How To Trade

31. How to Trade the Hammer Hanging Man Candlesticks

A lesson on how to trade the Hammer and Hanging Man Candlestick Chart Patterns for active traders and investors in the forex, futures, and stock markets.

Like the Spinning Top and Doji which we have studied in previous lessons, the Hammer candlestick pattern is made up of one candle. The candle looks like a hammer as it has a long lower wick and a short body at the top of the candlestick with little or no upper wick. In order for a candle to be a valid hammer most traders say the lower wick must be two times greater than the size of the body potion of the candle, and the body of the candle must be at the upper end of the trading range.

When you see the Hammer form in a downtrend this is a sign of a potential reversal in the market as the long lower wick represents a period of trading where the sellers were initially in control but the buyers were able to reverse that control and drive prices back up to close near the high for the day, thus the short body at the top of the candle.

After seeing this pattern form in the market most traders will wait for the next period to open higher than the close of the previous period to confirm that the buyers are actually in control.

The Hanging Man is basically the same thing as Hammer formation but instead of being found in a downtrend it is found in an uptrend. Like the Hammer pattern, the Hanging man has a small body near the top of the trading range, little or no upper wick, and a lower wick that is at least two times as big as the body of the candle.

Unlike the Hammer however the selling pressure that forms the lower wick in the Hanging Man is seen as a potential sign of more selling pressure to come, even though the candle closed in the upper end of its range. While the lower wick of the Hammer represents selling pressure as well, this is to be expected in a downtrend. When seen in an uptrend however selling pressure is a warning sign of potential more selling pressure to come and thus the categorization of the Hanging Man as a bearish reversal pattern.

As with the Hammer and as with most one candle patterns most traders will wait for confirmation that selling pressure has in fact taken hold by watching for a lower open on the next candle. Traders will also place additional significance on the pattern when there is an increase in volume during the period the Hanging Man forms as well as when there is a longer wick.

32. How to Trade the Morning/Evening Star Candlestick Pattern

A lesson on how to trade the morning and evening star candlestick chart patterns for active traders and investors using technical analysis in the stock, futures, and forex markets.

In our last lesson we looked at the Hammer and Hanging Man Candlestick Chart Patterns. In today's lesson we are going to look at two more reversal candlestick patterns which are known as the Morning and Evening Star.

The Morning Star

The Morning Start Candlestick Pattern is made up of 3 candles normally a long black candle, followed by a short white or black candle, which is then followed by a long white candle. In order to have a valid Morning Start formation most traders will look for a close of the third candle that is at least half way up the body of the first candle in the pattern. When found in a downtrend, this pattern can be a powerful reversal pattern.

What this represents from a supply demand situation is a lot of selling into the downtrend in the period which forms the first black candle, then a period of lower trading but with a reduced range which forms the second period and then a period of trading indicating that indecision in the market, which is then followed by a large up candle representing buyers taking control of the market.

Unlike the Hammer and Hanging Man which we learned about in our last lesson, as the Morning Star is a 3 candle pattern traders often times will not wait for confirmation from the 4th candle before entering the trade. Like those patterns however traders will look to volume on the third day for confirmation. In addition traders will look to the size of the size of the candles for indication on how big the reversal potential is. The larger the white and black candle and the further that the white candle moves up into the black candle the larger the reversal potential.

The Evening Star

The Evening Star Candlestick Pattern is a mirror image of the Morning Star, and is a reversal pattern when seen as part of an uptrend. The pattern is made up of three candles the first being a long white candle representing buyers driving the prices up, then a short white or black second candle representing indecision in the market, which is followed by a third black candle down which represents sellers taking control of the market.

The close of the third candle needs to be at least half way down the body of the first candle and as with the Morning Star most traders will not wait for confirmation from the 4th period's candle to consider the pattern valid. Traders will look for increased volume on the third period's candle for confirmation, the larger the black and white candles are and the further the black candle moves down the body of the white candle the more powerful the reversal is expected to be.

33. How to Trade the Inverted Hammer/Shooting Star Patterns

A lesson on how to trade the Inverted Hammer and Shooting Star Candlestick Chart Patterns for active traders and investors using technical analysis in the stock, futures, and forex markets.

In our last lesson we learned about the Morning and Evening Star Candlestick Patterns. In today's lesson we are going to wrap up our series on candlestick patterns with a look at the Inverted Hammer and the Shooting Star candlestick patterns.

The Inverted Hammer

As its name implies, the inverted Hammer looks like an upside down version of the Hammer pattern which we learned about several lessons ago. Like the Hammer Pattern, the Inverted Hammer is comprised of one candle and when found in a downtrend is considered a potential reversal pattern.

