Will the person in Row 34, Seat 13 please come to the podium and give the keynote speech?

Picture this:

You are attending an important conference.

You are sitting in the middle of the auditorium among hundreds of fellow attendees awaiting the keynote speech when the Master of Ceremonies comes to the podium and announces,

"Will the person in Row 34, Seat 13 please come to the podium and give the keynote speech?"

You look at the little plaque on the front of your seat and you realize that you are sitting in Row 34, Seat 13.

How would you feel about getting up in front of all those people and giving a speech that you had not planned to make?

How good a job are you likely to do without a well-rehearsed outline of your speech to guide you?
Can you feel the unease and the fear from having to give the speech without preparation or plan?

I know this all sounds ridiculous because no important conference would have a keynote speaker who was not fully prepared. The result would be disastrous.

This is the way most traders start their trading day - without a plan. No wonder so many traders are afraid of the market. For the unprepared, the market can be a fearsome adversary.

However, like the speaker who is well-prepared, a trader with a detailed, written trading plan will be ahead of the 90% of other traders who start the day with no written plan at all.

You do not even need a perfect trading plan. You just need to design a workable trading plan that makes sense to you and includes:

• the setups you will take;


• defines your risk per trade, per day and per month;
  states your goals;


• explains how you will keep records of your trading; and


• lists the steps you will take should you have an equipment, software or Internet failure.

In my Electronic Trader Mentoring Program, the first priority for a new mentoring trader and I is to design a clear, written trading plan. This unique plan incorporates the best of what the trader has already found effective along with a series of setups and strategies that I have successfully used with dozens of other traders.

Once we have developed a written trading plan, we can be confident in approaching the market in a structured, rational way.

One last thing:

You should be happy for all the other traders who trade without a plan.

After all, they are the ones who are needlessly leaving money in the market for us better-prepared traders to earn.

Wishing you success in your trading, Jeff

Copyright © 2009 by Jeff Quinto, all rights reserved

The futures markets they are always a-changin'

Come gather round traders,
wherever you are.
We know that these markets,
are harder by far.

Accept that this change,
is just part of the deal.
Follow your plan,
with unwavering zeal.

You should look to grow,
in these difficult times.
Resolve to be the trader,
who advances during declines.

For the futures markets, they are always a-changin’

The markets, so far this year, have been hard to trade.

Traders ask me if they should change their strategy to accommodate the new reality of 2009.

Are the good trading markets of the past gone forever?

From my vantage point over 37 years of trading, I can tell you that the markets they are always a-changin’.

Today’s difficult markets are, in part, the result of a fundamental change in market participants that I have seen several times over my career. This fundamental change is the result of formerly-important market participants leaving the markets, never to return.

My experience shows that new major players will eventually come to fill the void, but until these new major players emerge, the markets will be volatile, illiquid and hard to trade. Importantly, my experience shows that these difficult times are excellent for learning to trade and for improving, honing and deepening you trading skills.

During the tech bubble of the late-nineties, people left their jobs in droves to make easy money as stock day traders. Tech funds flourished as the stock in dot-com companies with improbable business models rose to impossible levels.

When the bubble burst, many of these players left the market leading to several years of dull markets. Between October 2003 and June 2007, the VIX, the CBOE’s index of volatility, spent the entire time below 20.

Today, the VIX is 40. At the height of last fall’s volatility, the VIX reached 80. When the VIX first went below 20 in 2003, traders told me it was impossible to trade S&Ps. In time, most of these same traders adjusted their trading to the new lower volatility and did well.

In the early-eighties, many grain exporters merged or went out of business. Throughout the seventies these same exporters were among the biggest players in the grain markets.

Initially, the grain markets were illiquid and hard to trade without these important participants.

Like today, traders wondered if the markets that we had known were over, never to return. In time, the merged grain exporters became even bigger players. These larger grain exporters and a new category of major player, funds, became the biggest traders in the grain markets. The markets did not return to exactly the same markets as before, but they did become highly-liquid and very tradable once again.

The same thing will happen today.

The hedge funds and investment banks that left the market in 2008 will be replaced by another group of major players.

Who they will be, I cannot say. But, they will bring liquidity and they will bring opportunity.

Until the markets return to the liquid, flowing markets of the past, I would trade conservatively. I would not throw out my proven trading strategy in an attempt to adapt.

Instead, I would make certain that I was:

• confident in my setups,
• resolute in my risk management, and
• sure in my ability to execute my plan.

My goal would be to grow as a trader and to go forward in my trading account, albeit, at a slower pace than in better trading times.

I can help you use these times to prepare for the good trading markets ahead in my Electronic Trader Mentoring Program. You can find out more at: www.ElectronicFuturesTrader.com.

Wishing you success in your trading, Jeff

Copyright © 2009 by Jeff Quinto
All rights reserved

My name is Bond - Jeff Bond

Can you picture yourself as James Bond in a tuxedo sitting at the Baccarat table at the casino in Monte Carlo with a beautiful girl by your side?

I can.

The first time I was ever in a casino, I wanted to be just like James Bond. Of course, I was in Reno, Nevada (the biggest little city in the world), not Monte Carlo.

I did have a beautiful girl by my side (my wife) and I had invested five minutes, or so, reading an explanation of Baccarat in the little pamphlet I found on the table beside the bed in our hotel room.

So, I was ready.

My wife and I agreed to limit our investment in my pretending to be James Bond to a few hundred dollars, which we split between us. We arrived at the Baccarat table well-dressed, confident and ready to break the bank at Monte Carlo - I mean, Reno.

As it turns out, I should have invested more time reading the pamphlet explaining Baccarat because, when I sat at the table, I did not have any idea what I was doing.

However, through no fault of my own, some of my bets seemed to work. My wife was similarly winning some of the time.

After what seemed like a long time and many winning and losing bets, I was nonetheless out of chips.

My wife gave me a few of her chips and we played for a while longer until we were both out of chips.

I suggested we adjourn to the bar so that I could get a Martini (shaken, not stirred). At the bar, my wife opened her purse and I saw that it was filled with chips.

Unbeknownst to me, she had taken a few chips out of each winning pot and stowed them in her purse.

I was elated.

I was indeed James Bond, not some chump from the suburbs.

We cashed our chips and went to a late show where we saw Alan King.

Being smart about money in trading is just like that.

You need to take your profits off the table and play with a set amount of money. When your account is ahead by some predetermined amount, take the money out. Trading with a larger amount of money than you planned can cause you to trade with less discipline. Do not leave more money in your account than you need to reasonably trade.

When your account is ahead by $1,000, $5,000 or whatever you decide, give your broker a call and ask for the overage to be sent to you. Only increase the money in your account in a planned well thought-out basis and only when you are ready to increase the size you are trading.

Regularly taking money out of your account may not turn into James Bond, but, in my experience, it does help in getting the girl.

If you would like to take the gambling out of your trading, check out my Electronic Trader Mentoring Program at www.ElectronicFuturesTrader.com.

Wishing you success in your trading, Jeff

Copyright © 2009 by Jeff Quinto
All rights reserved

My days as a big trader

Early in my career on the floor, I wanted to be a big trader.