Just came across an interesting website, http://www.texasholdeminvesting.com . I’ve been playing Texas Hold’em poker for a while now via Facebook/Zynga and unlike past experiences I now really enjoy my time playing it. I’m not sure why in the past I didn’t catch the holdem bug. If I try to think about it then maybe it’s a developmental thing. In the past I was attracted to holdem, and did reasonably well but found it too similar to trading on the emotional side and therefore a bit of a drain while now that aspect disappeared and I can play it for hours.

Anyways, as the title of the post and the website indicate there are countless parallels between investing / day trading and Texas Holdem Poker. In fact the Texasholdeminvesting website came up with a book dedicated to identifying the similarities. I’ve just downloaded it (free intro), and looking through he’s got most of the topics covered, like: managing emotions, thinking in probabilities, performance analysis, and bankroll size and position sizing. I’m hard pressed to find a game with more similarities with trading than poker. Depending on your personal traits poker can be a good way to sharpen some trading related skills or just have some fun during market downtime.

H/T to Meir.

P.S. If you’re playing texas hold’em and haven’t tried Zynga I think it’s one of the nicest free fake money poker out there that I’ve come across. If you’re on my facebook list give me a buzz if you want to play a few rounds.

Tags: Buzz, Day Trading, emotions, experiences, facebook, game, market, parallels, performance, performance analysis, position sizing, probabilities, stocks trading, texas hold em poker, texas holdem poker, trading, Zynga

A good talk by Dan Ariely on self control, naturally very relevant to trading and operating in the financial markets. Every trader out there must be struggling with some issues of self control. Waiting patiently for a signal, not taking profits too early, not second guessing a candidate, controlling size, keeping stops, etc. etc.

I liked the example of using the reward substitute, watching the movie after taking the injection. Unfortunately I suspect it will still require quite a bit of self control, otherwise what’s stopping a person from watching the movie without taking the shot, “just this once”..

Tags: Dan Ariely, psychology, reward, reward substitution, self control, substitute, talk, TED, Temptations, trading

taking a power nap

In an attempt to regulate my sleeping habits a little I started putting an alarm clock to make sure I wake up at the same time every day, and by extension hopefully going to sleep at the same time each day’s early morning.. Since I live half way around the world from the markets I trade I end up starting my trading day at 8 or 9pm local time here. Nothing new in that, as I’ve almost always traded from Asia, but I’m trying to make some improvements in life like going to the gym more regularly, drinking less coffee, and living healthier.

Thing is though, staying up till about 3-4-5am means I can’t wake up at 6 or 7, or 8am like most people do. Well, not for a long period of time as sleep deprivation will start kicking in. So I’m trying a new compromise timing, in a kind of a personal experiment. Instead of getting my usual 7-8 hours sleep in one go and waking up late morning 10 to 12 depending on how tired I am and how late I went to sleep I will try to wake up every morning at 9:00 or so (we’ll see how that works first) and then take a power nap in the afternoon, instead of another cup of coffee – I have about 3 of them daily.

So far I haven’t looked at any fancy nap power techniques and just read through the Wikipedia entry and one of the references there, a NASA research on nap taking and astronauts sleep deficiency. I decided to try and do a 20min nap at around 4pm and see how that goes. Today’s first attempt only lasted 15min and I woke up by myself. I feel fine, slightly refreshed but nothing dramatic. We’ll see how it goes for the next couple of weeks, if anything interesting comes out of it I’ll update here.

Incoming search terms for this article:

• taking a nap
• take a nap
• powernap
• power nap
• to take a nap
• taking naps
• taking nap
• world sleep day
• google offices power nap
• nap sleep

Tags: alarm clock, asia, astronauts, coffee, gym, health, life, nasa, nasa research, personal experiment, power nap, sleep, sleep deprivation, sleeping habits, trading, wikipedia

It’s been a while since I’ve updated my list of Best Trading Books which I recommend to traders looking to up their game. And there’s a good reason for that, I didn’t see anything interesting out there that would make it as a “Top Trading Book”, that’s till I recently came across this fantastic book. First I need to say this isn’t a paid or incentive driven review, I didn’t get a free book, and I have absolutely no affiliation with the writer. I just think that One Good Trade is a damn good trading book which almost any trader can benefit from.

I did skip the first couple of chapters (mostly prop trading related) but then instead of skimming through to the end like I would do with most new “get rich quick” / secret formula trading book for stocks / futures / options and all other instruments on the planet, I actually started seeing some really good material in it which kept me reading. It’s like one of those gem of a trading book that Dr. Brett Steenbarger publishes (his 2 books Enhancing Trader Performance and The Daily Trading Coach are absolute must read).

The author of One Good Trade, Mike Bellafiore covers almost everything you can think of in terms of the journey to becoming a good trader. From specific advice on Tools of Success:

To real world examples and explanations on sound trading building blocks such as

And more advanced stuff such as reading the tape, high frequency trading, when to press your winners etc.

