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Robbie Burns's columns :
03/07/2008	It's a Game of Two Halves
17/06/2008	Lessons From Northern Rock
09/05/2008	Trading - it's a Mind Game
16/04/2008	Move up to Another Level
31/03/2008	Margins are a changing!
26/02/2008	Trading too much? >>
14/01/2008	2008 COULD BE A GOOD YEAR!
27/12/2007	2007: VOLATILE BUT PROFITABLE!
21/11/2007	Love the Shorts - but Short Term Only!
17/10/2007	Oil be Blowed!

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Robbie Burns – The Naked Trader

Robbie has been trading full-time since 2001. His book "The Naked Trader" (which also has useful information on how to use advfn) has become one of the biggest-selling finance books, reaching the top 150 books on Amazon - order it here. Trades made for Robbie's website have amassed profits of more than £300,000. You can read about his buys and sells daily at www.nakedtrader.co.uk.

Trading too much?

26/02/2008
This column is about just five words. Want to know what they are? Well, ok then...

You Don't Have To Trade. Or how about a different five words: You Can Just Stand Aside.

There. I said it. A lot of traders and investors have lost money in the last few months. And one of the main reasons is, is that they've just been overdoing it.

It seems to me a lot of investors/traders, call them what you will, just trade too much. They think you have to do it every day to make money. But often the best trade is no trade. If you're losing on the markets sometimes the best thing to do is go flat. Exit. Stop. Recharge the batteries.

However what often happens when people are losing money is they actually place more and more trades, desperate to get the money back instead of coming out of the market and trying to preserve capital.

So if you're having a hard time in the current rocky markets remember: no-one is forcing you to trade.

2008 continues to be a good year for me and a lot of that is thanks to some nice FTSE shorts where I've generated some good profits. I've been trading the current 5,700-6,000 range and shorting when it gets back up to 6,000. Of course at some point that range will change but for the moment it works a treat!

My oil-related stocks all hold up well and indeed some of them have even gone up. I've also picked up one or two cheap looking small caps including recruiter Robert Walters.

Thanks for the feedback on the new book which gives me the chance to plug it again - yes, Naked Trader 2 - a great price from the ADVFN bookstore: click here to order.

You can read Robbie’s daily market comments together with his latest buys and sells at his website www.nakedtrader.co.uk

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