The pattern is made up of a candle with a small lower body and a long upper wick which is at least two times as large as the short lower body. The body of the candle should be at the low end of the trading range and there should be little or no lower wick in the candle.

What the pattern is basically telling us is that although sellers ended up driving price down to close near to where it opened, buyers had significant control of the market at some point during the period which formed the long upper wick. This buying pressure during the downtrend calls the trend into question which is why the candle is considered a potential reversal pattern. Like the other one candle patterns we have learned about however, most traders will wait for a higher open on the next trading period before taking any action based on the pattern.

Most traders will also look at a longer wick as a sign of a greater potential reversal and like to see an increase in volume on the day the Inverted Hammer Forms. \

The Shooting Star

The Shooting Star looks exactly the same as the Inverted Hammer, but instead of being found in a downtrend it is found in an uptrend and thus has different implications. Like the Inverted Hammer it is made up of a candle with a small lower body, little or no lower wick, and a long upper wick that is at least two times the size of the lower body.

The long upper wick of the pattern indicates that the buyers drove prices up at some point during the period in which the candle was formed but encountered selling pressure which drove prices back down for the period to close near to where they opened. As this occurred in an uptrend the selling pressure is seen as a potential reversal sign. When encountering this pattern traders will look for a lower open on the next period before considering the pattern valid.

As with the Inverted Hammer most traders will see a longer wick as a sign of a greater potential reversal and like to see an increase in volume on the day the Shooting Star forms.

34. Why Most Traders Lose Money and The Solution

A lesson on the importance of money management in trading and how most traders of the stock, futures, and forex markets ignore money management because they do not consider it important and therefore loose money trading.

Why the Majority of Traders Fail

In our last lesson we finished up our series on Candlestick Chart Patterns with a look at the Inverted Hammer and the Shooting Star Candlestick Chart Patterns. In today's lesson we are going to start a new series on money management, the most important concept in trading and the reason why most traders fail.

Over the last several years working in financial services I have watched hundreds if not thousands of traders trade, and over and over again I see smart people who have been intelligent enough to accumulate large sums of money in their non trading careers open a trading account and loose huge sums of money making what you would think are easily avoidable mistakes that one would think even the dumbest traders would avoid.

Those same traders are the ones that consider themselves too good or smart to make the same mistakes that so many others make, and that will skip over this section to get to what they feel is the "real meat" of trading, strategies for picking entry points. What these traders and so many others fail to realize is that what separates the winners from the losers in trading is not how good someone is at picking their entry points, but how well they factor in what they are going to do after they are in a trade into their trade entries and how well they stick to their trade management plan once they are in the trade.

For the few who do get that money management is far and away the most important aspect of trading, the large majority of these people don't understand the large role that psychology plays in money management or consider themselves above having to work on channeling their emotions correctly when trading.

35. Why Traders Hold On to Losing Positions

A lesson on how the ability and willingness to take losses when trading the forex, futures, or stock markets is one of the key factors that differentiates successful traders from unsuccessful ones.

Trading Success Means Comfort with Being Wrong

In our last lesson we introduced the concept that money management and the psychology of money management as the most overlooked but most important component of trading success. In today's lesson we will begin to look at one of the most important components of the psychology of money management: a willingness to be wrong.

Humans in general grow up being taught by their environment of the importance of always being right. Those who are right are envied as the winners in society and those who are wrong are cast aside as losers. A fear of being wrong and the need to always be right will hold you back in general, but will be deadly in your trading.

With this in mind lets say that you have been watching my videos and feel that I am an intelligent trader, so you want me to give you a method to trade. I say fine and give you a method and tell you that the method will trade 100 times a year with an average profit of 100 points for winning trades and an average loss of 20 points for loosing trades. You say great and take the system home to give it a try.

A few days later the first trade comes and quickly hits its profit target of 80 points. Great you say and call a bunch of your friends to tell them about the great system you've found. Then a few days later the next trade comes but quickly takes a loss. You hold tight however and then the next trade comes, and the next trade etc until the trade has hit 5 losers in a row and amounting to 100 points in loses on the losers so you are now down 20 points overall, and all your trader buddy's who started following the system after the first trade are now down 100 points.

36. Two Trading Mistakes Which Will Destroy Your Account

A lesson on two of the most common mistakes that traders make when trading the stock, futures and forex markets.

