24 Most Important Rules of Trading

[jebigabre]

1. Always Cut your losses and let your profits run. Take small losses and large wins.
2. Once you have defined the trend, trade only in that direction.
3. Always have a game plane. Never enter a trade unless you know where you should get in and where you should get out.
4. Always use a protective stop to limit your losses.
5. Be patient. Wait for the right opportunities. Don't just trade for the sake of trading.
6. If the reason you entered the trade is no longer there, get out.
7. Do your homework. By the time you enter a trade you should already know what you are going to do and what you expect from the trade. Placing a trade should be the easiest part of trading. If you are still trying to work things out when you enter the trade you are not ready for that trade.
8. If your method of trading is working, don't change it.
9. The market is never too high to buy or to low to sell.
10. Every trader has losses, don't let your losses get to you psychologically.
11. There is no such thing as an indicator that is a 100% right all the time. Use common sense along with your method of trading. If your indicators are telling you one thing but the market is obviously doing something else, listen to the market.
12. The market is always right.
13. Use money management in your trading.
14. Only trade markets you are sufficiently capitalized for.
15. Never trade with money you cannot afford to lose.
16. Be disciplined.
17. If you hit your target profit, take it. Don't get greedy and hope that you will make more.
18. Don't try and regain all your losses in one trade.
19. Don't blindly follow someone else's recommendations. Do your own homework.
20. If it's not going well, take a break for a few days or weeks. Make sure you are in the right psychological frame of mind before you start trading again.
21. Don't trade to many markets. It's better to be an expert in one market than a novice in many.
22. Never meet a margin call. If you have a margin call it means something went wrong with your trade.
23. By the time everyone knows it's a bull or bear market, it's probably to late.
24. Loses in trading have no bearing on you as a person.

[Ravique]

Old, but useful and actual, except the fact that they are very general with no specifics.

[scorpion]

All of the points sum up with "get yourself a working system". Without a working system, chart is just chart; therefore, you're in suicidal trading.

A [trading] system must answers the following:

• When to enter?
• When to exit?
• Trade size?
• Maximum loss per trade?
• Maximum loss per week or month?
• Target profit?
• Backtesting result is GREAT!

[KmaKzi]

Sounds like a program I would like to buy. Where?

[daydreamtrader]

forget too many times. Now I am really working hard to make myself better trader which makes only well planned trades.