How To Make, And Keep, Money Trading Stocks

If you're serious about making and keeping money by trading stocks, then there are 3 things you will need to do, and do well.

Money management

Orders

Trading system

Money management

Money management comes first. Without a rock-solid way of managing your trading funds, you trading results will be only be fair at best. Money management is more than simply knowing how much money you have tied up in a trade. It's a way of using the proper portion of your trading account on any one trade relative to the perceived risk and reward.

There are a few things to consider to managing a trade successfully:

What is your account size?

How profitable is your trading system?

What is the initial amount at risk on a per share basis?

What is the profit potential?

Account size

Your account size determines how long you remain in the trading game. If you're skillful, then you won't need a large account. On the other hand, even if you're a new trader, you can use a small account as long as you control your risk.

Controlling the risk means never using more money then you need on any one trade. A very simple formula for stock market success is to risk less than 3% of your total account value on a single trade.

When you've got a $10,000 account, this means you never lose more than $300 per trade. If your account drops to $9,000, then you risk less than $270.

As your account grows, while the total amount at risk increases, you still only risk a maximum of 3% of your account. Say your account is at $12,000, then your maximum amount at risk is $360.

In theory, this ensures that you never go broke! And that is very important.

Profitable

If your system is profitable, then you will typically win more money then you lose. While some consider the percentage of winners relative to the amount of losers, nothing could be farther from the truth.

It will not do you any good to have a system that wins on nine out of very ten trades if you give all of your gains back on the one loser. More important is that the winners overwhelm the losers.

A profitable trading system might have a third of the trades result in the maximum loss planned for, a third of the trades either make or lose a little money, and a third of the trades bring in the profits.

Risk

It is worth repeating, risk no more than 3% of your total account value on any one trade. If you bear this in mind, you're ensured of minimizing losses to your account. At what price you enter a stock and where you place your initial stop price are used to ascertain how many shares you trade.

Profit

The profit potential of a system is the"advantage". If you can estimate how much money you *might* make over time, and if that profit comes from many trades over time, then you probably have a winning strategy.

A trading system will either have a profit target that determines when to enter AND exit (good) or it will tell you when to enter and keep you in a profitable trade as long as possible without giving back much, or any, gains (better).

Orders

Regardless of what trading pattern you use to enter a stock, you'll make the most money by using the correct orders.

When you wait until a stock has proven it's intensions - typically by trading above the previous day's high for a buy, or below the previous day's low for a sell short - then having an order in place that captures that exact price is vital.

Let's say your favorite trading pattern signals a buy for. If you are an end of day trader, then the next morning you watch the opening price for the inventory. If the stock opens less then yesterday's high, you place a stop order to buy above the previous day's high. Even better is to include a limit price with that buy stop order.

How much above the previous day's high is your call. Provided that it's greater than the previous day's high, you are making the stock prove that it's going up.

Sure, you give up some of the profit possible. But you're more likely to turn a profit with a stock that is moving in your favor.

As soon as you're in a situation, then you will need to protect yourself from loss. If your method of picking stocks is good, then it is unlikely that the stock will revisit the current prices. Continuing with the buy example, to protect your account from a catostrophic loss, place a good-till-cancel sell stop order below the recent low. If yesterday's low is lower then the current day's low, that's where the sell stop order goes.

And make sure the order doesn't include a limit. Stocks can and do gap down. Expecting that you will have a sell order filled at your stop price is a fast way to the poor house.

Trading system

Your choice of what method to enter and exit stocks plays a vital part in your stock market success.

A great trading system looks for low risk opportunities to enter a stock. Knowing at exactly what price signal to enter and when to exit - even if it's for a small loss - will keep your account growing. So long as you consistently follow the principles laid out by a well designed trading plan, you can count on steadily growing your trading account.

My favorite trading pattern does a fantastic job of identifying stock likely to move rapidly in your favor.

There isn't any reason to be trading stocks that aren't prepared to deliver the biggest gains in the least amount of time.

If you're serious about taking your stock trading to a higher level, then read about this trading pattern.