The Top 10 most read blog posts

It is amazing to me that, since starting this blog back in 2008, it has now received one million page hits.

The blog has morphed from initially being more of a diary of my own thoughts and my trading, to talking more about the general concepts involved in trend following.

While trading is one of the most popular keywords on any internet search, trend following is more of a niche area. To many, it is a marmite approach to the markets - you either love it or hate it.

What my trading rules are designed to do

Conceptually, robust trend following systems are designed around the basic principles of identifying and capturing directional price movement, without having layers of complexity or being tailored to individual markets.

This leads to volatility in the performance achieved, as market conditions move through phases of 'trendiness' and differing levels of price volatility, but that is the compromise to robustness.

It is what it is

This is just a brief post, after seeing some comments on social media referring to the price action in the general markets (particularly in the US) today. 

I've seen some refer to it as 'ugly', while others are saying they have never come across price action like this, before looking to blame others for making price action react in a way which didn't conform with how they thought it 'should' have moved. 

Well, in answer to those:

If there is nothing to do, then do nothing

The last couple of weeks have been frustrating in that, while I have been able to identify plenty of interesting looking setups, they have either:

• continued to see price consolidate and are yet to trigger; 
• had earnings releases or trading updates; or 
• price has fallen away rendering the set up being no longer of interest. 

This has coincided with an uptick in volatility in the major market averages and a pullback from the recent highs.

Traders, their beliefs and opinions, and what you can learn from Eckhart Tolle

"Accept, then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it." - Eckhart Tolle

Every moment in the market is unique. Price can move in either direction in the next few seconds, the next few hours, the next few days, weeks or months. Despite what some people may say, you don't know what will happen. Price may be trending one direction on one particular timeframe, and could be trending in the opposite direction on a different timeframe. 

How you interpret what price is doing, and how reactive you are to any changes in price behaviour, will depend initially on those core beliefs you have about trading, and from there your own rules derived from those beliefs.

The concept of acceptance

A critical part of developing the correct mindset in trading is grasping the concept of acceptance.

I first came across this from reading the books of Bob Rotella, a sports psychologist famous for his work with a lot of top class golfers. His first and best well known book in this area is Golf is Not a Game of Perfect.

Intellect, theory, risk taking and reality

From the outside, trading opportunities within the big financial institutions or investment banks seem to be a closed shop. I took a look at job opportunities in the City of London this morning and all of them seemed to want people who were educated to a degree level, and/or who already worked in a financial institution. This obviously rules out bozo's like me, who left school and didn't proceed into further education, or who have never worked within the industry.