New testimonial

Just before Christmas I received the following from Stefan, an aspiring trend follower based in Germany:

Jack Nicklaus and trading - part 3

A couple of my more popular posts from past years relate to Jack Nicklaus, where I listed a number of quotes from his extensive writings and interviews over the years. 

Below I've pulled out a few more of nuggets of wisdom from The Golden Bear, which again may require some thought on your part, but the underlying message can easily be applied to your trading and mindset:

Do you have what it takes?

Last month I had the pleasure of catching up with a trader I have known for a few years now, and mentored for a while. We talked for a couple of hours about trading in general, as well as how he has continued to develop himself as a trader. He is now trading full-time and has developed his own method (more of a swing-based style) which he is trading profitably.

Adding some accountability to your trading - helping a day trader to improve

A while back I was approached by a day trader who wanted some help in improving his performance. This took me back a bit - as readers of this blog may know, when I started trading back in 2003 it was as a day trader (and I initially struggled) before I got into trend following.

I've long believed that the essentials of good risk management and being able to avoid mental errors are applicable to ALL types and styles of trading. This would therefore be an interesting exercise - for both of us.

New testimonial from Germany

Julian is trend following trader from Germany who I have worked with over the last couple of years. Here is his testimonial which he kindly forwarded:

New testimonial

Over the bank holiday weekend I received the following testimonial from Mark:

“I have been in the Steve’s mentoring programme for just over 4 years. Quite simply: as a result of his fantastic mentorship my trading has completely evolved and ultimately become consistently profitable.

Regardless of the trend following method used, I have learnt the importance of psychology and risk control and that they are and will remain paramount to profitable trading.

A trend follower's first big win

Yet again the mentoring programme continues to deliver results. Here is an excerpt from an email I got a few weeks back from Paul, who is a trader based in Scotland:

A busy old time

The last 24 hours or so have been busy. Last night, we had our regular group webinar which lasted just under a couple of hours - always a good time and a great chance to bounce ideas around, look at lots of charts and discuss trading issues that have cropped up. 

It was clearly evident from the stocks we were discussing that the quality of setups they were looking at and taking have made a quantum leap forward en masse. It made me wonder how I missed taking some of them myself!

A great day

Yesterday I was able to travel to London and meet a couple of the traders in our mentoring group.

It was an interesting meet up for me because both of these guys are in the IT industry, and have used their own skill set to enhance their own trading approach or routine. 

Follow up testimonial

Arun is a trader I have been mentoring the last couple of years. He provided this lengthy testimonial a while back not long after we started working together.

It's safe to say that things have progressed pretty well since then. He has experienced the good periods and not-so-good periods, tightened up on his risk control, and worked a lot on his mindset. The upshot is profitable performance and developing the inner-confidence in what he is doing.

Yesterday he sent me the following note:

Commitment and discipline

When trend following, apart from using a system that has an underlying positive expectancy, you also need to develop a commitment and discipline in following the system signals and your overall strategy. If you can do this, and use good risk management at the same time, then you have a good chance of success.