Tradecraft – Dude, Chill Out

GENERALLY SPEAKING, IN LIFE, you get out what you put in. The longer you exercise, the more weight you’ll lose. The more you study, the better you’ll do on a college exam.

Trading, however, is one of the few activities in which more is not always better. If you want to make money, trading more positions more frequently and with more leverage is hardly a stellar strategy. The opposite — fewer positions, fewer trades, less leverage — often yields considerably better results.

Today’s international markets trade around the clock, offering more opportunity than one individual would ever be able to capitalize on. But what many investors, especially the most competitive, often forget is that to be successful, one need not master the market, but only catch some of its waves along the way. (more…)

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Tradecraft – Give Your Cash Some Flash

OK, CASH MANAGEMENT doesn’t exactly match the adrenaline high of trading stocks. But managing your cash holdings is a challenging discipline, and a prudent and profitable way to get market experience with considerably less risk. It’s also a lot of fun — especially for less-capitalized traders who can’t afford to play in the majors just yet.

For many of us, cash comes in the form of a money-market account, usually either linked to a brokerage account, bought from a mutual-fund company or sold by a bank. Only bank-sold money-market funds come with FDIC insurance, but all suit the same general investment goals: safety and high liquidity. They are essentially savings accounts — and they’re more for peace of mind than for profit. The problem with money-market accounts is that, in exchange for liquidity and protection of principle, we forfeit the higher returns that come along with even slightly more risky investments. For example, E*Trade Group’s (ET) money fund currently yields 3.7%. Fidelity’s is in the high 2% range. Not exactly champagne wishes and caviar dreams.

But with sound cash management, you can do better. You manage a cash portfolio just as you do a stock portfolio. Using appropriate position size, money management and risk controls, you can improve results with only marginally higher levels of risk. (more…)

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