Here is the top 10 list from billionaires as to be successful:

1. Figure out what you’re so passionate about that you’d be happy doing it for 10 years, even if you never made any money from it. That’s what you should be doing.

2. Always be true to yourself. 

3. Figure out what your values are and live by them, in business and in life. 

4. Rather than focus on work-life separation, focus on work-life integration. 

5. Don’t network. Focus on building real relationships and friendships where the relationship itself is its own reward, instead of trying to get something out of the relationship to benefit your business or yourself. 

6. Remember to maximize for happiness, not money or status. 

7. Get ready for rejection. 

8. Success unshared is failure. Give back — share your wealth. 

10. Successful people do all the things unsuccessful people don’t want to do.

When It Is Best To Do Nothing – Do Nothing

by Olivier on November 23, 2011

I could literally list thousands of quotes on why at times it is important to stand aside, why you need to know when it is best to do nothing and to stay in cash when the market is not conducive to trading big or trading at all. In my opinion it simply comes down to the following: You need to know yourself very well. Know about your strengths and weaknesses. Put another way: There’s a time to be aggressive and there’s a time to be defensive. I recently quoted Brett Steenbarger. I wanted to explain why I chose that specific quote as the true meaning of the quote might have gone unnoticed:

It’s making the most of strengths and learning how to work around shortcomings that produces optimal performance results. – Brett Steenbarger

The point he wants to drive home is that focusing on your strengths is a better use of your time as opposed to focusing too much on your weaknesses. Put another way: You will make more money if you focus on trading set-ups during market environments that are conducive to your type of trading and your personality. Trying to trade aggressively during other times is akin to trading situations and set-ups you are not good at. You guessed it. It means you are focusing too much on your weaknesses. The solution is to admit one’s shortcomings. The earlier you do that and the more honest you are when it comes to gauging your strengths and weaknesses, the better your results will be in the long run. That’s why I like the following quote:

Have the courage to say no.
Have the courage to face the truth.
Have the courage to do the right thing because it is right.
– W. Clement Stone

Why do I stress all those things? I typically get a lot of feedback when it comes to going to cash or being in cash. Most people have a really tough time understanding that concept. Optimal performance cannot be attained if you are 100% invested in the markets all of the time. “Less is more” is an adage that comes to mind dealing with that issue.
My point is: Selection is key. Be patient. Only trade the best set-ups. Let the trade come to you. When conditions are right go for the throat. If you are always 100% invested you won’t be able to trade that way. In closing I want to quote verbatim what Dan Zanger recently tweeted. Excellent advice indeed:

I have sat in a high percentage of cash for almost 4 months. Not the kind of market to build big positions. – Dan Zanger

Five Guiding Principles of Trading Psychology

By Brett Steenbarger

I recently participated in an online chat presentation for John Forman where I assembled my ideas into ten basic principles that have guided my thinking about the psychology of traders and the psychology of markets. In the very near future, if my testing continues to be promising, I hope to present a market indicator for swing traders that rests firmly upon these principles. In the interim, here are the five principles that pertain specifically to trading psychology and in future I will also give five principles for trading the markets.

Principle #1: Trading is a performance activity

Like the playing of a concert instrument or the playing of a sport, trading entails the application of knowledge and skills to real time performances and this is the core idea behind my most recent book. Success at trading, as with other performances, depends upon a developmental process in which intensive, structured practice and experience over an extended time yield competence and expertise. Many trading problems are attributable to attempts to succeed at trading prior to undergoing this learning process. My research suggests that professional traders account for well over three-quarters of all share and futures contract volume. It is impossible to sustain success against these professionals without honing one's performance--and by making sure that you don't lose your capital in the learning process. Confidence in one's trading comes from the mastery conferred by one's learning and development, not from psychological exercises or insights.

Principle #2: Success in trading is a function of talents and skills

Trading, in this sense, is no different from chess, Olympic events, or acting. Inborn abilities (talents) and developed competencies (skills) determine one's level of success. From rock bands to ballet dancers and golfers, only a small percentage of participants in any performance activity are good enough to sustain a living from their performances. The key to success is finding a seamless fit between one's talents/skills and the specific opportunities available in a performance field. For traders, this means finding a superior fit between your abilities and the specific markets and strategies you will be trading. Many performance problems are the result of a suboptimal fit between what the trader is good at and how the trader is trading.

Principle #3: The core skill of trading is pattern recognition

Whether the trader is visually inspecting charts or analyzing signals statistically, pattern recognition lies at the heart of trading. The trader is trying to identify shifts in demand and supply in real time and is responding to patterns that are indicative of such shifts. Most of the different approaches to trading--technical and fundamental analysis, cycles, econometrics, quantitative historical analysis, Market Profile--are simply methods for conceptualizing patterns at different time frames. Traders will benefit most from those methods that fit well with their cognitive styles and strengths. A person adept at visual processing, with superior visual memory, might benefit from the use of charts in framing patterns. Someone who is highly analytical might benefit from statistical studies and mechanical signals.

