Real education.

A real education will not teach you to be the first. It will tell you to enjoy whatever you are doing, not for the result, but for the act itself. Just like a painter or a dancer or a musician…

You can paint in two ways. You can paint to compete with other painters; you want to be the greatest painter in the world, you want to be a Picasso or a Van Gogh. Then your painting will be second-rate, because your mind is not interested in painting itself; it is interested in being the first, the greatest painter in the world. You are not going deep into the art of painting. You are not enjoying it, you are only using it as a stepping-stone. You are on an ego trip, and the problem is that to really be a painter, you have to drop the ego completely. To really be a painter, the ego has to be put aside. Only then can existence flow through you. Only then can your hands and your fingers and your brush be used as vehicles. Only then can something of superb beauty be born.

Real beauty is never created by you but only through you. Existence flows; you become only a passage. You allow it to happen, that’s all; you don’t hinder it.

But if you are too interested in the result, the ultimate result– that you have to become famous, that you have to be the best painter in the world, that you have to defeat all other painters hitherto– then your interest is not in painting; painting is secondary. And of course, with a secondary interest in painting you can’t paint something original; it will be ordinary.

Ego cannot bring anything extraordinary into the world; the extraordinary comes only through ego-less-ness. And so is the case with the musician and the dancer. So is the case with everybody.

Share trading - 3 Blind men with the Elephants

A Hindu folktale tells of three blind men encountering an elephant. "It's a tree," says one, stroking a leg. "No, no, it's a snake," says another, feeling the trunk. "No, this must be a house," insists a third, spreading his arms against the bulk of the elephant's body.

All three had a different perception of the elephant based on the part they examined, and all three conclusions were wrong. The elephant was larger and more complex than any of the men realized.

A similar tale is told everyday in the market. Each market participant has different needs, agendas, histories, perceptions, and sees the market completely differently. As with the three blind men examining the elephant:

The Bear saw Friday's drop as a great vindication of his view and recovery of his position.

The Bull saw the action as a short pullback to add to or enter a long position.

The Day Trader saw the morning gap up as a great short set up, and the long saw the gap as a great exit from Wednesday's trade.

This is one of the challenges of our market debates; each one of us has a different perspective from which we are examining the same elephant. Each of us has a reason to interpret what we see and say to influence others or convince ourselves that we are right. No one is right or wrong but human nature is subjective, and thus leads to the creation of the market whereby both buyer and seller feel that they've been enriched 

ENTER THE HEART - Ramana Maharishi

A devotee who had suddenly lost his only son came to Bhagavan in a state of acute grief, seeking relief. He asked a few questions in which his grief was evident. Bhagavan, as usual, asked him to enquire into the Self and find out who is grieving. The devotee was not satisfied. Bhagavan then said, “All right. I will tell you a story from Vichara Sagaram. Listen”. 



TWO YOUNGSTERS BY name Rama and Krishna, told their respective parents that they would go to foreign countries to prosecute further studies and then earn a lot of money. After some time, one of them died suddenly. The other studied well, earned a lot and was living happily. Some time later the one that was alive requested a merchant who was going to his native place to tell his father that he was wealthy and happy and that the other boy who had come with him had passed away. Instead of passing on the information correctly, the merchant told the father of the person who was alive, that his son was dead, and the father of the person that was dead, that his son had earned a lot of money and was living happily. The parents of the person that was actually dead, were happy in the thought that their son would come back after some time, while the parents of the person whose son was alive, but was reported to be dead, were in great grief. In fact, neither of them saw their son but they were experiencing happiness or grief according to the reports they received. That is all. We too are similarly situated. We believe all sorts of things that the mind tells us and get deluded into thinking that what exists does not exist and that what does not exist exists. If we do not believe the mind but enter the heart and see the son that is inside, there is no need to see the children outside.

Basic tenets of swing trading - Linda Bradford – Street smarts.

·         Stay in one time frame! Yes, it is important to be aware of the big picture, but it should not affect where you get into or out of a trade or how you manage it. Don't turn short-term scalps into "big picture" trades.

·         When in doubt, get out! If the market goes dull and quiet after you enter a trade and makes no progress in the direction of your entry, do not wait until your stop is hit. Just get out! Seek a more active market or better trading opportunity. All of the strategies of swing trading techniques should reward you immediately. If they don't, it is likely your trade will turn into a losing one.

·         Don't trade in quiet, dull markets. Dow, Livermore, Rhea, Taylor, Gann-all the greats say this over and over. There must be activity and liquidity in order to trade profitably.

·         Don't carry losing positions overnight. Exit and try entering at a more favorable level the next day.

·         If the market offers you a windfall profit on a trade, lock it in! (Windfall means a much bigger profit than anticipated.) Take profits on half or all of the position. Trail an extremely tight stop on any balance!

·         Finally, remember that both in short-term trading and mechanical systems, the distribution of winners is skewed. Most of a month's profits might come from only two or three big trades. Much of the time the individual profits may seem small, but more importantly the losses should be small, too.

It is vitally important to lock in the best trades. Be defensive and don't give back profits when swing trading!

Some basic rules for successful trading

Money	:	Never trade with money you cannot afford to lose
Trend	:	Always ride the trend and never try to decide a trend
Selection	:	Always select the stocks, for there are always bullish  stocks in a bearish market and bearish stocks in a  bullish market.
Timing:	:	Never initiate your trade at the opening bell, wait for a  market to make initial high and lows
Quantity		Always while trading keep the amount same in each trade  and not the quantity, ex: if have traded 50000/- in one,  trade 50000/- in another rather than trading 100 shares in  each trade. i.e. keep  the trading amount same in each  trade rather  than the trading quantity.
Learning	:	Blaming market is trying to hide your mistakes from yourselves ,making fool of one’s self, thereby losing an opportunity to learn,  markets are never wrong, the blame lies with trader.
Introspection	:	Always introspect at the end of every trading day, next day will  work wonders.
Risk/ reward ratio	:	Never ever enter a trade where the risk to reward ratio is  less than 1:4
No of Trades	:	Always trade in 2 to 3 stocks at any given point of time,  how lucrative the market be, be master of some than being jack of all, keep buffering profits,  you’ll find stock markets a wonderful place to be in...
Stop loss	:	Stop loss is essence for trading, never trade without a stop loss,  though adequate liverage should be taken while placing  stop losses in a volatile market.
Averaging	:	Averaging has no place in day trading, either u get out of the trade  with the  stop loss getting triggered or get the target
Success	:	Always use trailing stop loss, when the trade initiated,  starts bearing results, to get maximum profit.
Greed:	:	Always be ready to take the profits home, if the initial trades  have worked for you,  be ready to go home , do not trade for the broker
Confience:	:	If the markets are not making you confident do not trade,  just for the sake of trading ,  wait for clear signals
Rumors	:	Never trade on news or rumors, always follow the levels,  remember, news does not make levels,  it just triggers levels.
Levels	:	Never get panicked or exited by the happenings on the screen,  stick to the levels and stop loss, else you’ll always end up loser
Psycology	:	Never follow the mass [the people sitting besides u],  for 95% of them do not understand market
Decision	:	Be ready to book loss if the ship starts to sink, do no pray ,  just jump.
Patience:	:	Patience is the name of the game, always exercise patience  and restrain during the course of trading, for if a couple of trades  have worked against u, take a gap and try to get the trend.
Speculation:	:	Check on the speculative tendency, every rise or fall has a logic  behind it, just do not be speculative, without logic.
Failures	:	Always treat failures [losses] if any, as an learning opportunity,  for every failure opens the doors of success, failures should be  used as a source of motivation rather than depression.