TheRiskBlog

Volatility can be really bad for your long time performance. Before you can think, the market hits your stop only to bounce back a few minutes later.
The flash crash on May 6th was an awful example for this.
If your stop is close, you will surely get kicked out in one volatile move. But if you enlarge your stop too much, you hurt your Riskmanagement. A loss that’s too high for your account.
But how can our positions survive a volatile phase?

It is common knowledge that sometimes we lose and sometimes we win as traders. That’s what happens and the only important thing is the result at the end. Did you earn more or did you lose more?

Is it, that sometimes you find yourself making a statement like this: “That’s the last trade for today!”?
If Yes, then you also know that often this won’t be the last trade.
We close our “last trade” for the day and after that it doesn’t last long until we see another big chance in the market. And without hesitation we jump into the next trade. But, WHY?

The SEC said last Friday that it wants to charge Goldman with fraud. This has caused quite some turbulence in the markets. But what is the SEC’s charge against Goldman Sachs actually telling us?

The mobile application analytics Platform Flurry compared the starting sales of iPhone, Nexus One and Motorola Droid. And they found some interesting facts.

Overtrading is one of the most overlooked mistakes you can make while trading. As a trader you want to make money any minute the market is open, this is understandable, but it doesn`t mean that you need to trade every opportunity that comes across your screen. Trade the most profitable ones and forget the rest. Here are 5 tips on how to spot and avoid overtrading.

Days like these are most interesting as far as risk management goes. Most of the times stock prices follow a chaotic pattern. Forecasting them is not easy if at all impossible but sometimes subtil changes in the surroundings make things forcastable. This happens when

Every trader who wants to be successful needs a set of rules he acts on – a system. Most build their system over years with growing experience, others buy one. To discover what works and what doesn’t most traders test different systems during their trading career, till they find or develop one that fits them and brings the consistent success they searched for. But it is not easy to test a system, because there is one problematic factor involved in it – the trader himself.

Equity markets have come a long way in 2009. And now everybody wants in on the move and everybody wants to own stocks since they are moving up. That describes the same situation we faced at the start of the century after Dotcom stocks moved over the edge. Sure this time the situation is different, we are in the middle of one of the worst crisis we have seen so far and it is an event felt worldwide. But that doesn´t mean stocks can go up forever.

The economy is not following nearly as quickly as markets suggest. The stock market has outperformed the real economy by far. So what do we need to do

Investing in the markets is hard work, at least if you want to be profitable in the long run. It does not help to be lucky on your next trade, you need to be “lucky” on your next 100 trades. In order to achieve a goal that lofty you need to make sure that you keep your losses small. Idealy you always hit the exit button just below zero.

In the real world this doesn´t happen to often, sometimes because the trader is emotional, hopes that the stock comes back or just wants to keep the stock for sentimental reasons.

If you want to improve your trading substantially, then make sure that your losses are tamed. For that i have put together the 10 most important steps to do this: