The New Sell and Sell Short: How to Take Profits, Cut Losses, and Benefit from Price Declines, Expanded Second Edition

CONCLUSION

Successful trading demands clarity and discipline. The vague and indecisive meanderings of so many traders and investors tend to reflect the way they live their lives. The folks keep postponing hard decisions, as if they had all the time in the world. They keep dreaming that, in the words of a Broadway song, “the sun’ll come out tomorrow.” In fact, their time is limited, and with their kind of decision-making, tomorrow is likely to be worse than today.

While structuring your life is outside the scope of this book, we can certainly begin by structuring your trading. What are your specific entry and exit plans for the next trade? How will you manage risk and keep records? When will you sell the stock you own? Are you ready to sell short and profit from a decline? You should be able to answer these questions much better now, after you have worked through this book.

I have shared with you the discovery which had a hugely positive impact on my own trading and that of my students. The single most important factor in your success or failure is the quality of your records. Beginners keep toying with the parameters of various indicators. Those issues are chicken feed in comparison to the importance of good trading records. I have shown you what records to keep and how to use them. Will you follow these instructions? Will you try to improve on them?

We’ve taken a quick look at buying but have spent the bulk of our time in this book on selling and shorting. You saw how to ...