Principle #4: Much pattern recognition is based on implicit learning

Implicit learning occurs when people are repeatedly exposed to complex patterns and eventually internalize those, even though they cannot verbalize the rules underlying those patterns. This is how children learn language and grammar, and it is how we learn to navigate our way through complex social interactions. Implicit learning manifests itself as a "feel" for a performance activity and facilitates a rapidity of pattern recognition that would not be possible through ordinary analysis. Even system developers, who rely upon explicit signals for trading, report that their frequent exposure to data gives them a feel for which variables will be promising and which will not during their testing. Research tells us that implicit learning only occurs after we have undergone thousands of learning trials. This is why trading competence--like competence at other performance activities such as piloting a fighter jet and chess--requires considerable practice and exposure to realistic scenarios. Without such immersive exposure, traders never truly internalize the patterns in their markets and time frames.

Principle #5: Emotional, cognitive, and physical factors disrupt access to patterns we have acquired implicitly

Once a performer has developed skills and moved along the path toward competence and expertise, psychology becomes important in sustaining consistency of performance. Many performance disruptions are caused when shifts in our cognitive, emotional, and/or physical states obscure the felt tendencies and intuitions that lie at the heart of implicit learning. This most commonly occurs as a result of performance anxiety--our fears about the outcome of our performance interfere with the access to the knowledge and skills needed to facilitate that performance. Such performance disruptions also commonly occur when traders trade positions that are too large for their accounts and/or do not maintain sound risk management with their positions. The large P/L swings cause shifts in emotional states that interfere with the (implicit) processing of market data. Cognitive, behavioral, and biofeedback methods can be very useful in teaching traders skills for maintaining the "Yoda state" of calm concentration needed to access implicit knowledge.

The most important question I can ask an aspiring trader is: Are you engaged in a structured training process? Education--simply reading articles in magazines, websites, blogs, and books--is important, but it is not training. Training is the systematic work on oneself to build skills and hone performance. It requires constant feedback about your performance--what is working and what isn't--and it requires a steady process of drilling skills until they become automatic. No amount of talking with a coach or counselor will substitute for the training process: not in trading, not in athletics, and not in the dramatic arts. Training yourself to proficiency is the path to a positive psychology.

The market doesn't show any kind of positive movement based from the chart shown below.

Though a light volume was registered last Friday's trading, but the sentiments reflected on the chart speaks for itself.

The market seems looking for a "motivation" to move upwards.

It breaks out in the open but went back from its original price in the close.

Lack of conviction from the participants.

It is still a trader's market.

The market starts to stabilize as shown from this 5-min. chart.

Finally, the market got its bearing and rises from the ashes.

It's been burning totally for almost two weeks.

Let's see come Monday if it's going to continue after today's short trading schedule, the market will close at 2:00 pm. ET.

Today's trading is a light volume day for traders/investors are on a Holiday retreat.

Only those who sleep and breaths with the market are the participants.

It is a nice breakout from the opening bell today in the market, no noise!

Buying at the open and take your Starbucks coffee from the nearby and exit your position at the close can make you a paycheck for a week?...how's that in trading as compared working for fck*&?'thers...

Wall Street rebounds after six losing sessions

By Edward Krudy

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Friday, on course to snap a six-session losing streak, as a buoyant start to the holiday shopping season helped offset fears about the euro zone's debt crisis after another leap in Italian bond yields.

Reinforcing what some see as recent signs of strength in the U.S. economy, shoppers stateside flocked to stores, which opened early to offer a jumpstart to "Black Friday," the traditional beginning to the U.S. holiday shopping season. The S&P Retail index (Chicago Options:^RLX) rose 0.4 percent.

"Anecdotally it seems that Black Friday is off to a positive start," said Todd Salamone, director of research at Schaeffer's Investment Research.

Europe will continue to predominate, he said. "We may have days when the U.S. market separates itself for whatever reason, but everything is about Europe right now."

Yields on Italy's debt approached recent highs that sparked a sell-off in world markets. Italy paid a record 6.5 percent to borrow money over six months on Friday, and its longer-term funding costs soared far above levels seen as sustainable for public finances.

The Dow Jones industrial average (DJI:^DJI) gained 53.32 points, or 0.47 percent, to 11,310.87. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index (SNP:^GSPC) rose 6.47 points, or 0.56 percent, to 1,168.26. The Nasdaq Composite Index (Nasdaq:^IXIC) added 9.50 points, or 0.39 percent, to 2,469.58.

Friday's moves looked to steer indexes away from ending with a second consecutive week of losses. The S&P 500 had lost almost 4 percent this week and given back almost two-thirds of its gains in October, the market's best month in 20 years.

A European Union conference in Strasbourg produced little to ease the markets fears, said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York.

"What they agreed to was not bickering in public," he said. "The markets are going to continue to pressure the EU until they come up with a solution that is going to ease the crisis."

For many investors that means the European Central Bank printing euros to buy larger amounts of European bonds and for Germany to accept the issuance of euro bonds. Germany currently opposes both of those options.

U.S. stock markets, closed for the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, will end trading on Friday at 1 p.m. The day after Thanksgiving is typically one of the lightest trading volume days of the year.

The market continues to drop as shown on this 5-min. chart from the Globex market.

A big whooping 100 points drop earlier in the holiday trading.

A big sell off!