Even if you’ve read dozens of trading books in the past (who hasn’t..) I would still encourage you to pick up this one.

Incoming search terms for this article:

• best trading books ever written
• best trading books ever
• high frequency trading books
• best high frequency trading books
• best trading books list
• secret project x trading
• prop trading books
• best trading books 2010
• the greatest trading book ever written
• best books on high frequency trading

Tags: best trading book, best trading books, Book, brett steenbarger, Commodities and Futures, Day Trading, high frequency trading, journal, journey, Mike Bellafiore, performance, profitable, prop trading, Reading, recommend trading books, Steenbarger, Stock Market, Stocks, Success, tape reading, Tools, top trading books, Trader, trades, trading, trading books

Big Mike who has had very extensive experience with NinjaTrader came to the same conclusion I have: the myriad of problems and hassles surrounding NinjaTrader – all versions: 6.5 beta and 7 alpha – are just not worth the effort and investment of time. Check out his blog post: Big Mike’s Trading Blog: Tired of NinjaTrader?. There are several good reads in his forum about alternatives for anyone trading with a DOM.

One good solution I haven’t seen mentioned is a combination of InteractiveBrokers and ZeroLineTrader. I like this combo for a number of reasons:

1. IB’s TWS is rock solid, excellent stability and the broker itself is one of the more reliable ones (most of the time).

2. IB’s commissions are very reasonable, at $2 they might not be the cheapest around but not that far off for a small retail trader either. For a nice comparison of commissions see HPT’s post here.

3. IB’s universal account means I don’t need to split my account, I can trade stocks and futures in the same place. Including most futures contracts around the world.

4. ZeroLine Trader platform itself has been rock solid with a lot of very nice options for a very reasonable price. There are other alternatives like the cheaper BracketTrader but it’s bare bones, and ButtonTrader which is too complicated and expensive to my taste.

Anyways, this topic of IB TWS+DOM (ZLT or others) probably merits a proper separate post of its own. But the main point is that there are many alternatives and options available that one should spend some time to find what works for them, which is a better approach then trying to force their trading on something that doesn’t work too well.

Incoming search terms for this article:

• ninjatrader mac
• ninja trader mac
• ninjatrader for mac
• ninja trader for mac
• ninjatrader interactive brokers
• big mike trading
• interactive brokers ninjatrader
• ninjatrader alternatives
• ninjatrader on mac
• ninja trader on mac

Tags: Brokers, buttontrader, commissions, comparison, DOM, futures, hpt, interactivebrokers, ninjatrader, ninjatrader for mac, ninjatrader interactive brokers, ninjatrader mac, NT, platform, Stocks, trading, trading platform, TWS, X-Trader, XTrader, Zeroline trader, Zerolinetrader, zlt

I was thinking about trading strengths, weakness and was going to create a list for myself but found it hard to decide where to start. So I just started with brainstorming all the positive trading skills and traits, personal attributes and characteristics I could think of that successful traders might have. Here’s the list, see if I missed out on anything.

Discipline
Resilience in the face of adversity
Desire to continue and improve
Persistence
Curiosity
Creativity
Networking
Calmness
Courage
Competitiveness
Pattern recognition
Numerical skills
Practical (as opposed to idealistic)
Self confidence

Btw, INO is hosting a webinar and offering free access to MarketClub for 2 weeks, this isn’t one of those offers where you have to pay up front and cancel withing a certain amount of time, this requires no payment
info and cancels automatically in 2 weeks. Sign up here.

Incoming search terms for this article:

• positive attributes to have as a trader

Tags: competitiveness, courage, creativity, desire, discipline, free access, pattern recognition, personal attributes, resilience, self confidence, strengths weakness, successful traders, Trader, trading

This looks like it might be the best trading laptop ever. In truth, I traded on this kind of laptopfor a long time and made good money. But still, I know some traders who hop from country to country every now and then and I’m sure this would come in handy for them. At 12lbs it’s not something you’d carry with you to a cafe, but who trades from a cafe, or the beach or any of those other noob fantasy locations.

See the Laptop With Two Full-sized Screens – Tom’s Hardware

As for me, I’m happy with my desktop. Awesome piece of hardware, now if only I had more space I might add another monitor to my current dual setup. And to think that just a year or so ago I was still trading just off a single 15″ LCD, it’s funny how you get used to having all this “extra” space and all of a sudden you find yourself thinking it isn’t enough.

Incoming search terms for this article:

• trading laptop
• best laptop for trading
• best laptop ever
• best trading laptop
• trading laptops
• day trading laptops
• laptop for trading
• trader laptop
• day trading laptop
• best laptop for day trading

Tags: best laptop for trading, best trading laptop, day trading laptops, dual screens, laptop, pc, toms hardware, Trader, trading, trading laptop, trading laptops, trading notebook