Skipping Out, 12

I'm skipping out on blogging until August 2, 2006 to focus on another matter. Meanwhile, read my article at this week's free electronic edition of Trader Magazine

We'll chat again soon ...

Copyright 2006 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
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Profit By Skipping Out, 11

Yesterday (July 24, 2006 article entitled "Profit By Skipping Out, 10"), you discovered that a clue to the biggest source of trading Loss (and wins) was in your wallet. Today, I’ll elaborate on that.

Let’s begin with your body. Would you drive a car if you were impaired with alcohol? Why not? Because it’s dangerous to do so when impaired!

Then would you agree that it’s dangerous to trade when you are impaired due to:

Fatigue
Illness
Medication that induces drowsiness
Hunger
Discomfort from your usual chair
Room temperature being too hot or too cold
Vision problems (0 looks like 8 or vice versa)

Physical impairment due to the foregoing and other reasons would be dangerous to your trading account. They increase the likelihood of trading loss. So increase your profits by skipping out when your body is not in a peak state for trading due to such impairment.

Remember

Net Trading Profits = Wins – Losses – Costs

Speaking of skipping out, I have a matter that I have to attend to for the next several days. Therefore, I will be skipping out on blogging for a few days or possibly blogging only intermittently between today and August 1, 2006.

We'll chat again soon ...

Copyright 2006 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
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Profit By Skipping Out, 10

This is the tenth of a series of articles started July 10, 2006 (article entitled “The Simplest Way to Increase Profits“). This series of articles is about increasing profits from trading by abstaining from trading when losses are likely to occur.

Up to now, I’ve been talking about matters that can be handled with relative ease. Things like abstaining from trading when there are infrastructure issues. Things like abstaining from trading when there are environmental issues.

Today, I begin to talk about the biggest source of Loss in the formula

Net Trading Profits = Wins – Losses - Costs

One item of good news: This biggest source of Loss is totally within your own control, unlike infrastructure and environmental issues. This is the source that all success gurus and trading coaches focus on.

Are you ready? Great! Get out your wallet. Look at the credit cards in it. Yes, they all have your name on them! And yes, that’s the biggest source of Loss (and wins) in trading!

A Market Wizard whom I got lessons from for a few years has observed that the best traders in the world continuously work on this biggest source of Loss (and wins).

We'll chat again soon ...

Copyright 2006 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
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Profit by Skipping Out, 9

This entire week I talked about abstaining from trading until you take steps to prevent other people around you from causing you to lose in trading.

Today, I am taking a break from that for something pleasant. I'm skipping out on the "Profit by Skipping Out" series today :)

I have written repeatedly in this blog that resting and getting away from trading during the weekend is a great way to improve the results you get in trading.

Many people define freedom as “doing what you want to do when you want”. Freedom is one primary reason people trade. Is that true for you?

Well then would you agree that you could benefit by having an explicit list of things you want to do?

I once had a success coach who had coached another trader into making over half a billion dollars in a single day! He had plenty of good advice.

That coach suggested that you should write out a list of things you like doing and want to do. He observed that most people are not consciously aware of their likes and dislikes. He observed that most people are on automatic pilot. For example on weekends, for rest, do you merely plop yourself in front of a TV? Or do you get dragged by your friends to go sit in a bar for 4 hours so you can watch them get drunk? Those things can make you feel like you have no control over your own life!

You can take control now. Start with making a list of your likes and dislikes. Then on the weekend, do things on your “likes” list. Avoid doing things on your “dislikes” list And on the next weekend, do something else on your “likes” list. Keep going like that week after week.

The cumulative results of many weeks of this is that you got to “do what you want”. Acting on today’s article gets you half way to fulfilling the definition of freedom, “doing what you want when you want”.

In a future article, I’ll talk about the second half of the definition of freedom, namely “when you want”.

We'll chat again soon ...

Copyright 2006 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
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Profit by Skipping Out, 8

This is the eighth of a series of articles started July 10, 2006 (article entitled “The Simplest Way to Increase Profits“) about increasing profits from trading by abstaining from trading when losses are likely to occur.

Today’s topic gets closer to the BIGGEST reason you have trading losses. Up to now, I’ve been talking about things that can be handled with ease, relative to this item.

