Finance Trends Letter

Jesse Livermore on buying stocks or commodities when they are seemingly "cheap" after a decline: "It isn't as important to buy as cheap as possible as it is to buy at the right time."  - J. Livermore Jesse Livermore, speculator and "stock operator" For more on the great (and ultimately doomed) speculator of the early 20th century, see " Jesse Livermore: How to Trade in Stocks (1940 ebook) ".   Subscribe to the Finance Trends N e wsletter - you'll get actionable trading ideas, investing lessons, and valuable market insights sent to your inbox. You can follow our real-time updates on Twitter .

Lessons on Being Wrong... and Profiting Anyway While revisiting the 1996 documentary Triumph of the Nerds this week, I came upon this fantastic segment on Apple co-founder, Steve Jobs. Finding it eminently quotable (and useful), I just had to share his thoughts from this special clip here. "I don't really care about being right. I just care about success." - Steve Jobs While Jobs was an entrepreneur in the emerging computer industry, and not an outright share investor or speculator, his quote about the relative unimportance of being right hit me right in the trader's gut. Here is a game changing company founder saying, "you know what... I don't need to have the best forecasts or even the most original insights and innovations (hence the looting of Xerox's PARC). I don't need to always be right. I just want to ship the best products and win. That is what will ultimately make Apple the most successful company in our industry....

Welcome, readers. This article on the life of ballplayer/ CIA operative , Moe Berg and the role of information gathering in espionage and investing first appeared last month in the Finance Trends Newsletter . Spring, when a young man's thoughts turn to baseball, young ladies, and... espionage? Well, that last part may seem unusual, but allow me to explain. I've been a baseball fan all my life. Even in recent years, when I have rarely felt the urge to watch professional sports, I often find myself reading about the great ballplayers of my youth or watching highlights of games from the past. One of my great pleasures as a boy was reading about baseball's earlier eras and its great heroes (or tragic figures) and colorful characters. Yes, in the pre-internet world we read tangible books. One of my early favorites was a book entitled, Baseball Anecdotes . If you have a baseball fan in your family I highly recommend it. Paperback copies are inexpensive and the bo...

Trading wisdom recap: Steve Clark , founder of Omni Partners, was featured in Jack Schwager's 2012 book, Hedge Fund Market Wizards .  Clark's interview with Schwager provided us with some valuable trading insights; "Lessons from Hedge Fund Market Wizards: Steve Clark" was one of our most popular posts ever. If I had to pick my favorite sections from Clark's chapter, it would be boiled down to these two concepts: "Do more of what works (and less of what doesn't work)" and "Manage your equity curve". Here's his full quote on the supreme importance of growing your equity curve :  "Your job as a trader is to make the line of your equity curve go from bottom left to top right. That's it. Don't get hung up on other supposed "mandates". Protect your capital and the direction of that equity line. "   I will leave you with one last series of quotes from Steve Clark's interview with Jack Schwager. ...

Welcome to our new readers across the globe. Be sure to check out our popular posts section, filled with market insights and valuable lessons for traders and investors of all levels! Great starting point for new readers and traders: a selection of our most Popular Posts on Finance Trends . Paul Tudor Jones, photo by Annie Leibovitz via Audobon.org. You'll find a newly expanded list of some of our favorite posts, with insights into emerging market trends. Plus, lessons on trading and investing from the masters: Market Wizards such as Paul Tudor Jones, Jesse Livermore, William O'Neil, Victor Sperandeo, Charlie Munger, and Sir John Templeton offer up their hard-earned wisdom.  Equally as important, I hope you'll use our favorite posts to learn from the trading insights offered up by myself and some of the lesser-known (but no less experienced) trading practitioners quoted within.  I have spent years and countless hours researching stocks, scanning charts, speakin...

Maximize your trading gains , not the number of winning trades you might have. This is the advice of famed Chicago futures trader, William Eckhardt . William Eckhardt image via azquotes.com Now, if you're not familiar with Bill Eckhardt by name, perhaps you know him by reputation. With his friend and partner, Richard Dennis , the pair concocted the famous "Turtle Traders" experiment, in which an eclectic group of novices were taught to trade futures with a rules-based trend following system. An excerpt from Dennis' Wikipedia page on the origins of the Turtle Trading program: "Dennis believed that successful trading could be taught. To settle a debate on that point with William Eckhardt , a friend and fellow trader, Dennis recruited and trained 21 men and two women , in two groups, one from December 1983, and the other from December 1984. Dennis trained this group, known as Turtles, for only two weeks about a simple trend-following system, tradin...

"Every strike brings me closer to the next home run." - Babe Ruth . Legendary slugger, Babe Ruth was not afraid to swing the bat and miss. He was focused on making big plays at the plate and scoring runs. With his towering home runs and overall batting prowess, Ruth helped lead the New York Yankees to 7 league championships and 4 World Series titles. "Every strike brings me closer to the next home run." - Babe Ruth pic.twitter.com/wUuQOmf5GT — Finance Trends (@FinanceTrends) August 3, 2016 Ruth seemed to view strikes, and even the odd strikeout (his home run to strikeout ratio was actually quite low), as a simple cost of doing business. Gains vs. losses. Like all great players, he knew that even the in evitable cold streaks and hitting slumps are a p assing phase . Sooner or later, the swing would connect and the hits would flow once more. You can't win 'em all, as we say in America. But you must ste p onto the playing field in order to take y...

Legendary speculator Bernard Baruch discusses trading on inside information, stock tips, and the problems of information overload back in 1957 (excerpt from Bernard Baruch - My Own Story ). Bernard Baruch on inside information : "The longer I operated in Wall Street, the more distrustful I became of tips and "inside" information of every kind. Given time, I believed that "inside" information can break the Bank of England or the United States Treasury". Baruch adds that most "inside information" is designed to mislead the gullible and that corporate insiders are just as likely to be led astray by their "infallible" informational advantage and belief in the company. His comments closely resemble Jesse Livermore's sentiments on stock tips and insider information.  Trading on tips : Echoing Joseph Kennedy's anecdote about the stock-tipping shoe shine boy of 1929 , Baruch relates his own tale of taxi drivers, shoe shine ...

7 Keys to Trading in the Zone , from author Mark Douglas . "I am a consistent winner because: 1 . I objectively define my edges. 2 . I predefine the risk of every trade. 3 . I completely accept the risk or I am willing to let go of the trade. 4 . I act on my edges without reservation or hesitation. 5 . I pay myself as the market makes money available to me. 6 . I continually monitor my susceptibility for making errors. 7 . I understand the absolute necessity of these principles of consistent success and, therefore, I never violate them." This post was originally shared on Twitter (and retweeted by StockTwits to a wider audience) in September 2015. Mark Douglas on Trading in the Zone ( #quotes via @goodreads ). pic.twitter.com/q6qyk6TQhA — Finance Trends (@FinanceTrends) September 15, 2015 Check out the related posts below for more winning trading psychology from Mark Douglas and friends. You will profit from these insights , if you apply the...