As a trend trader, it is likely that 20% of your trades will result in 80% of your profits so focus on riding winners and cutting losers. Learn to implement a proper position sizing methodology to your trading, ensuring that you can withstand a string of consecutive losses without going bust. A lot of people are going bust in many aspects of their lives because they are not focusing on the 20% that matters most. Forget the useless 80%, it’s bringing you down. Less is more, a popular aphorism coined by the famous architect , Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, is something I truly believe in.

It’s times like these when trend traders grow impatient and fail to cut losers and then impatiently take profits too soon (most likely shorts in early 2009). It doesn’t matter if you have multiple losing trades over the past several months as long as your overall risk on each trade is less than 2%. The Pareto Principle will even out your results in due time, assuming you have developed a known expectancy on your system and employ risk management (position sizing).

You may have an expectancy of 40% winning trades but I can almost guarantee that 80%-90% of your year-end profits come from 10%-20% of your successful trades. For example, you may have 4 winning trades out of every 10 but only 2 of those trades will supply you with at least 80% of your profits. The other two winners will be minimal or cancelled-out by commissions, slippage and taxes.

On the other hand, it’s probably likely that 90% of your losses will result from 10% of your trades because you ignored sell rules, threw good money after bad or had stops jumped. One or two in ten trades will be the culprit(s) for bringing on the most damage to your portfolio. The other losing trades will be minimal and cut quickly as you realize that they are not working out as expected.

So what is the Pareto Principle?
“The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule, the law of the vital few and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

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“Depression is the aftermath of credit expansion.” – Ludwig von Mises

I’d love to find someone that can venture through a single day without reading, hearing or talking about the current state of the economy, the stimulus plan, the bailouts or ponzi schemes. It’s sickening but what’s worse is the fact how NO ONE talks about fixing the problem correctly. Does anyone learn from the past?

I didn’t read the stimulus package in its entirety (it appears that our representatives didn’t either) so take what I say with a grain of salt.

We can blame Bush, blame Clinton, blame Obama, blame Regan, blame Nixon, etc. – it’s all the same; they work for the same crooks, I mean corporation, the US Government!

Time magazine recently published a list of the top 25 people most responsible for this crisis but I would argue that their thinking is flawed and dated by at least 100 years. As Victor Sperandeo noted in his book, Trader Vic – Methods of a Wall Street Master, Thomas Jefferson understood better than any political leader in world history that government “profusion” can only be paid by the “labors of the people.” He knew that a growing government budget and an extension of the services government offers “under the pretense of caring for [the people]” can only come at the expense of private property and individual liberty.

“I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers … We must make our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.” – Thomas Jefferson

“The issue is always the same: the government or the market. There is no third solution.” – Ludwig von Mises

This blog entry is not about playing the blame game, pointing fingers or determining who is responsible but rather a move towards first discussing and then implementing responsibility and accountability based on how economics 101 truly works (without government interference). I am certainly not ruling out oversight and regulation but I am asking the government to just butt out of the free-market system we call capitalism. They will not make things better. For example, Ludwig von Mises once said:

“Government spending cannot create additional jobs. If the government provides the funds required by taxing the citizens or by borrowing from the public, it abolishes on the one hand as many jobs as it creates on the other.”

He made this statement more than half a century ago but the current administration is doing exactly that, spending an unprecedented amount of money (trillions when they look in the mirror and state the truth) on a stimulus plan that will most likely fail to achieve what its authors claim. I am not arguing that is won’t create jobs but how many jobs will be lost due to the new package. What will the net gain or loss total be once we look back in five or ten years?

The talking heads of the media offer no help as they skew the unemployment numbers every chance they get so they can “GET” their headlines. Even the president is talking about the economy and unemployment numbers reaching levels not seen since the Great Depression. Really? What stats are they looking at? This is a sensitive topic as several of my family’s closest friends have lost jobs in recent months but the truth is the truth.

Business Week noted:

In the last year, the U.S. economy shed 3.4 million jobs. That’s a grim statistic for sure, but represents just 2.2% of the labor force. From November 1981 to October 1982, 2.4 million jobs were lost — fewer in number than today, but the labor force was smaller. So 1981-82 job losses totaled 2.2% of the labor force, the same as now.

Job losses in the Great Depression were of an entirely different magnitude. In 1930, the economy shed 4.8% of the labor force. In 1931, 6.5%. And then in 1932, another 7.1%. Jobs were being lost at double or triple the rate of 2008-09 or 1981-82. This was reflected in unemployment rates.

The latest survey pegs U.S. unemployment at 7.6%. That’s more than three percentage points below the 1982 peak (10.8%) and not even a third of the peak in 1932 (25.2%). You simply can’t equate 7.6% unemployment with the Great Depression.

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Play with fire and you get burned – that’s what they say. I guess it doesn’t appear to be smart to leverage yourself (2x’s) with crude oil futures through an ETN but that’s precisely what I started to do in December. My tool of choice: DXO Oil Double Long ETN

• December 12, 2008: Dollar falls, Crude up
• December 02, 2008: Dollars, T-Bonds and Crude Oil
• November 26, 2008: Oil a Value Buy?

It’s still the trade that intrigues me the most. The official buy signal that we look for on this blog has not triggered so yes, I am playing with fire. I considered the position a “value play” in December and that is the truth but I also admit that I have not followed my traditional rules of entering a position.

I grabbed shares that represented 25% of my typical position size so my risk is greatly limited but I am looking to add shares, only this time with an official buy signal. I did not get a signal to enter DXO but the current charts are showing that potential with a jump above the moving average or abreakout on the point and figure chart.

A strong move above $3.75 on the point and figure chart will be a major buy signal, especially if it is accompanied with heavy volume. Buyers and sellers are struggling to take control of the commodity as the economic turmoil attempts to give us some type of direction across all markets.

I’ll be honest; it might be too early (still) as the chart could drag along the bottom of the moving average for months before it decides to pick a direction. However, when it does, I’ll be ready to pounce and add shares to my first position.

Let’s wait and see but don’t let this one off of you watch list.

What is a point and figure chart? Click here to learn!