Guess what’s the BIGGEST reason you have trading losses? How about:

Nasdaq Market Makers
NYSE specialists
Crooked CEO’s
Crooked accountants colluding with crooked CEO’s
Fraudulent analyst reports
Weather conditions
Moon phases

No. None of those.

The answer next week. Tomorrow, we’ll refresh with a chat about something more pleasant...

Copyright 2006 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
eMail me Comments

Profit by Skipping Out, 7

This is the seventh of a series of articles started July 10, 2006 (article entitled “The Simplest Way to Increase Profits“) about increasing profits from trading by abstaining from trading when losses are likely to occur.

Yesterday, I talked about toxic people causing you to get disabling emotions which in turn lead to trading losses.

Today, I’ll talk about events involving other people that likely will cause you to be in a frame of mind that cause you to experience trading losses.

Scientific studies show that the following events are among some of the most stressful events in one’s life:

Divorce
Marriage
Birth of a child
Death of a family member
Selling your house
Buying your house
Moving from your old house (or office) into your new house (or office)
Quitting (or getting fired from) a job
Starting a new job
Getting sued
Suing someone else

Your frame of mind under those stressful situations likely will disable you from trading properly. You are likely to do things like failing to enter trades that turn out profitable, staying in losing trades past your budgeted stop loss, failing to protect accrued profits, etc.

Abstaining from trading while these situations are adversely affecting you would be profitable. Recall the formula:

Net Trading Profits = Wins – Losses – Costs

We'll chat again soon ...

Copyright 2006 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
eMail me Comments

Profit by Skipping Out, 6

This is the sixth of a series of articles started July 10, 2006 (article entitled “The Simplest Way to Increase Profits“).about increasing profits from trading by abstaining from trading when losses are likely to occur.

You could easily blame other people for causing you to be “too stressed out” to trade profitably. Because of other people, you sometimes feel emotions that disable you so that you do things that result in losses. For example:
 entering those e-Mini futures day trades at the wrong time and wrong price
 staying in losing trades stock options past your budgeted stop loss
 failing to protect accrued profits in your swing and position trades
 etc.
Some of those disabling emotions include anger, hurt, frustration, resentment, fear, anxiety, guilt, etc.

Are there people around you when you trade or just before you go to trade that cause you to feel those disabling emotions? How about:

 Your spouse who keeps nagging you to give up trading and get a “real” job
 Your mother who browbeats you about your love life or lack thereof
 Your flaky cousin who thinks trading e-Mini’s on the CME is some sort of scam
 Your dumb brother-in-law who keeps saying trading is so easy a monkey could do it
 Your stressed out financial partner who put up the cash for you to trade and who phones every day to put pressure on you to hurry up and make him rich
 Your kids who won’t listen to you about whatever

Are any of these people in your life? If so, they are triggering the disabling emotions that cause you to do things that result in trading losses. Things like failing to enter trades that turn out profitable, staying in losing trades past your budgeted stop loss, failing to protect accrued profits, etc.

You are likely more inclined to want to do something about those other people than to change something about yourself. So go ahead. Plan now to do something about putting some distance or barrier between yourself and those other people so that you can decrease trading losses. Then start doing something about one of them today…and something about another one the next day…and so on.

Because if you don’t fix them, they’re going to fix you so you can’t trade!

And remember…you’re better off abstaining from trading until you do something to put some distance or barrier between you and these toxic people in your life.

Recall the formula:
Net Trading Profits = Wins – Losses – Costs

We'll chat again soon ...

Copyright 2006 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
eMail me Comments

Profit By Skipping Out, 5

This is the fifth of a series of articles started July 10, 2006 (article entitled “The Simplest Way to Increase Profits“). This series of articles is about increasing profits from trading by abstaining from trading when losses are likely to occur.

Recall the formula:
Net Trading Profits = Wins – Losses – Costs

The simplest way to increase “Net Trading Profits” is to DECREASE Losses through abstaining from trading when losses are likely to occur.

Last week’s series of articles focused on reasons to abstain from trading due to infrastructure issues.

This week’s series of articles will focus on people issues.

Most people don’t want to look to themselves as being THE major obstacle to trading success. That the unanimous consensus of all personal development gurus whose work I have studied.

