Lessons Cheap, Lessons Expensive
Some lessons in trading are cheap. Most are expensive. This guide collects the rules that separate traders who survive from traders who do not - gathered across bull markets, crashes, limit moves, and everything in between. It is short on purpose: rules you can remember are rules you can use.
These are not secrets and they are not a system that promises profits - nothing honest does. They are working principles watched in real accounts: how to think about risk before reward, how to size positions, how to handle losing trades, and how to keep one bad day from becoming a bad year. Some rules will sound obvious until the day a market tests them; that is exactly when they matter.
What the Rules Cover
- Risk first - deciding what you can lose before thinking about what you can make.
- Discipline and process - why a plan you follow beats a brilliant idea you improvise.
- Position sizing - the quiet decision that determines whether you stay in the game.
- Losing well - handling the trades that do not work, because there will be plenty of them.
- Common mistakes - the patterns that cost traders money again and again, and how to avoid them.
- Knowing yourself - matching your trading to your temperament, time, and capital.
How to Use Them
Read the rules before your first trade, and re-read them after your worst one. Apply them in whatever account you use - self-directed, advisor-assisted, or managed - with any registered provider. They stand on their own. Futures trading involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors.