The StockTwits® Edge: 40 Actionable Trade Set-Ups from Real Market Pros

CHAPTER 34

The Mind of a Chartist

Raghee Horner, @ragheehorner

Raghee has a tremendous grasp of the markets. She continues to work hard every day, and her work ethic is an inspiration for everyone. She is an excellent teacher, and the StockTwits community deeply treasures her contributions to the forex conversation.

The key to effective entries is understanding the psychology of the market.

—Raghee Horner

THERE MUST BE A WAY

I was introduced to trading by a client of mine when I worked as a Divemaster in college. This singularly changed my mind about the types of things people could do to earn a living. Even at a young age, freedom was number one on my list of priorities. Trading was that one thing where I saw both freedom and the potential for unlimited income. This was in 1991. I was 19 years old, impressionable, already a business owner, and on my way to law school. The fact that I had met a trader (he traded bonds) showed me that it was possible. That really was all I needed.

I began trading end-of-day commodity futures. My first 18 months were very successful; therefore, when I had my first series of losses into my second year of trading, it was mainly due to arrogance and breaking my rules. I think we tend to think we are bigger than the market when we are successful for a long period of time. This was in the early 1990s, before the Internet as we know it now, so I received paper charts in the mail each Monday that I would update by hand until the next week. I had the ...