So let’s not begin there. Instead, let’s see who else we can blame first!

Continued tomorrow...

Copyright 2006 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
eMail me Comments

Profit By Skipping Out, 4

The next 2 days, Saturday and Sunday, are days for practicing one of my favorite money making secret of the world’s best traders. Namely, getting away from trading…relaxing…rebooting…refreshing…

We’ll chat again Monday…

Copyright 2006 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
eMail me Comments

Profit By Skipping Out, 3

This is the fourth of a series of articles started July 10, 2006 (article entitled “The Simplest Way to Increase Profits “). This series of articles is about increasing profits from trading by abstaining from trading when losses are likely to occur.

Do you use a computer for trading? What if your computer gets a virus or gets infected with spyware? What if you keep getting those annoying popup ads as you try to enter an order? Or worse, as you try to cut losses with a manual stop loss order?

Do you have anti-virus and anti-spying software running on your computer? And if so, are they set so stringently as to slow down internet transmission? Do use them, but don’t set them so high as to disable yourself from trading. Check with your broker’s tech support on this.

Do you have a second computer that you can use as a backup in case you throw the first one out the window in frustration? Or wreck it by spilling kiwi juice on it? And is your second computer configured for trading and ready for use in trading immediately?

Traders beware! Check out your equipment every day both as to hardware and software functionality. Ensure your equipment is in good operating condition BEFORE you start your next trading day. Also, have that second computer fully loaded with the same software program(s) that you use for trading on the first computer.

If you’re not yet ready with the proper equipment, then skip out on trading until your equipment is ready. You’ll save yourself trading losses so that your Net Trading Profits go up. Recall the formula:

Net Trading Profits = Wins – Losses - Costs

We'll chat again tomorrow...

Copyright 2006 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
eMail me Comments

Profit By Skipping Out, 2

This is the third of a series of articles started July 10, 2006 (article entitled “The Simplest Way to Increase Profits “). This series of articles is about increasing profits from trading by abstaining from trading when losses are likely to occur.

Today, consider how you send orders to buy or to sell whatever instrument you trade. What if that way of doing it becomes intermittent or disrupted?

For example, if you use cable internet to send your orders, what if you notice that within the last several minutes your cable connection was intermittent? That sometimes happens to me when I use my wireless notebook computer.

Or if you use a telephone, what if you notice that on your last phone call, you got disconnected several times for some reason unknown to you?

If you try to trade during those conditions, your order to initiate a position might or might not be successfully sent. You might not even know whether or not you have an open position. You won’t know that you should be sending in a stop loss order if you don’t even know you got an open position.

Or, if you are trying to exit an existing position, you would not know whether you did or did not exit. You might even “exit” twice. For example, suppose you are long 10 e-Mini S&P’s. You order a sell. When the smoke clears you end up selling 10 e-Mini’s TWICE, ending up with a net position of 10 e-Mini’s short.

Instead of trading under these conditions, just skip out on trading until these conditions dissipate or clear up. You’ll save yourself trading losses so that your Profits go up. Recall the formula:

Net Trading Profits = Wins – Losses - Costs

more tomorrow...

Copyright 2006 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
eMail me Comments

Profit By Skipping Out

On July 10, 2006 (article entitled “The Simplest Way to Increase Profits “), I started a series of articles on increasing profits from trading by abstaining from trading when losses are likely to occur.

What would happen if there were a disruption at the exchange where you trade? For example, what if
-the employees of the exchange went on strike?
-someone flew an airplane into a building nearby the exchange?
-someone blew up the building that houses the exchange?
-a power outage shuts down the exchange?
-a tornado or hurricane hits the exchange?

Traders who insist on using only pure price charts and who ignore news should beware! Those events are not presaged in price chart patterns but actually were and will absolutely get reported on CNBC television as they occur!

If any of those or similar events occur, then any trade you initiate would likely get fouled up (and through no fault of your own of course). Don’t count on having your fouled up trade later rectified or remedied through cash compensation from anyone!

Instead, just skip out on trading at any exchange where those conditions occur until they dissipate or clear away. If possible, close out all open positions (although that may not be possible if the exchange shuts down voluntarily or gets blown up).