One of the most common mistakes is sticking in a trade where you know you are right in your analysis, but the market continues to move against you. As the famous economist John Maynard Keynes once said:

"The markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent"

Perhaps one of the best examples of this are those who shorted the NASDAQ into the runup in 1999 and early 2000. At the time it was pretty obvious that from a value standpoint NASDAQ stocks were way overvalued and that people's expectations for growth that they were buying on were way out of line with reality. There were many great traders at the time who recognized this and began shorting the NASDAQ starting in late 99. As you can see from the below chart and the huge sell off that ensued after the peak in 2000, these traders were right in their analysis. Unfortunately for many of them however stocks continued to run up dramatically from already overvalued points in late 99 wiping out many of these traders who would eventually be proved correct.

So as we learned about in last lesson, people's strong desire to be right will often times keep them in trades that they should have moved on from even though the market may eventually prove them correct.

For those traders who are able to initially move on from trades where they feel they are correct but the market moves against them, another common theme which arises is for a trader to initially stick to his plan, but after being proved correct and missing out on gains he becomes frustrated and deviates from his plan so that he will not miss out on another profitable opportunity.

One place of many where I have seen this time and time again is when watching traders who trade reversals at support or resistance levels. Many times when the market touches a support or resistance level it will have a brief spike upwards or downwards which hits the stops of a trader looking to profit from the reversal, taking him out of the market just as it turns in his favor. Because many traders think a like, often times the level at which the trader is taken out of the market is right at his stop level as well.

After this happens once or twice to a trader he will then stop placing hard stops in the market and instead convince himself that he will manage the trade if it moves against him. This may work a few times for the trader giving him more confidence in the strategy until the market does finally break. As we have learned about in previous lessons often times when the market breaks significant support or resistance levels it will break violently to the point where the trader in the above situation is quickly down a large amount on his trade. Typically what will happen at this point is instead of taking the big loss, learning his lesson, and moving on the trader will remain in the position or worse add to it with the hopes that the market will turn back in his favor. If the trader gets lucky and the market does turn back in his favor this only goes to support this bad habit which will eventually knock him out of the market.

Successful traders realize that situations such as the above occur constantly in the market and that one of the main things that separates successful traders from unsuccessful ones is their ability to accept this, stick to their strategy, accept that loosing trades are a part of trading, and move onto the next trade when the market does not move in their favor.

37. Herd Mentality is the Psychology That Leads to Big Trading Losses

A lesson on crowd psychology and how it relates to trading the stock, futures, and forex markets.

The best summary that I have seen on this subject, as well as a great book on trading in general is Dr. Alexander Elder's book Trading for a living. As the Trader and Psychologist points out in his book, people think differently when acting as part of a crowd than they do when acting alone. Dr Elder points out that "People change when they join crowds. They become more credulous, impulsive, anxiously search for a leader, and react to emotions instead of using their intellect."

In his book Dr. Elder gives several examples of academic studies which have been done which show that people have trouble doing simple tasks such as choosing which line is longer than the other when put in a situation with other people who were instructed to give the wrong answer.

Perhaps no where is the strange effect is the psychology of crowds seen than in the financial markets. One of the more recent examples as I have spoken about in my other lessons of the effect that the psychology of crowds can have on the markets is the run-up of the NASDAQ into 2000. As you will find by pulling out the history books however, this is not an isolated incident as financial history is littered with similar price bubbles created and then destroyed in the same way as the NASDAQ bubble was.

So why does history continue to repeat itself? As Dr. Elder points out in his book, from a primitive standpoint chances of survival are often much higher as part of a group than they are alone. Similarly war's are often one by militaries with the strongest leaders. It is thus only natural to think that human's desire to survive would breed a desire to be part of a group with a strong leader into the human psyche.

So how does this relate to trading? Well as we learned in our lessons on Dow Theory, the price is representative of the crowd and the trend is representative of the leader of that crowd. With this in mind think about how difficult it would have been to short the NASDAQ at the high's in 2000, just at the height of the frenzy when everyone else was buying. In hindsight you would have ended up with a very profitable trade but, had the trade not worked out, people would have asked how could you have been so dumb to sell when everyone else knew the market was going up?

Now think about all the people who held on to their positions and lost tons of money after the bubble burst in 2000. As they had lots of company there were probably not a whole lot of people who were laughing at them. Yes they were wrong but how could they have known when so many others were wrong too?

By looking at this same example, you can also see how panic selling often ensues after sharp trends in the market as this is representative to a crowd whose leader has abandoned them.

In order to trade successfully people need a trading plan which is designed before entering a trade and becoming part of the crowd so they can fall back on their plan when the emotions which are associated with being part of a crowd inevitably arise. Successful traders must also realize that there is a time to run with the crowd and a time to leave the crowd, a decision which must be made by a well thought out trading plan designed before entering a trade.

