The real secret

The biggest secret that the guru's are hiding from you is simple: YOU DONT NEED THEM. I'd guess that seven out of ten time's you could eventually make money without them. You don't have to buy the latest indicator that will only be sold to 500 lucky souls for $1000, or the newest $15,000 one week mentoring program. In fact, the secret to your trading success is probably sitting on your desktop right now.

It's called a trading diary. If your not keeping one your not going to be successful. I'd venture a guess to say that 99% of people who do not keep a trading journal or log are not profitable, or if they are it is barely. Those who do manage to profit without one could see huge improvements in results simply by learning to keep one.

You see the biggest thing in trading is not learning this new thing or that new thing. It's about improvements. It's about doing the things that you do well, and staying away from those things that your not so good at. It's about making your strong points matter even more, and your weakest points matter even less. If you can simply do that, your going to make a lot of money. Let me give you a few examples.

Back when I was day trading every day I averaged about $1400. One evening I was looking very closely at all the data in my trading notebook and I made a very important discovery. I found that between 10:30am and 1:15pm CST, basically over lunch, on a typical day I would lose $350. Well, the solution to this problem was fairly simple, and the impact felt right away. I stopped trading between 10:30 and 1:15, and immediatly I was given a "raise". Three hundred and fifty dollars by itself might not sound like a huge number, but it adds up to a little over $85,000 per year. I actually got paid to do nothing! I never would have known that if I did not keep a log of my trades.

I also discovered that on days with a Fed announcement I lost, on average, about $3000. Again the solution was very simple: I stopped trading the Fed and almost immediatly was given a "raise" of about $12,000 per year. Pretty cool, I found two specific times that I should walk away and do nothing, and as a result I just "discovered" nearly $100,000 extra per year. I don't know about you, but to me that seems almost like free money.

These are just two examples out of many that I was able to use myself to increase my own success. I know for a fact that I would have never made it without my journal, and all it takes is a little effort in keeping it. I'll do another report later on exactly how to keep one.

Here are a couple more examples. A former student of mine Moe in Queens, NY discovered that in the first 15 minutes of the day, on average, he lost $500 and over the course of the rest of the day he made, on average, $350. Can you see how powerful of an impact not trading the first 15 minutes of the day had for Moe? It was the literal difference between success and failure, between paying the bills and keeping his "real job".

Again these are just a few examples, and I'm sure that many of you who do keep a trading diary can share your own. If I could point to one thing though that has been accountable for my success it would probably be a simple notebook. Start to keep that journal, because as I said I can state with near certainty that if your not keeping one, your not making money. If you are making money without keeping one, your not making nearly as much as you could be, I can say that with 100% positivity.

Good trading.