I did finally get round to updating the Best of Trade to Learn post. Its been quite a journey for the blog which will be one and a half year old next month. I hope the blog has been beneficial to at least some of you readers out there. Feel free to write to me at positiontrader @ ymail.com (no gaps) in case you have suggestions for the blog or any questions. Without further ado, I present to you readers The Best of Trade to Learn.
Updates till May 1 below
Dear readers, I realized this morning that the next post was going to be the 100th post of this blog. (May 1 update : now over 650 posts!) I must admit that I never expected that I would write 100 posts in less than two months. In fact, my only aim, and it did seem challenging at that time, was to document my daily trades and whatever I had learned from them. As you regular readers know, the blog has turned out to be much more than that. And you readers are a big reason for that. I never expected the blog to have such a large readership so soon, and there certainly are days when I am too tired or not in the mood to post, but its the thought that there might be people counting on me for a daily review or stock picks that makes me post everyday. So, thanks for your support and I hope together, we will continue to grow to be the best traders we can be!
2010
It certainly has been one wild ride since I started this blog. When I started it in early January, I was coming from over 170% gains in 2009. So, my confidence levels were indeed high up. This continued for the first two weeks but the market has a way of showing you your place as soon as you start getting complacent. That's what happened to me. One small mistake and I was in a downward spiral.
I was in a slow, painful recover phase after that where I was very quick to collect both my profits and losses. I admit, my confidence was shattered. But out of nowhere, all that changed one day. And surprisingly, what got me my confidence back was not making a few good trades or having one great trade, but not trading at all!
I feel it imperative to state, please don't make life all about money and don't let your market results affect the rest of your day. Sometimes, we as traders, looking at our screens hours a day and keeping track of the P/L bottomline all the time, can lose sight of this simple fact.
Here are some other posts that I particularly like and hopefully you will like them too.
The blog has certainly helped me improve as a trader so far, and I hope you readers are benefiting a little too. Trading is unique in the sense that it offers new challenges everyday. Each and every tick is different. Each day is a whole new challenge. Each day presents us with endless opportunities. That's why it is imperative that we keep on learning.....always. Trade to learn, and maybe you can even learn to trade.
March Updates
The first link here is the most viewed post of this blog. The second deals with the importance of position sizing in trading. If you don't master the art of position sizing, sooner or later you will end up blowing up your trading account. And lastly, we have a post based on my personal experiences on the problems faced with and how you can succeed with small trading accounts.
Trading with small accounts
May Updates
One of the most important things I have learned in trading. You can't be a successful short term trader without following this.
Trade what you see, not what you think
June Updates
July Updates
A post on how I called the bottom in the market when most traders were predicting gloom and doom. Though the post goes into calling this particular bottom, the general guidelines for picking any bottom remain pretty much the same.
Calling the bottom
August Updates
With the consensus being that Netflix was grossly overvalued, I wrote a post on why I refuse to short a stock like Netflix.
September Updates
One of the common questions new, and even experienced traders, struggle with is where exactly to place their stop loss. This question becomes even more critical in these times of automated trading where we find that it is common for our stops to be hit, only for the stock to turn and run without us. Here is a post on the art of setting stop loss points.
November Updates
This was a post on a slow, choppy trading day when I had nothing better to do. The post was written partly in jest and I was quite surprised by the response it got. I guess a lot of traders, new and experienced, could relate to this post. It ended up being one of the top five read posts of the blog.
December Updates
A post on how to make the best use of StockTwits.
A post on the importance of using multiple time frames in trading. Using multiple time frames for my trades has been one of the biggest improvements I have made in my trading in 2010. This post shows the importance of using multiple time frames for charting even for short term traders.
I ended the year with a post on advice for new traders. I had received many mails from new traders asking for advice, so I decided to do a full post about it.
January 2011 Updates
Being fed up of all the yearly predictions being thrown out out there, I decided to write down a few predictions of my own. The beauty of these predictions is that they are valid for every year!
My predictions for 2011
February 2011 Updates
In response to a question by a reader, I wrote this post on why I personally prefer technical analysis over fundamental analysis. I had consciously avoided writing about this topic because I am well aware of the passionate defense it generates from both sides, but after a year of writing the blog, I thought it was high time I put in my two cents about it.
My wife will never forgive me if I don't mention that I got married sometime this month (just kiddin! I DO remember the exact date!). All the best wishes here on the blog and twitter, made me realize that thanks to this blog, I have made friends and have well wishers throughout the world! That feels awesome!
March 2011 Updaes
Sometime in January, I decided and actually did start to write the story of my initial adventures (failures would be a more apt description!) in trading. The whole aim of this series was that perhaps the story of my initial hardships and finally, success, might inspire some new or struggling traders out there. I have made pretty much every mistake in the book and the road was anything was easy. But still I was surprised, when what started as a small post, turned into a five part series which finally ended in March. BTW, thanks to all you readers out there for the awesome response to all these posts!
April Updates
Take care and good luck!