38. Profit Expectations: What Millionaire Traders Know

A lesson on how most traders have unrealistic profit expectations which cause them to lose all their money and what realistic profit expectations are when trading the stock, futures or forex markets.

The first step in understanding and building a solid money management plan, the key component in successful trading, is setting realistic profit expectations. All too often I see people open trading accounts with balances of $10,000 or under expecting to make enough money to support themselves from their trading profits within a short period of time. After seeing all of the hype that is out there surrounding most trading education, trading signal services, etc it is no wonder that people think this is a reasonable goal, but that does not make it a realistic one.

As most any truly successful trader will tell you, the stock market has averaged somewhere in the neighborhood of 10% a year over the last 100 years. What this basically means is that if you would have invested in the 30 stocks that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the index which is designed to represent the overall market, you would have earned about 10% on your money on average over the last 100 years. With this in mind, what most any truly successful trader will also tell you, is that if you can consistently double that return, on average, over the long term, then you will be considered among the best traders out there.

39. How to Join the Minority of Traders Who Are Successful

In our last lesson we looked at what one can reasonably expect to earn from their trading over the long term, and how one can avoid the common misconceptions of most traders which ultimately cause them to fail. In today's lesson we are going to look at the next step in developing a successful money management strategy which is how to manage your losses.

One of the main key's to successful trading is the preservation of capital. Beyond the obvious point here that if you loose your trading capital then you will be out of the game, is the fact that it takes much more to come back from a loss than it does to take the loss you are trying to come back from.

As an example here lets say you start with $10,000 and loose $5000 from a string of bad trades. That $5000 loss represents a 50% loss on your account which now has $5000 left in it. Now ask yourself this question. What percentage gain will you need to make on the $5000 left in your account in order just to be back to breakeven (the $10,000 level) on your account? If you have done the math correctly you will see that in order to make back the 50% loss you took on your account you will need to make a 100% return or basically be twice as successful in your comeback as you were unsuccessful in your drawdown.

It is this concept that is one of the most important to understand in trading, as it underscores the importance of protecting one's trading capital, as it shows the difficulty of coming back from a loss in relation to the ease of taking a loss. It is also most traders lack of understanding of this concept that causes them to take risks which are way to large and is a major contributor to the high failure rate among traders

40. How To Determine Where to Put Your Initial Stop Loss Order

In our last lesson we looked at the difficulty of overcoming a loss in the market to further emphasize the importance of protecting your trading capital as a critical component of any successful trading strategy. In today's lesson we are going to start to look at the first and one of the best ways of protecting one's trading capital, setting your initial stop.

As we learned about in our lesson on the effects of trading losses, 50% or more of the trades made by many successful trading strategies are losers. These trading strategies and traders are successful not because they are highly accurate on a trade by trade basis, but because when they are wrong they cut their losses quickly and when they are right they let their profits run. While the trading strategy that you eventually end up trading for yourself may have a higher success rate than what I mention above, any strategy is going to have loosing trades, so the first key to staying in the game is to have a plan for managing those losses so they do not get out of control and wipe out your chances for success.

With this in mind, what most traders will start with when designing a plan for setting their initial stop loss is the amount they can afford to loose on a per trade basis without having a detrimental affect on their account. While this varies from trader to trader and from strategy to strategy, as Dr. Alexander Elder mentions in his book Trading for a Living, many studies have shown that strategies and traders who risk more than 2% of their overall trading capital on any one trade are rarely successful over the long term. From what I have seen most traders risk way more than this on an individual trade basis, another large contributor to the high failure rate among traders.

Traders who set their per trade risk level at 2% of their trading capital or less, not only put themselves in a situation where a fairly lengthy string of losses will not knock them out of the game, but also put themselves in a situation where any one trade is not going to make or break their account. This is important not only from a money management standpoint but also from a psychological standpoint in that they are not attached to any one trade and are therefore more likely to stick to their strategy.

In order to have a true understanding of what this number should be for a specific strategy you will need to know what the expected accuracy rate is for the strategy, something which will cover in later lessons. For now however it is sufficient to simply understand that you need to have a feel for how much you plan to risk on a per trade basis as a first step in designing a successful money management strategy, and that you should be very wary of any strategy which risks more than 2% of your trading capital on any one trade.

Now that we understand that determining how much to risk per trade is the first step in any successful money management strategy, we can move on to other methods of setting your initial stop which fit within the limit set by the amount a trader is willing to risk on a per trade basis.