Novice Traders' Notebook  |  APR 1999

Some Rules To Trade By by Daryl Guppy

Some Rules To Trade By by Daryl Guppy A good trader will have a trading plan. Here are some guidelines for setting up your own trading rules. In a raging bull market, it is easy to forget that markets make us pay for our mistakes. In a bull market, the rules are loose, the fools are many, and money seems inexhaustible. In a bull market, traders from Main Street apparently make money as easily as traders from Wall Street. Eventually, however, the novice trader must reach deep into his pocket to pay for his or her losses. This should be cause for reflection, but more often than not, it turns out to be an excuse for blaming someone or something else. For the trading survivors, it is a time to refresh their understanding of the basic rules of trading. The trading rules you’ll see here come from personal experience and market insights. I use these observations as personal trading rules. Like all my trading rules, they are developed from experience to suit my specific trading style and personality and to compensate for my weaknesses. Novice traders initially need to rely on the perceptions of others in building their own trading rules. The specific rules you finally adopt will be different. Take what is appropriate for you from these 15 rules, adding to them and modifying them to suit your trading style.

by Daryl Guppy