A Compendium of Trading Advice

Here is a compendium of trading advice gleaned from many different sources. Read and enjoy.

1. Everybody is a genius in a bull market. Real traders survive and can even thrive in bear markets or highly volatile markets.

2. Fully plan your trade before you pull the trigger on the entry (have an exit price for both the upside and the downside).

3. Trade entries are important, but risk & money management is where you make or lose money.

4. Decide which types of trade setups or investments you’ll take and ignore everything else.

5. The best way to profit in any market is to find something you think has big potential early (before the general public catches on), and invest assuming you’re going to lose 100% of your capital. It’s the “angel investor” approach.

6. You cannot control the market. The only thing you can control is your entry point, your trade size, and your exit points.

7. One market participant can completely destroy your technical analysis.

8. Don’t blindly follow trade alerts from ANYONE. Random people on social media and chat rooms are just that.

9. Trading isn’t about picking exact tops and bottoms in a market – it’s about catching the meat of a move.

10. Don’t turn a small losing trade into a massive losing investment.

11. Don’t set daily profit target goals – set long-term performance goals.

12. Learn to survive first and thrive second.

13. The best charting indicators are price action and volume. You can use others, but it won’t necessarily make you a more profitable trader.

14. Trends can go way past what seems rational.

15. Don’t try to pick tops in a market. Wait for the market to tell you when the trend is over.

16. Don’t trade in front of big news events – it’s impossible to predict how markets will react.

17. The biggest challenge for most traders is their ego, or the need to be right.

18. You can lose 50% of your trades and still be profitable if you manage risk properly.

19. People with the best mindset for investing typically have a career in high-risk situations like firefighters, pilots, police.

20. Avoid pump and dump coins and tokens like the plague they are.

21. You WILL make every mistake in the book. Write them down in a journal and review them before your trading day. Don’t beat yourself up when you make mistakes, just learn and try not to make the same mistake twice. Forgive yourself for any bad, dumb, idiotic and asinine trades and learn the lesson.

22. Don’t treat crypto exchanges like bank accounts. You don’t own the coins unless you control the private keys.

23. Crypto is a 24/7/365 market. You can’t catch every trade. If you miss one, don’t worry – there’s ALWAYS another trade.

24. Don’t long-term invest in a coin unless you understand it inside out.

25. You can make money trading the momentum and hype in shitcoins, just don’t invest long-term.

26. Stay away from coins with low trading volume and low market caps. They are easily manipulated and you can get stuck in a position.

27. Don’t trade with money you need for living expenses. It’s called “risk capital” for a reason.

28. Think of yourself as a hunter – save your ammo for the big game.

29. Cryptocurrency exchange servers often slow down or halt when there’s high volatility. If price hits a major target or buy zone, it might make sense to place some orders BEFORE everyone else.

30. Trading and investing brings all your emotions to the forefront – greed, fear, hesitation.

31. The hardest thing to do in trading is nothing. This can also be the smartest thing to do.

32. Manage your trades in a way that would leave you with no regrets no matter what the market does.

33. The shorter the chart time frame, the less reliable the chart patterns are. The longer the time frame, the more variables there are that can affect price action and the harder it becomes to predict price. One sweet spot is the daily charts for trade setups and the 60-minute chart for entries.

34. Some market conditions are great for pushing the gas on every trade setup you can find, where other market conditions call for you to slam on the brakes and step away from the markets altogether.

35. More than 90% of cryptocurrencies will eventually go to zero. Invest accordingly.

36. The mental side of trading is the hardest to master, the most under-appreciated skill, and will cause you to make or lose the biggest amounts of money.

37. The biggest problems for traders are over-trading, hesitating on entries, and closing positions prior to profit targets when the trade is still intact.

38. You can make a large profit in just one trade but beforehand you will not know which one that is. Don’t feel like every day has to be a home run. Play the long game. Be patient and wait for the best plays.

39. Don’t trust anyone else to trade for you. Manage your own high-risk investments (that's crypto trading) or don’t participate at all.

40. Take the news for what it is: they are trying to get views and clicks. They are not looking out for your best interests or trying to help you make money.

41. Don't force yourself into a weak coin because you are hungry for action (FOMO). Patience is required to succeed.

42. Don't trade for excitement. Trade to win.

43. Never spend your entire wallet on a single trade. Emotional distress will distort your decision making skills if the price goes against you.

44. The market makes the news and not the other way around. After a trend is over, a lot of posthoc reasoning will be created to explain the trend.

45. Never trade on margin. Your wallet will go to zero.

46. Always follow the trend. The trend is your friend: i) identify the trend ii) trade in its direction. The trend is your friend.

47. On occasion, have the courage to let your profits ride higher.

48. Take your profits before the other guy. There is no need to hang on for every last crumb of profit.

49. Be impatient with your losing trades. Set an exit point for price drops and allow yourself to get stopped out.

50. Don't always day trade, you should usually trade the big trends.

51. Do not be inflexible in your technical analysis and become rigid in your beliefs. This will make your wallet go to zero (remember point #7).