Taking Steps To Avoid Portfolio Sabotage

I am writing this as I am sitting here at the airport in NYC, after an incredible private tour of GROUND ZERO, from someone who experienced it first hand. It is just unbelievable to see what these people have been through and how much it is still effecting them today. It sure makes me grateful for my many blessings and how every day is such an incredible gift to never take for granted.

I was honored to spend a little time with a group of traders on Long Island recently, and I was sad to see how many people are paralyzed to trade and have pulled their money out of the market just plain scared to trade. Then on the other end of the spectrum there are students that have lost all of their portfolios in this bear market, taking themselves out to the game altogether.

It just amazes me how students seem to unconsciously sabotage their trades by avoiding the simple tasks that can protect their portfolios. I have been listening very carefully to students, trying to see what it is that is stopping them from trading or causing them to let a trade go too far the wrong way that the end result is a loss of all their trading funds. From the last few months of gathering these comments and pondering them, there seems to be a number of issues around this thought process and I would like to address some of them in this newsletter.

First, my old basic comes to mind, that when in doubt go back to practice trading. Even though I do real trades with money, I daily track and do practice trades. What I have discovered is that serious traders are always doing practice trades. It seems only the new and not quite committed traders tend to avoid this important work - work that pays big benefits.

No matter how much money you have, there always seems to be more trades you can do.

What I have been able to enjoy, is to practice all the trades I would like to do, and follow the stock and the option to see how the prices are working. Then when I come out of a trade and have the cash for the next trade I know the heartbeat of the stock (and the option) to better trade that stock. This is very powerful, and leads to some great trading. The problem is that even though practice trading is easy to do, it is just as easy NOT to do! NOT practice trading is what stops people out of the game, and it is the one thing that can build back your confidence to put you back in the game. Once you see the real value for practice trading you should come to the conclusion that is does have incredible benefits and power.

Practice trading is very simple, just pretend you are really doing the trade, write it down, but do not place a real order. Set a price to exit at a profit and at a cost, and follow up with the trade to see how you did. Assume you buy at the ask and sell at the bid.

The easiest program to use for practice trading is the ETA software with Chart Navigator. It actually allows you to pull up the option chain and transfer the option (or stock) right into a practice portfolio. The neat thing is every time you download your charts it downloads your practice trades to see if it met either of your exits, forcing you to complete it. You can order this program at 1-800-346-9039.

One of the biggest problems I feel, is many students want to practice trading with their money. They are so eager, but this is a critical error in judgment. Practicing with money has not been a good choice in most stories I've heard. If you lose your money from practicing with it, and don't have the knowledge to trade properly when the money is gone… then you have nothing left and most will give up and go back to the very thing you desperately wanted out of…your job, or whatever is stealing your time freedom!

Bottom line, I wish people did not have a dime to trade with when they are new to the market or have lost their confidence trading! If you were forced to have to practice trade, because that is all you can do, I truly believe that once you have practiced to the point that you really know what you are doing - so bad you can taste it…you will find a way to get the money to trade. You know the saying "when the student is ready the teacher will appear"? Well, when the student has practiced so hard that they really know what they are doing and they want to trade so bad - I believe the money will appear!

Next, I really think that it is impossible to be successful trading, if you have any issues with wealth. No matter how good you are at practicing, analyzing and picking trades, if you feel you don't deserve to be wealthy (conscious or subconsciously) than you will find a way to sabotage your success. A lot of students do this by not using simple stops to protect their funds if a trade goes wrong.

It seems we all know to use stops, but I think a large percentage of traders just plain old don't do it! They get busy and don't write it down, or write it down and ignore it. Perhaps they used a real stop loss, and got stopped out needlessly…so refuse to use stops because of that …but if you had a car accident, you wouldn't quit driving would you? Then don't do that here. I use alerts instead of real stop losses to overcome needless stops out of trade. Anyway, back to this wealth thinking, for whatever we might think the reason is…I feel the reason could be deep seeded and have to deal with our self-esteem and ability to realize our right to be wealthy.

I use to have a CD series out called ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING about trading in the stock market. It has since been retired, but I got so many incredible comments and results of students being able to turn around their trading that I will be completing my update in book form within the next 6 weeks to help speed up the process of turning this around for those in need. In the mean time, you can download a copy of THE SCIENCE OF GETTING RICH for free at www.scienceofgettingrich.net . I highly recommend getting THE DYNAMIC LAWS OF PROSPERITY by Catherine Ponder and reading it as fast as you possibly can. It can be ordered on Amazon or other book sites.

The other thing that is a killer is not having the proper tools to practice or trade for real. This is a serious income producing business to me, and without the proper tools it would be like an attorney with no law research abilities or an accountant with no tax law references - their ability to be successful would be confined so much that it will be destined to fail. So would our trading if we shortchange our need for critical tools.

I knew from day one, if I was going to trade, and make this my livelihood for income, not to overlook important tools needed to set myself up to win trading. I have been able to narrow it down to three critical tools: A research site : The Dedicated Trader This one speeds up my research time Alert System: REAL TIME MARKETS Gives me time freedom Charts: ETA with CHART NAVIGATOR Saves money on taxes, plus reduces time to do practice trading

I do a free webshop once a week to show these tools. For any questions or prices on these three tools call 1-800-346-9039 for details. After almost 6 years in the market, I find these three to be the best for value, time saving, cost and ease of use.

Last, it is best to not put all your cash into trades at one time. Otherwise, when a hot opportunity comes by you don't have the ability to take advantage of it. Unfortunately, I see a lot of traders put every cent they have in trades all the time, as if it is wrong not to. They seem to think that if the money is not always in a trade it can't be profitable, but some of the biggest profits come from those serious buying times when a stock hits an incredible low or high. Jumping into a trade just because your money is available is does not always lead to good trading. It is better to pass on a poor play, then to end up poor playing!

If you find yourself out of the game, get back in. Start with practice trading. When you do begin to trade again with money, make sure you start small. Learn how to trade both directions, up and down and use alerts (like REAL TIME MARKETS) to make trading simple and give you time freedom.

If you can find a way to get to my next LEAPS class, I will teach you how to use the safety net alarms and more - such as bringing in 3 -4 times more income than writing normal covered calls. Come find out why they call me THE BEST COVERED CALL WRITER IN THE USA!

I hope this gives you some confidence to start trading again…you deserve to be back in the game and make this work! Believe me, you want the lifestyle that trading can give to you!!!

I am excited to be able to offer you the direction you need to get back in the game and on the right track. Please call 1-800-346-9039 to take advantage of current discounts on classes, DVD's, VIDEOS or other products...

Happy Trading!

Darlene Nelson