Becoming a successful futures trader doesn’t happen overnight. You don’t read a book and Voila! another successful futures trader dazzles Wall Street. It would be nice, but it’s just not going to happen. Once you decide to become a futures trader there’s a lot of hard work ahead. (more…)

Loss is the futures trader’s bugaboo, that annoying little wisp of fear in the back of your subconscious that keeps you from pulling the trigger and achieving success. To succeed as a futures trader you have to squelch thoughts of previous failures and concentrate on learning the new skills that will lead you to success. (more…)

When you’re climbing the learning ladder to success (see our last post), that last step is a huge leap! You may find yourself at the conscious competence level for a very long time before everything becomes so practiced and so ingrained that you reach unconscious competence and start trading in the zone as a master trader. Even when you’re in the groove and really working it, it takes time and practice, practice, practice before your routine and technique click to autopilot and using your system becomes automatic and effortless. (more…)

If you learn to make your losses work for you, they can become your ally, not your enemy. Last time we talked about loss and how it can galvanize you to refine your system and improve your approach, setting you up for success as a futures trader. It’s like they say in sports, “No pain, no gain.” Loss motivates you to learn. (more…)

If you are a futures trader, you’ve already learned that losing is part of the game. How you handle loss emotionally will determine whether you succeed or fail as a futures trader. You cannot allow yourself to become emotionally incapacitated by loss. Like the song goes: You have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again. (more…)

Whenever my team lost, the coach would tell us, “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.” Over the years I’ve learned there’s truth to that statement but that, personally, I’d rather win. I’ve also learned the power of loss. My dad used to say, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Good words to remember for a futures trader. It’s from the small losses that you learn how to win. (more…)

You’ve heard the maxim: A win is not always a win and a loss is not always a loss. It’s true in many aspects of life and particularly in futures trading. Making a profit does not always indicate a correct trade. Likewise, losing money does not always indicate a wrong trade. What is essential for futures traders to realize is that the inherent rightness or wrongness of your trading method can not be determined by the outcome of any one single trade. Those who incessantly tinker around with their system, trying to fine tune it to perfection after every trade, are doomed. Those who jump from system to system, searching for that elusive perfect system, are doomed. (more…)

Futures traders make their money betting on the direction of the market.  The market can only do two things; reverse or continue the trend.  In short term day trading, the trend is not always your friend!  On a normal day, the e-Mini S&P market fluctuates and reverses as much as 40 points.  Catching these turns and continuation moves is the goal of futures day traders. (more…)

I always tell my new clients: “One of the most important things you can do to improve your trading is to develop specific patterns of behavior.”

Tiger Woods doesn’t plop the ball on the ground and flail away. He follows a regimented and very carefully practiced series of steps to give himself the best possibility of success. Following a pattern of behavior time after time has helped to make him the world’s most successful golfer. (more…)