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As the old quote says, ‘The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on.’ As most of you know, I have myself ‘moved on’ to Thailand at the start of this year, which has been a wonderful and exciting experience for me. Now the time has come where I must bid farewell to Safety in the Market, and so this will be my last contribution to the Safety in the Market Monthly newsletter.As the old quote says, ‘The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on.’ As most of you know, I have myself ‘moved on’ to Thailand at the start of this year, which has been a wonderful and exciting experience for me. Now the time has come where I must bid farewell to Safety in the Market, and so this will be my last contribution to the Safety in the Market Monthly newsletter.
I have been very fortunate to have had the privilege of studying and working with so many great traders and keen students over the past 7-and-a-half years. I bought my Starter Pack in October 2005, and the moment I opened it I was hooked. I have often stopped to think how lucky we all are that Hubb continued to operate Safety in the Market after David retired in 2000; otherwise virtually none of us would have had the opportunity to learn this material in such a supportive environment.
I would like to pay special regard to Aaron and Noel, because for many years they were the face of Safety in the Market. Their commitment to preserving David’s legacy enabled to company to grow to new heights over the past 13 years. It is no coincidence that traders in the United States often comment that there are a lot of Gann traders who come from Australia.
I have also had the good fortune to work with some great educators and friend, not only Mat and Lauren, both of whom you know, but also Sinan, Daryl, Mario and JJ (for the old-timers like me!). This is a special company that has attracted special people both as teachers and students, and it has been such fun to be associated with every one of you.
I will still be around until 30 June, so we can communicate on the Forums until then, and I will of course be writing for this month’s Platinum newsletter. But I would like to leave you all with a summary that you can take forward with you.
For me one of the special features of Safety in the Market is the community of traders that has grown here. This is reflected in the many events held over the years, but also in the written materials. All of you are at different stages on your trading journeys, but there are some general points that will be of benefit to you always.
Firstly, you have your course materials – Smarter Starter Pack, Number One Trading Plan and Ultimate Gann Course. Each of these is well-supported by the various workshops. But you must always remember that these give you the theory side of your trading. Only you can take the next step, which is the practical application. How can you make the best strides forward in this regard?
I would say that the Number One Trading Plan is greatly under-valued by most people. It certainly was by me when I was a student. That book will teach you more about making money from the market than any other. So spend a lot of time going back over it again and again.
I have found that the best way to learn information is to read a book several times – not in a row, but at intervals. After you have studied any text, put it down for six months and then pick it up again. It will speak volumes to you because of the experience you have gained in the interim. Many things in trading cannot make sense to you until you have seen them unfold live in the market.
Another resource that is just sitting at your fingertips waiting to be explored is the newsletters. The Trading Tutors newsletter commenced in April 2003, and especially in its early years had a very strong emphasis on our style of trading. In the articles, which of course you get for free, you get to see the various instructors applying the tools, very frequently at the right edge of the chart, giving their views on what might happen next. You will see where they were right and where they were wrong, because you can open a chart and check it out. This is an excellent way to learn how to use the tools yourself.
The Safety in the Market and Platinum newsletters likewise go back several years. What I did was to print out each article separately in a Word document. I would click on the charts to copy a larger version and paste it on the page and get rid of all the margins. Then I printed out a hard copy and filed them all by author. In that way you can follow the sequence of one person’s thinking. For example, I wrote a series of articles for the Trading Tutors newsletter over a period of 2 or 3 years. I devoted every one of them to a single stock, which was Santos (STO). There is no particular magic in the choice of stock, but following all those articles (there were 45 in the end) will enable you to build up a strong picture of analysing a market from week to week.
Of course, you will never become a trader without getting your hands dirty. It is only by analysing and taking trades that you can transform theory into practice. Everybody learns sooner or later that this is harder than it looks when you read the book, but anything worthwhile in life involves effort.
The best way I can suggest to go about this is to follow the process that you learned at the Interactive Trading Workshop. Either scan a group of stocks or make up your own Quote List and analyse all the ABC trades that show up every day. Those of you who did one of the Advanced Trader Online Coaching series would have seen us do this. Learning to read the information on a price chart is a very refined skill, and I am still learning much about it. So don’t think you are going to master it in one month. You need to keep up this procedure for quite some time to get the full benefit.
Another important part of the learning process is to pick one or a few markets that you will study intensively. The purpose of this is not necessarily to take all your trades only from here, although you may do this. But in the same way that a laser beam focuses light and vastly increases its power, you want to focus your attention on one market and understand all you can about applying your rules. For even better results, make a hand chart of this market.
Nothing in life turns out exactly as it said on the packet, and trading is certainly no exception. It will challenge you at times along the way, because the journey to becoming a successful trader is a journey of self-discovery and self-mastery. Every person is different and you must all learn to think for yourselves and to find your own path. But remember that ‘all roads lead to Rome’, so embrace your own path and advance confidently towards the Light.
Thank you all for the honour of working with you over this time. I look forward to meeting many of you again through different avenues. Thank you for your support and kind words, and I wish you every success in your trading and every happiness in life.
Knowledge is Power!
Tim Walker |