Archive for month: April, 2008

Bear trouble

24 April, 2008 (20:55) | Psychology | By: Colin McGinley

Rob Booker has an informative new free ebook that tackles what a trader can do when they experience a slump in performance. It has the catchy title Help! An angry bear is destroying my account!.
While short and sweet the advice is sound, as I know only all too well from recent experience:
1. Step [...]

Tekhnika

19 April, 2008 (12:10) | Journal, Psychology | By: Colin McGinley

A few weeks back I came across a very interesting article in the New York Times that delved into research on how we learn new skills. The article looks at how talent is developed and star athletes are trained.
Why does it take so long for us to learn something complicated? What sort of [...]

Dopamine high

18 April, 2008 (22:19) | Journal, Psychology | By: Colin McGinley

My brain is on drugs and I fear this is one of the primary root causes of why my trading has been so erratic recently.
The drug is called dopamine and it is one that is released naturally by the body. There is an increasing amount of evidence being gathered by researchers on how excessive [...]

Handy signals

8 April, 2008 (14:42) | Journal | By: Colin McGinley

Even though electronic trading is all the rage these days, trading pits and the usage of open outcry still has a valuable role to play.
If you’ve ever wondered what all the hand signals mean then you might find this article, Making Money Hand Over Fist, from yesterday’s New York Times to be of interest.

The long haul

2 April, 2008 (22:05) | Psychology | By: Colin McGinley

How long do you want to be trading for?
Do you want to make those millions as soon as possible so that you can then retire to a life of luxury on your own sun-kissed desert island?
Personally I’m in it for the long haul. I view trading as an activity that I’ll be doing for [...]