Van Tharp Explains How Position Sizing Can Make or Break a Trader

Successful stock traders are risk-takers who live on the edge, pick their teeth with rusty nails, bet the family farm and are just generally smarter and luckier than say your average accountant type, right?  The reality is, Rambo only dodges every bullet in the movies and traders who don’t manage their risk by managing position [...]

Risk Management: The Powerful Engine Behind Every Successful Stock Trade

Successful Stock Traders are Great Predictors, Right? I’m tired of seeing so many getting taken for a ride by stock services and self promoters who make bold claims about their performance in the market so in the interest of looking out for your interest, I’m going to offend a few people right off the bat [...]

Stop Loss Psychology: Part 2

Stop Losses and Trading Probabilities In the first part of this stop loss psychology article, we provided an extreme example and perhaps an extreme stock trading scenario (though it does occur every day), but it exposes something important about the use of stop losses.  You see trading is all about probabilities. If the probabilities are [...]

Stop Loss Psychology: Why Trading Shouldn’t Be So Difficult

That voice inside your head that rationalizes not using a stop loss is the work of your natural human defense mechanism But… When you use disciplined stops each and every time, trading becomes easier because it works in favor of your own natural psychological defenses, not against them And now… Instead of it being emotionally [...]

How Using Stock Market Sentiment Indicators Can Increase Your Trading Profits

On October 4, 2011, the S&P 500 opened at 52-week lows after getting hammered lower for months by news of the Greek bond crisis, poor job growth and other economic negatives that had kept investors on the sidelines. October 4 was significant because a new low there would have constituted a lower low for the [...]