Skip to main content

Communication

“No man’s opinions are better than his information.” —J. Paul Getty, Founder, Getty Oil

Not only must a prop trader communicate their best trading ideas but they must review their trades.

REPLAYING IMPORTANT TRADES

“Find the trading plays that make sense to you and make more of them with more size.” —Mike Bellafiore, SMB Blog

Good prop traders constantly strive to improve their performance.

an old school self-improvement technique: Replay important trades in your head. When the market slows, this is the time to think through your important trades. Do this multiple times during the trading day. Ask yourself these questions:

 Was there a spot where you could have added more size?
 Did you sell too early?
 What made the stock go up?
 Was there a catalyst for the move?
 Did you assume too much or too little risk?

Replay the trade and construct improvements for the next similar trade.

Traders who watch video can find setups where they can add more size, plays that are not working for them, patterns that they did not discern initially, gain screen time that improves their skills, and imprint their best setups in their mind.

Also, talk to other traders on your desk who are trading your stocks. Ask for their thoughts. You will get better as you gain experience, but you will get much better if you improve your technique while you are gaining experience.

Print out your trades. Were you disciplined? Did you execute on your stops? Did you do worse in a stock than you thought? Are you trading some stocks better than others? Are there some stocks that you just don’t trade well?

Get into the habit of evaluating your more important trades during the day.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

CAN A FIRM ALWAYS SPOT THE NEXT GREAT TRADER?

 No. But a prop firm can tell who has a poor chance to become a CPT. To be good at anything will take everything you have. Not having developed the skills to work hard is a turn-off. Trading is a skill learned by doing, not just by reading a lot, theorizing, or the faux art of “paper trading.” THE PROS AND CONS OF RECRUITING EXPERIENCED TRADERS Loyalty is a good thing to a point, but it cannot trump logistics and reality. losing money should really bother you. If I am negative three days in a row, I spend a long evening on my couch with a bottle of red wine and comfort food. As traders, we can all recite the memorable line from Wall Street: “A man looks in the abyss, there is nothing staring back at him. At that moment he discovers his character. That keeps the man out of the abyss.”  Traders don’t talk about how they want to trade, what they want to read about trading, or how they wish they could talk about trading. Traders trade, read about trading, and talk about trading.

Reading the Tape

 Dr. Steenbarger, aka the godfather of modern trading psychology, wrote: “My experience is that an understanding of (and ability to read) order flow is one important factor that separates the older, successful generation of day traders from the newbies who only know simple chart patterns and indicator readings.” continue working on the skill of reading the tape and to sell the stock on the offer when the tape showed weakness. “Reading the tape must be learned through personal experience and long observation.” keep in mind that nothing can top experience. Don’t give up. It is not always this easy to Read the Tape. But there are plays where it really is simple. And reading the tape will offer pattern recognition plays that you can exploit. Overcoming a Confirmation Bias We all fight confirmation bias. But it will harm our performance if we do not overcome it. Let the tape talk to you. And use online vehicles like StockTwits and your peers sitting next to you to gain second ...
 All great leaders in every walk of life are highly sexed, but they follow the habit of controlling their sex desires, switching them into a driving force behind their occupation. The person who has self discipline understands the emotion of sex, respects it, and learns to control and transmute it into contructive activities. Q: Just what damage is there in over-indulgence of sex? A: The greatest damage is that it depletes the source of man's greatest driving force, and wastes, without adequate compensation, man's creative energy. Controlled sex supplies the magnetic force that attracts people to one another. It is the most important factor of a pleasing personality. It gives quality to the tone of voice and enables one to convey through the voice any feeling desired. It serves, as nothing else can serve, to give motive power to one's desires. It keeps the nervous system changed with the energy needed to carry on the work of maintaining the body. It sharpens the imagination...