The trading world is known for its beautiful one-liners that are all so true, but at the same time so extremely difficult to practice. Some of the most well known around are: "Cut your losses and let your profits run." or "The trend is your friend." (until it isn't), just to mention a few. Collecting more of those one-liners would be a great subject for another article. This post deals with getting with the trend.

As a trader or investor, you certainly have noticed the tons of analysts and self-proclaimed gurus out there who all give their opinion about what will likely happen next in the markets. But are they any good?

This part 1 of a series. Also, make sure to check out part 2 and part 3.

The first part of 'Market gurus and their predictions' has really caught some attention. Let's now move on to the next part about this subject.

Again, as mentioned in part 1, these pages are mostly meant as an eye-opener that almost all of the 'mainstream' analysts have no added value in trading or investing. In fact, flipping a coin has a higher probability of making a correct call about the expected market direction than those analysts. 

After part 1 and part 2 of the 'Market gurus and their predictions'-series, there's now part 3. 

"Mind the gap" may be a useful warning on airports and train stations, but is it any good in short term trading? As traders we have all heard this general trading wisdom that says 'gaps get closed'. But are they? And also, let's be more specific about when they get closed. Is it the next day, next week or next year a gap gets closed?

"Never complain, never explain" - it's a well known quote. Famous people have used it, management gurus have used it, too many to accurately determine who initially came up with it. Let's apply this to trading, because trading is probably the ultimate activity where this quote fits extremely well.

Being a short term trader, it's sometimes easy to forget about the larger picture. One could argue that short term traders couldn't care less about the larger picture or the long term view, but that's actually not the case. Trading is a game of chances, and as a trader, you make the trades that are likely to be successful. But it is also obvious that even trades that seem very likely to be successful can fail multiple times in a row.

Every now and then when I'm reading an article from the world of behavioral economics discussing a particular phenomenon, it makes you realize once again how much trading and investing is about human behavior.

.... that you are thinking that he is thinking? This is the funny paradox that is a big factor in the financial markets. In 'A mathematician plays the stock market' by John Allen Paulos (it's in my bookstore), the author analyzes where this is going and what it means.

Many traders read all the news, rumors, gossips they can get their hands on. And there's always more to read. Then they start convincing each other on chat forums that the market has to go in a certain direction based on that news. In the end they all agree, but we know what happens with crowd consensus.... it's not going to happen.