Twenty Five Things I Wish I Would Have Known When I Started Trading

1)Trade real money, even if it is only one share on a no commission platform. Having skin in the game will help you understand the emotions of winning and losing which is an invaluable lesson. Start small.

2)Think of wins and losses in percentage gains or losses NOT in dollars.

3)Decide what time frame you want to trade.

4)Decide what percentage you are willing to lose in a trade before you enter it and make sure you accept it if/when that happens.

5)Most traders tend to win between 40%-60% of the time. Anyone boasting much higher than that consistently is probably trying to sell you something.

6)Cutting losses and letting winners run makes a 50% winning trader profitable.

7)Three books that have helped me the most for my style: How To Make Money In Stocks by William O’Neil, Secrets for Profiting in Bull and Bear Markets by Stan Weinstein, Market Wizards by Jack Schwager.

8)Use the free resources on the web including Trading View @tradingview for charts, Finviz for a screener, and Twitter for an education (more on this later).

9)Keep your charts simple: Price, Volume, and Moving Averages.

10)Price is most important and it should be moving from the bottom left of your screen to the top right. “Only price pays” Brian @alphatrends says, remember it.

11)Big institutions control the market and one way they show their hand is by the volume profile of a stock.

12)Moving Averages primary role is to help determine the trend of the market.

13)Always trade with the trend.

14)Sell offensively into strength.

15)Don’t let a winner turn into a loser.

16)Pick a few chart patterns and get really good at identifying them. My favorites are cup and handle, double bottom, high tight flag, and breakout of a base to all time highs.

17)Look at a lot of chart! That is the only way to understand the movement of price.

18)A chart is a visual representation of supply and demand.

19)The market doesn’t really open until 10:15 am.

20)Massively growing companies are more desirable.

21)If a stock is cheap, there is usually a reason why.

22)FOMO (fear of missing out) is real. Do not chase.

23)Keep track of your buying, selling, hold time, and other data on a spread sheet to review

24)The market does not care what you think. As Tom @cany4 says, “Be dumb, follow price.”

25)Twitter can be a noisy place, only follow the people with a similar time frame and style of trading. Follow to learn HOW they look at charts and trade (learn how to fish).These folks consistently put out quality charts and videos that I learn from each week:

@alphatrends
@jfahmy
@TMLTrader
@cfromhertz
@the_chart_life
@PatternProfits
@Canny4
@saxena_puru
@cperruna
@TraderAmogh
@duckman1717
@RichardMoglen
@RayTL_

Thank you for being part Fintwit. My style of trading is a little piece of all of you. Thank You. /end