Chart Your Way to Profits: The Online Trader's Guide to Technical Analysis with ProphetCharts, Second Edition

Chapter 18. A Practical Guide to Trading

In this book, we've covered a lot of ground with respect to technical analysis, charting, and the ProphetCharts product. There are hundreds of books written about other aspects of trading, including books about technical indicators, the psychology of trading, futures, options, and just about every other imaginable subject.

We shall not endeavor to incorporate the vast knowledge and information from those books here, since it is the principal goal of this volume to make you comfortable and confident using ProphetCharts. However, there are some basic guidelines about any kind of trading that will be helpful to most people who decide to trade, be it professionally or casually, and we will review those in this final chapter.

TRADING RULES

It is often tempting for people to keep a list of their own trading rules, particularly as they generate losses they regret and wish to avoid in the future. Keeping a diary of trading experiences is a valuable exercise, but what often happens with a list of rules is that the list grows so long and arcane as to be almost useless. The old saying about how you can never step into the same stream twice holds true for trading, and over the months and years that you are trading, you will be faced with a never-ending set of changing circumstances.

I've got my own list, but it is short and sweet. I ignore some of these rules from time to time, and virtually every time I do, I regret it. If one day I can follow these rules ...