Tag: stocks to watch
What Makes Traders Succesful In Online Stock Trading
Make no mistake about it, there are several different strategies and techniques that can be applied to make money in the markets with online stock trading. Although they may have different strategies, successful traders do share many things in common even if how they get their results varies. Too often, newbie traders are so
focused on the strategy, that they think it’s the end all be all, but that’s simply not true.
First, successful traders have a plan. They’ll go into a trade measuring what their potential profit and losses might be, before they place the trade. This includes their decision on how they will enter the trade, they might go all in or scale into the position. But the most important takeaway is they have a plan.
Second, they have the discipline to stick with their plan. The discipline comes from repetition, studying similar setups, or even backtesting and forward testing. They have studied past trades and identified what has worked, what currently works and what is not working at the moment. In other words, they are prepared.
If you’re unsure of your strategy, don’t have an outline of your exit, you’re more likely to make emotional decisions when things don’t workout your way. You might panic and not capitalize, or even worse, end up doing something dumb and losing money online stock trading.
Successful traders do not take losing personal. Again, they look at the markets in probabilities. Basically, they’re looking for high probability setups. If it doesn’t work 
out, they’ll access their trading plan and see if there is anything they could have done differently. But just because a trade doesn’t work out, it doesn’t mean they will stop trading the strategy if they believe it’s still effective. Sometimes unexplainable things do happen in the market, and that is something you have to learn to be OK with.
With that said, they focus on their strengths first and work on their weaknesses second. For example, Nike first came out as a shoe company that focused on runners. After they built that side of the business up, they moved onto creating sneakers for other sports. Eventually they expanded to apparel and a ton of products.
That is a solid approach to becoming a successful trader with online stock trading. Develop one or two bread and butter trades and then try to expand to other strategies. Don’t try to do everything at once. Also, don’t get frustrated if you can’t make money trading a certain way, maybe that doesn’t fit your personality or risk tolerance.
Successful traders spend a lot of time reviewing their performance, journaling and searching for methods to improve. Their goal is to scale up their operation to the highest level it can reach. They take a business approach to trading and focus on risk vs. reward. A special emphasis is placed on risk management. What good is your online stock trading if you win 5 straight trades and let one wipe all those gains away?
As you can see, risk management is extremely important. Some traders in online stock trading can trade the similar strategy, but one can have superior results based on how they manage risk, control their emotions, and execute the game plan.
It’s not always about your strategy, it’s sometimes more about the intangibles that will make you into a successful trader in online stock trading.
Should You Pay A Subscription for Good Penny Stocks?
Let’s face it, there are vultures in every industry – including good penny stocks. You see it a lot in the diet and health industry, companies promoting fads, in hopes you take the bait and bite. You might catch an infomercial on the weekends on that can’t-miss money making opportunity. When it comes to investing and trading, there 
are hoards of individuals pitching you indicators, strategies, and alerts.
Does it ever make sense to sign up and pay for a subscription service pertaining to good penny stocks?
Before I share my opinion, let’s think about it for a second. The more competition, the more efficient the market is and the lower the profit margin. For example, let’s say you are at the supermarket and you’re interested in buying a package of hot dogs. You sift through the aisle and see that there are a number of different brands offering hot dogs. You’ll also notice that prices are relatively comparable. The reason being competition.
Now, imagine that you’re at Yankee Stadium and you’re hungry for a hot dog. You go to the vendor and notice that the price of a hot dog is the same price for 15 hot dogs at the grocery store.
Sounds crazy right?
Well, Yankee Stadium has no competition, you either buy their hot dog, or you don’t buy a hot dog at all. They have no competition, and therefore, they can set prices however they want. With that said, they have a very high profit margin.
Now, imagine that there is a trading strategy for good penny stocks that does very well in the market, meaning that it yields a good profit and has a high probability of 
being successful. As more traders pick up on this, competition rises and profits become smaller and smaller. To compensate, traders will have to lever up just to get the same type of returns they were getting before. Eventually there will be too many traders in and the strategy has minimal effectiveness.
With that said, I’d be very cautious on anyone selling special indicators or signals. On the other hand, trading rooms, research, and even stock picking services can still be useful.
At the end of the day, there is only so much you can keep your eyes on, in respect to the market. The more qualified eyes, the better. You can learn a lot from good traders, as well as bad trader. Working on idea generation is one of the most important activities as a trader. You see, after a while, some strategies simply stop working, if you don’t work on ideas you’ll eventually be irrelevant. That’s why you’ll hear a lot of traders from the 1990s and 2000s struggle today, they never made the proper changes and are now obsolete – completely out of good penny stocks.
All in all, idea generation services are worth it, even if they are really bad in their picks. Because if they are awful, you can take the other side of their trades and be profitable. On the other hand, services that offer you how to trade or sell you a signal or strategy, the more users they get, the less effective they’ll eventually be.
