This book written by Alexander Elder is a fantastic way to start learning trading.

I learn a lot from Systematic Trading about how to be systematic and how to manage your portfolio. But with this book I learn the different types of trading, how to focus on the behavior, how to build your own habits on specific papers, the importance of include the checklist on a daily basis, etc…

Don’t do it!!

Alexander is about 40 pages of the book persuading you to do not try it, he explains the different reasons trading is a risky and complex activity to be performed consistently along the time.

Risk management

• rule of 2% for the maximum operations exposed by month.
• Use risk exposure to handle your trades. The concept of “buying risk exposure” when you want to open more trades and you cannot do it.
• rule of 6% for the maximum exposure of risk of your portfolio.
• Understand how to adapt the use of slots and margins with respect the obtained results.

Classification of activities you have to do, how to engage general topics on your daily habits, how to socialize the trading with other people and learn from the previous data.

I pretend to be a Swing Trader

I learned reading the book that what I do is Swing Trading. My current scenarios are trades that can take hours, days or weeks, so now I know I want to become a swing trader.

This has enabled me to focus on how to organize the portfolio, how to divide the efforts on analysis, focus on specific tactics and measure the real results I obtain.

I have removed a lot of noise and wrong behaviors that did not help me on my duties.