panic.
Rule 17: Everyone has the brainpower to make money in stocks. Not everyone
has the stomach. If you are susceptible to selling everything in a panic, you
ought to avoid stocks and stock mutual funds altogether.
Rule 18: There is always something to worry about. Avoid weekend thinking
and ignore the latest dire predictions of the newscasters. Sell a stock because
the company's fundamentals deteriorate, not because the sky is falling.
Rule 19: Nobody can predict interest rates, the future direction of the
economy, or the stock market, Dismiss all such forecasts and concentrate on
what's actually happening to the companies in which you have invested.
Rule 20: If you study 10 companies, you will find 1 for which the story is better
than expected. If you study 50, you'll find 5. There are always pleasant
surprises to be found in the stock market — companies whose achievements are
being overlooked on Wall Street.
Rule 21: If you don't study any companies, you have the same success buying
stocks as you do in a poker game if you bet without looking at your cards.
Rule 22: Time is on your side when you own shares of superior companies. You
can afford to be patient — even if you missed Wal-Mart in the first five years, it
was a great stock to own in the next five years. Time is against you when you
own options.
Rule 23: If you have the stomach for stocks, but neither the time nor the
inclination to do the homework, invest in equity mutual funds. Here, it's a good
idea to diversify. You should own a few different kinds of funds, with managers
who pursue different styles of investing: growth, value small companies, large
companies etc. Investing the six of the same kind of fund is not diversification.
Rule 24: Among the major stock markets of the world, the U.S. market ranks
8th in total return over the past decade. You can take advantage of the faster-
growing economies by investing some portion of your assets in an overseas
fund with a good record.
Rule 25: In the long run, a portfolio of well-chosen stocks and/or equity mutual
funds will always outperform a portfolio of bonds or a money-market account.
In the long run, a portfolio of poorly chosen stocks won't outperform the money
left under the mattress.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
A plan should be written—with clear signals that are not subject to change—while
you are trading, but subject to reevaluation when the markets are closed. The plan can
change with market conditions and might see adjustments as the trader's skill level
improves. Each trader should write their own plan, taking into account personal
trading styles and goals. Using someone else's plan does not reflect your trading
characteristics.
1. Skill Assessment
Are you ready to trade? Have you tested your system by paper trading it, and do you
have confidence that it will work in a live trading environment? Can you follow your
signals without hesitation? Trading the markets is a battle of give and take. The real
pros are prepared and take profits from the rest of the crowd who, lacking a plan,
generally give money away after costly mistakes.
2. Mental Preparation
How do you feel? Did you get enough sleep? Do you feel up to the challenge ahead?
If you are not emotionally and psychologically ready to do battle in the market, take
the day off—otherwise, you risk losing your shirt. This is almost guaranteed to
happen if you are angry, preoccupied, or otherwise distracted from the task at hand.
Many traders have a market mantra they repeat before the day begins to get them
ready. Create one that puts you in the trading zone. Additionally, your trading area
should be free of distractions. Remember, this is a business and distractions can be
costly.
4. Set Goals
Before you enter a trade, set realistic profit targets and risk/reward ratios. What is the
minimum risk/reward you will accept? Many traders will not take a trade unless the
potential profit is at least three times greater than the risk. For example, if your stop
loss is $1 per share, your goal should be a $3 per share in profit. Set weekly, monthly,
and annual profit goals in dollars or as a percentage of your portfolio, and reassess
them regularly.
5. Do Your Homework
Before the market opens, do you check what is going on around the world? Are
overseas markets up or down? Are S&P 500 index futures up or down in pre-market?
Index futures are a good way of gauging the mood before the market opens because
futures contracts trade day and night.
What are the economic or earnings data that are due out and when? Post a list on the
wall in front of you and decide whether you want to trade ahead of an
important report. For most traders, it is better to wait until the report is released rather
than taking unnecessary risks associated with trading during the volatile reactions to
reports. Pros trade based on probabilities. They don't gamble. Trading ahead of an
important report is often a gamble because it is impossible to know how markets will
react.
6. Trade Preparation
Whatever trading system and program you use, label major and minor support and
resistance levels on the charts, set alerts for entry and exit signals and make sure all
signals can be easily seen or detected with a clear visual or auditory signal.
7. Set Exit Rules
Most traders make the mistake of concentrating most of their efforts on looking
for buy signals, but pay very little attention to when and where to exit. Many traders
cannot sell if they are down because they don't want to take a loss. Get over it, learn
to accept losses, or you will not make it as a trader. If your stop gets hit, it means you
were wrong. Don't take it personally. Professional traders lose more trades than they
win, but by managing money and limiting losses, they still make profits.
Before you enter a trade, you should know your exits. There are at least two possible
exits for every trade. First, what is your stop loss if the trade goes against you? It
must be written down. Mental stops don't count. Second, each trade should have
a profit target. Once you get there, sell a portion of your position and you can move
your stop loss on the rest of your position to the breakeven point if you wish.
Computers don't have to think or feel good to make a trade. If conditions are met,
they enter. When the trade goes the wrong way or hits a profit target, they exit. They
don't get angry at the market or feel invincible after making a few good trades. Each
decision is based on probabilities, not emotion.
You should also save your trading records so that you can go back and analyze the
profit or loss for a particular system, drawdowns (which are amounts lost per trade
using a trading system), average time per trade (which is necessary to calculate trade
efficiency), and other important factors. Also, compare these factors to a buy-and-
hold strategy. Remember, this is a business and you are the accountant. You want
your business to be as successful and profitable as possible.
10. Analyze Performance
After each trading day, adding up the profit or loss is secondary to knowing the why
and how. Write down your conclusions in your trading journal so you can reference
them later. Remember, there will always be losing trades. What you want is a trading
plan that wins over the longer term.