Alternatively, go trade at an exchange that is not affected by these conditions. There are public exchanges all over the world, many of them operating in English (in Canada, England, Australia, Singapore, etc).

By abstaining from trading at an exchange when these conditions occur, you’ll save yourself trading losses so that your Profits go up. Recall the formula:

Net Trading Profits = Wins – Losses - Costs

We'll chat again soon ...

Copyright 2006 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
eMail me Comments

The Simplest Way to Increase Profits

Regardless of what you trade (whether e-Mini stock index futures, stocks, options or whatever), profits are calculated as follows:

Profits = Wins – Losses - Costs

According to the formula, to increase “Profits”, you can do one or a combination of the following:
1. Increase Wins.
2. Reduce Losses.
3. Reduce Costs.

I believe the simplest way to “Reduce Losses” is to abstain from trading when you are likely to get losses. It’s not complex and it involves no physical work. That is one of the secrets of the world’s best traders.

You may have heard of “Cutting Your Losses and Letting Winners Run”. But there is not much in published trading literature about abstaining from trading when losses are likely to occur.

Over the next few articles, I will be discussing the occasions when you are likely to have trading losses.

At my commercial website, LeisurelyCashFlow.com, I let subscribers copy my trades. On most days, no trading occurs. I abstain from trading on days when losses are likely to occur in order to increase profits in the equation:

Profits = Wins – Losses – Costs

We'll chat again soon ...

Copyright 2006 Raymond T. Lee. All rights reserved.
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
eMail me Comments

Leisureliness Pays Faster Than Hard Work

Did you work hard at trading stocks, e-Mini futures, options or whatever this week? I used to work hard too before I became a profitable trader.

To help make the change, I did psychological work to install this belief: "Hard work pays off in the future, but Leisureliness pays off now." Hence, the name of this blog as well as my commercial website, LeisurelyCashFlow.

In the June 23, 2006 article (entitled "Financial Trading Profits From Resting") I said that a Market Wizard advised that to become an extraordinarily profitable trader you need to regularly take time out from trading.

So let's practice that Saturday and Sunday until we get it perfect!

We'll chat again Monday ...

Raymond T. Lee
LeisurelyCashFlow.
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Trading For A Living, 2

In yesterday's article entitled "Trading For A Living", I wrote about a book with that title.

Today, I want to talk about contents of that book that I find very helpful in trading profitably.

That book contains several well written chapters describing technical analysis of price charts. That book describes conventional technical analysis methods succinctly and in easily comprehensible language.

Here's what I've learned about how the world's best traders use such literature. They use it to determine what other traders are likely to do. After making that determination, they then use strategies to profit from what people using conventional technical analysis are likely to do!

Studying a well written book on conventional technical analysis is helpful in trading profitably. It's like playing a game after studying the opposing players' play book.

We'll chat again tomorrow...

Raymond T. Lee
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
eMail me Comments

Trading For A Living

Trading For A Living, a book published in 1993, opens with an inspiring story about how the author deserted from the USSR navy and immigrated to the USA. He had $25 in his pocket when he arrived in the USA in 1974. Two decades later, he wrote the book Trading For A Living after becoming a psychiatrist and a financial trader (his preferred area is futures trading). He's a popular author and a popular trading coach.

I really like the book and own a copy of it plus the workbook that accompanies it. It has made and continues to make a big contribution to my trading profits in the e-Mini Market Index Futures that I like to trade and which are featured at my commercial website, LeisurelyCashFlow.com

The author of that book says you should consistently make a decision about who you are before trading. That's similar to what I wrote in the June 21, 2006 article in this blog (entitled "Decide").

I said that "the first step to becoming profitable is to DECIDE to become profitable". In articles that followed the June 21/06 article, I elaborated on how to get yourself to CONSISTENTLY make the decision of "I am a profitable trader".

I also pointed out that one of the secrets of the world's best traders is that they consistently make that decision every time before trading.

On the contrary, the author of the book Trading For A Living says the contents of the decision to make everyday before trading is that you are a loser, a big dangerous loser!

Great! The best traders in the world need losers (especially big dangerous ones) to take the other side of their trades!

Tomorrow, I'll chat more about other things I like in that book...

Raymond T. Lee
Leisurely e-Mini Futures Trading
eMail me Comments