Most professional traders trade in teams. They share their ideas with a select group of other traders they trust. Just make sure if you do decide to pay for a service, it’s something that fits your budget. Most services offer trials so make sure to test a bunch out before deciding what fits your trading style the most when trading good penny stocks.
How To Avoid Style Drifting When Trading Today’s Stock Market
The more successful and experienced you become as a trader, the more in touch you are with your strengths and weaknesses. Just like a pitcher in the MLB, they are aware of what types of pitches they throw that give the opposition difficulty. On the other hand, a good trader can tell you what their bread and butter trades are in today’s stock market.
However, from time to time, you’ll hear about other traders making large sums of 
money doing something that you’re not exactly well versed at. So, instead of trying to learn what exactly they see, you blindly jump in with profits on your mind.
Generally, when you can’t explain why you’re in a trade, along with the exit points, you’re already on shaky grounds. However, it’s human nature to get caught up into something, but it should still be our main focus.
The worst is when you take on a trade that is out of your wheelhouse, and it ends up eating away at entire day’s profits. This type of behavior is often referred to as style drifting. Style drifting is one of the worst habits to have as a trader in today’s stock market.
How can you avoid style drifting in trading?
Well, an easy way is to consistently reinforce yourself what your bread and butter trades are. By categorizing your trades, you’ll be able to figure which ones are the best based on P&L. On other hand, you’ll find out which types of trades don’t suit you well. Getting familiar with your own trades will help you focus on what needs to be done in order to be successful in today’s stock market.
Now, there is nothing wrong with trying new trading strategies. However, these trades should be sized so small that it doesn’t affect your overall P&L. If you’re trading was conducted like a business, then these new trades are trying to show proof of concept. Once they show enough promise, you then can increase your share size and scale up.
With that said, keeping a trading journal is extremely important. There is no way you’ll be able to remember every single trade in your head. Eventually your brain gets foggy, and you tend have selective memory when it comes to your trading. However, a detailed journal will allow you to refresh your memory and walk through the entire process over again for today’s stock market.
Not only that, but it will keep you accountable for your actions. For example, some traders might plead ignorance as their defense for putting on a bad trade. But if they 
only studied their performance, they would know exactly how they fared on specific types of plays.
As noted earlier, you should always work on your skills and new ideas. But always focus on your bread and butter trades, and see how they can be better. If you’re unsure of what they are, it could lead to style drifting, trading aimlessly without a plan. A great way to avoid style drifting is to review and journal your trades. Style drifting happens to everyone, but the better traders make it less and less of a habit in today’s stock market.
Dealing With Drawdowns When Trading Good Penny Stocks
Make no mistake about it, if you trade good penny stocks for a long enough period, expect to experience drawdowns. We all go through periods when things simply don’t go away. However, there is a difference between going through a trading slump and having losing trades.
With that said, let’s take a look at both, and how they affect our trading.
Now, depending on your strategy the number of drawdowns will vary. For example, if someone primarily only trades M&A deals, they might make money 95 out 100 
trades. However, those five times that they are wrong can be costly. On the other hand, a discretionary trader might be right 40-60% of the time, and still manage to be very successful.
A drawdown is simply a trade that is closed out for a realized loss. On a more macro level drawdowns can also be expressed in time periods. For example, one could say they drew down on the day, week, or month if they ended up realizing losses.
As mentioned, drawdowns are a part of the game. It’s important to understand that trading good penny stocks, in many ways, is a probability game…there are very few, if any certainties. The sooner you accept that, the better you’ll be.
You can learn just as much from your losing trades as you can from your winning trades. If you’re going through a losing period, take a step back and start scrutinizing your previous trades.
Ask yourself, “Are these mistakes are avoidable, or am I just a victim of variance?” Sometimes, we let our emotions interfere with our game plan, which ends up being a costly mistake. Of course, it can be more than that.
For example, maybe there has been some shift in the market, and your strategy or thesis is no longer valid. Maybe a CEO resigns, or a new government law is comes into effect. A number of factors could come into play that would affect the dynamics of a company and its stock price.
Is the root of the problem in your mechanics? Analyze your execution and see if there is anything is different. Have you not adjusted your position sizing for the added volatility? Go through your process and see if there is anything different and worth noting.
Maybe you’re going through some personal changes. Ask yourself if you’re getting enough sleep, eating well, or dealing with stressful relationships. These are things we don’t think about that could affect our trading of good penny stocks, but they can…therefore, they’re worth addressing and trying to correct any of these problems.
For some, a series of losses could lead to confidence issues. It’s generally best to focus on improving your process. For example, instead of trading your normal tier size, scale down the number of shares down and just focus on executing your game plan.
Do this until your confidence comes back. What you don’t want to do is trade bigger in order to regain losses. You want to be trading your biggest when you’re most confident in your ideas, not when you’re having doubts and are unsure. That’s the secret to making the most of good penny stocks.