There is no way to guarantee a trade will make money. The trader's chances are based
on their skill and system of winning and losing. There is no such thing as winning
without losing. Professional traders know before they enter a trade that the odds are in
their favor or they wouldn't be there. By letting their profits ride and cutting losses
short, a trader may lose some battles, but they will win the war. Most traders and
investors do the opposite, which is why they don't consistently make money.
Traders who win consistently treat trading as a business. While there is no guarantee
that you will make money, having a plan is crucial if you want to be consistently
successful and survive in the trading game.
What is a trading strategy?
A trading style is your preferences while trading the market or instrument, such as
how frequently and how long or short-term to trade. A trading style can change
based on how the market behaves but this is dependent on whether you want
to adapt or withdraw your trade until the conditions are favourable.
We’ve looked at some of the most popular top-level strategies, which include:
1. Trend trading
2. Range trading
3. Breakout trading
4. Reversal trading
5. Gap trading
6. Pairs trading
7. Arbitrage
8. Momentum trading
Trend trading
A trend trading strategy relies on using technical analysis to identify the direction of
market momentum. This is usually considered a medium-term strategy, best suited
to the trading styles of position traders or swing traders, as each position will
remain open for as long as the trend continues.
The price of an asset can trend up or down. If you were going to take a long
position, you’d do so when you believe the market is going to reach higher highs. If
you were going to take a short position, you’d do so if you thought the market
would reach lower lows.
Derivative and leveraged products – such as CFDs – are popular choices for trend-
following strategies, because they enable traders to go both long and short. Here,
you would put up a small initial deposit (called margin) to open a larger position.
Note that leveraged trading is high risk and you could lose more than your initial
deposit amount, because your total profit or loss is based on the total position size.
Make sure you have adequate risk management steps in place.
Trend traders will use indicators throughout the trend to identify potential
retracements, which are temporary moves against the prevailing trend. Trend
traders will often take little notice of retracements, but it’s important to confirm it’s a
temporary move rather than a complete reversal – which is often a signal to close a
trade.
Range trading
Range trading is a strategy that seeks to take advantage of consolidating markets –
the term to describe a market price that remains within lines of support and
resistance. Range trading is popular among very short-term traders (known
as scalpers), as it focusses on short-term profit taking, however it can be seen
across all timeframes and styles.
While trend traders focus on the overall trend, range traders will focus on the short-
term oscillations in price. They will open long positions when the price is moving
between two clear levels and is not breaking above or below either.
This is a popular forex trading strategy, as many traders work off the idea that the
very liquid currencies market remains in a tight trading range, with significant
volatility in between these levels. This means that short-term traders can seek to
take advantage of these fluctuations between known support and resistance levels.
There are a range of other indicators that range traders will use, such as
the stochastic oscillator or RSI, which identify overbought and oversold signals.
Range traders will also use tools, such as the Bollinger band or fractals
indicators, to identify when the market price might break from this range –
indicating it is time to close the position.
Breakout trading
Breakout trading is the strategy of entering a given trend as early as possible,
ready for the price to ‘break out’ of its range. Breakout trading is commonly used by
day traders and swing traders, as it takes advantage of short to medium-term
market movements.
Traders who use this strategy will look for price points that indicate the start of a
period of volatility or a change in market sentiment – by entering the market at the
correct level, these breakout traders can ride the movement from start to finish. It is
common to place a limit-entry order around the levels of support or resistance, so
that any breakout executes a trade automatically.
Most breakout trading strategies are based on volume levels, as the theory
assumes that when volume levels start to increase, there will soon be a breakout
from a support or resistance level. As such, popular indicators include the money
flow index (MFI), on-balance volume and the volume-weighted moving average.
Reversal trading
The reversal trading strategy is based on identifying when a current trend is going
to change direction. Once the reversal has happened, the strategy will take on a lot
of the characteristics of a trend trading strategy – as it can last for varying amounts
of time.
When trading reversals, it is important to make sure that the market is not simply
retracing. The Fibonacci retracement is a common tool, used to confirm
whether the market surpasses known retracement levels. It is worth noting that
some consider Fibonacci retracements to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, as many
orders will congregate around these levels and push the price in the desired
direction.
Gap trading
A gap occurs when where no trading activity has taken place. This happens when
an asset’s price moves sharply high or low with nothing in between, implying the
market has opened at a different price to its previous close.
If you’re a gap trader, you are likely a day trader that watches these price gaps
from a previous day and seek opportunities between this and the opening range of
trading for the next day. An opening range that rises above the previous day’s
close is a ‘gap’ that usually signifies going long, while an opening range that is
below the previous day’s close signifies an opportunity to go short.
Pairs trading
Pairs trading is finding the correlated pair of instruments where the valuation
relationship has gone out of whack, buying under-priced instruments and the
selling the overpriced ones. The aim is to make a profit irrespective of market
conditions such as downtrends, uptrends and so on.
Arbitrage
Arbitrage is a transaction or a series of transactions in which you generate profit
without taking any risk. An example of this would be spotting an opportunity in two
equivalent assets where one is priced higher than the other and taking advantage
of buying the lower priced one while it is still undervalued. There are few arbitrage
opportunities because many traders may also be on the lookout and so they are
often found quickly. In this case, the arbitrage edge disappears quickly as more
traders flood the market to try and trade the opportunity.
Momentum
Momentum trading strategy is based on price trends and the direction they're
taking. This happens where there is heavy price movement (or momentum) and
traders are selling and buying assets for a period of time. Once there is a price
change, the momentum changes in a different direction.