Neal

Gilberts

Braving the Rapids

The complete trading strategy
By Neal Gilbert Buy the full eBook here
Neal Gilberts Braving the Rapids 1

About Neal Gilbert

Technical Strategist
Neal Gilbert, technical strategist at GFT Markets, specializes in educating new and experienced traders in an easy-to-understand manner. His focus has been on teaching how to use common technical indicators, risk management, and sharing his favorite trading strategies. A graduate of Neal conducts regular webinars on Basic and Advanced Technical Indicators, Volatility and Risk Management, and Fibonacci Trading and Theory. You can find Neal at gftmarkets.com, including his weekly market report at FX360.com, or on Twitter at @FXexaminer.

Neal Gilberts Braving the Rapids

About TFL Press

Premium Education for Traders
TFL Press publishes premium education for traders, communicated in an entertaining style. TFL Press pays out the majority of its revenue to authors and creators of educational material. Authors also retain full copyright on their own work, and enjoy the right to republish their material in any form, any time, in any place. If you have an idea for a book, DVD, or trading course that you would like to share with the world, contact Rob Booker at http://tfl365.com/press.

Neal Gilberts Braving the Rapids

Trading is Hard
Part 1
THE DANGEROUS GAME Trading is a dangerous game to play. Whether you dabble in equities, CFDs, futures, currencies, or any of the other tradable market, the pitfalls are always just a trade away. This opportunity for the unexpected is part of the charm associated with trading as well as the bane of its existence. For as long as the markets have been in operation, investors have searched for the holy grail of

trading methodologies; something that could make them money regardless of the markets direction or attitude. Well, suffice it to say, it doesnt exist. If you are looking for the perfect trading system that gives you constant winners without taking any losing trades, then I hate to break it to you, but your search is futile. So should you just give up then? Should you throw your hands in the air and declare that the effort is fruitless? Quite the contrary. Despite our knowledge that perfection is impossible in trading, we still need to strive for it. We still need to go in to every new trade with the thought that this one is going to be a winner. It doesnt matter whether you have a string of losing trades before the next one; every new opportunity is the chance for a winner. Sometimes though, that type of attitude is the single most difficult thing to master in trading. Most cant do it; therefore, trading has a high rate of failure for those who dare to brave its choppy waters.

Neal Gilberts Braving the Rapids

 THE 5 STAGES OF TRADING GRIEF Throughout my career in the investing industry, I have run across many types of traders who were extremely nave to the dangers of trading. They would open an account with some money they saved up, and being avid watchers of CNBC and readers of Bloomberg, they felt they knew what to do. You could almost go through a checklist and mark off the different stages these traders went through as they learned the trials and tribulations of trading. Just like losing a loved one would send you down the path of the five stages of grief (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance); traders would go through the same stages.

STAGE ONE: DENIAL I dont need any help; I know what Im doing. STAGE TWO: ANGER You guys are manipulating the market to hit my stops! Is someone watching what Im doing?

STAGE THREE: BARGAINING

Ok, maybe if I just add this other indicator to the others that I use, Ill have the perfect system!

Neal Gilberts Braving the Rapids

STAGE FOUR: DEPRESSION

Ill just start placing trades in the opposite direction of what I think, then Id be sure to make a profitthis sucks!

STAGE FOUR: ACCEPTANCE Alright, I admit I have no clue what the hell Im doing. Please help me.
The overwhelming similarity with newer traders like this is that they knew nothing of managing risk; simply picking buys or sells based on feel. Needless to say, they learned very quickly that they wouldnt be able to participate for long trading in this fashion.

While failing miserably as your first experience is demoralizing to say the least, it often times is a necessary humbling experience. Many of the greatest traders in the world could probably give you a similar experience when trading and is an important lesson that we are fallible. My own experience came from the other side of these feelings though. I was the guy who was the sounding board for many of these dejected traders as they stumbled their way through the process. It was demoralizing for me as well, as I saw investors with whom I had helped along and developed a relationship to flame out so quickly. Therefore, I felt it was necessary to try and stop the bleeding. I couldnt help those who had already suffered, but I could help future clientele.

Neal Gilberts Braving the Rapids

would buy and I would sell, and if it were tails, we would do the opposite.

The Experiment
Part 2
WHY LOSING ISNT ALL THAT BAD The revelation came to me after a little experiment. A colleague and I had a game where we would try to forecast the direction of the market each day. The running joke around the office was that predicting the market was as easy as flipping a coin, so we decided to put it to the test. In the morning, we flipped a coin; if it was heads, he The Neal Gilbert Forecasting Experiment This continued for a month without providing any conclusive evidence. Needless to say, it wasnt very successful with just the coin flipping, so we decided to tweak the experiment. Youve reached the end of the sample of Neal Gilberts Braving The Rapids. Click here to buy the full 47-page ebook

Neal Gilberts Braving the Rapids