BRETT STEENBARGER'S TRADING PSYCHOLOGY RESOURCE CENTER

Below are resources to help traders become their own trading coaches, improve their trading processes, and develop a positive work-life balance.  All the TraderFeed posts also contain links to valuable resources and perspectives.  

RADICAL RENEWAL - Free blog book on trading, psychology, spirituality, and leading a fulfilling life

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The Three Minute Trading Coach Videos

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Forbes Articles:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brettsteenbarger/
  

My coaching work applies evidence-based psychological techniques (see my background and my book on the topic) to the improvement of productivity, quality of life, teamwork, leadership, hiring best practices, and creativity/idea generation.  An important part of the "solution-focused" approach that I write about is that we can often best grow by focusing on what we do well and how we do it--and then doing more of what works for us.  The key is to know our cognitive, interpersonal, and personality strengths and leverage those in the pursuit of performance. 

FURTHER RESOURCES

*  A Creative Way to Use TraderFeed 

*  Brett Steenbarger Bio

*  Brett's Books on Trading Psychology

I wish you the best of luck in your development as a trader and in your personal evolution.  In the end, those are one and the same:  paths to becoming who we already are when we are at our best.

Brett
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The Power of Diversification

 

2/12/2026 - Take a look at a six-month chart of XLE, the SPX energy sector.  Now take a look at a six-month chart of XLB, the SPX raw materials sector.  Compare those with a six-month chart of the financial (XLF) or consumer discretionary (XLY) sector.  What we're seeing is a concentration of risk-taking among large institutions into those industries that will provide the basic materials for the AI boom.  (Note similar strength among a number of the commodities and in the commodity index DBC overall).  Other sectors of the market are not in decline, but have not been going much of anywhere for the last few months.  

This is an example of thematic diversification.  Large institutional investors base their investment decisions on themes that are supported by economic data, fundamental data within industries and companies, and by geopolitical developments.  When they detect new themes, they often will shift funds out of certain assets and sectors of the market and into others.  This thematic diversification requires active traders to track where funds are flowing, so that they can ride those waves.  By trading different themes that are gaining interest, we are most likely to exploit opportunity even in overall markets that have been relatively flat.

Diversification enables us to go where the action is.

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2/11/2026 - Here's a simple example of how developing traders can diversify their trading and adapt to shifting market conditions.  Since the summer of 2010, when I first began collecting the data, the correlation between the day's range in SPY and the VIX for that day has been .76.  Think about what that means.  To a statistically significant level, if we know how options are pricing volatility (VIX), we can anticipate the amount of directional movement within the trading day.  Moreover, the SPY volume for that day correlates quite significantly with the size of the day's trading range.  

What does that mean in practice?  As we move forward in the trading day, we can track the relative volume of the market (how the volume for each minute of trading compares with the average volume for that minute) and we can track the level and direction of VIX.  That tells us in real time whether we're likely to experience a day of big moves or a relatively narrow, choppy day.  We can then adjust our trading accordingly--but only if we have diverse trading strategies:  some that make money in momentum/breakout conditions, some that make money in reversal conditions, etc.  

Like the football or basketball team, we see how the opponent's defense is aligned and we use that information to call the trading plays most likely to work.  That can only happen if we have a diverse playbook to draw from:  different edges for different situations.  Once we develop such a playbook, the result is a sense of mastery:  a positive trading psychology.

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2/10/2026 - Diversification, as explained below, means that we treat each day, week, month, and year as a portfolio of activities that are meaningful to us and that draw upon our best characteristics.  There may be ups and downs in our relationships, in our P/L, in our health, etc., but over the entire life portfolio we are generating positivity.  Putting all of our eggs in one basket leaves us vulnerable to blowups--in markets and in life.

But we achieve diversification over the course of our lifetimes as well.  A career that is rewarding and fulfilling at one phase of life may give way to a different one as we mature.  The joy of a romantic relationship will evolve into the joy of raising a family.  I began my career as a full-time faculty member at a medical school and greatly enjoyed coordinating counseling services for the students.  Over time, as my interest in markets grew, I saw that many of the approaches to psychology that I had been teaching and applying could be very relevant to helping traders with their performance.  Still later, I began applying these methods not only to trading firms, but investment banks and large hedge funds.  What might look like a happy and successful career is actually a succession of careers.

What that means is that if we are to live diversified lives, we have to be able to let go of one set of activities to move on to others.  In a very important sense, every life activity--including trading--needs a stop level.  If we never stop out of what we're doing, we never transition to what can lie ahead.  Becoming too attached to any life activity--including trading--prevents us from finding what we're meant to be doing.  As I mentioned during our visit to Devon in Colorado, the point at which we grow old is the point at which we determine our best years are behind us.  Only when we can stop out of activities that we outgrow can we rejuvenate with fresh challenges.

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2/9/2026 - One of the greatest mistakes traders make is working on their development by focusing on their negative emotions and performance.  If you keep emphasizing everything you do wrong, you eventually internalize the sense of being a f*ck up.  Correcting errors is certainly necessary for performance improvement, but it is not sufficient.  

A major theme of the Positive Trading Psychology book that will be coming out later this month is that we grow by leveraging our strengths and finding ways to trade that draw upon the best of who we are.  Every truly successful trader I've worked with has succeeded by bringing talents and skills from previous accomplishments and adapting these to markets.  When we draw upon what we do best and what means the most to us, our efforts give energy--and that energizes our creative search for opportunity.

So how is this related to diversification?  All of us possess a portfolio of experiences, skills, and abilities.  Life success comes from drawing upon these in everything we do:  relationships, leisure activity, career efforts, trading, family life, etc.  A way of viewing this diversification is to ask:  What will make today a great success even if my P/L is down for the day?  A diversified life gives us so many ways to win that each day brings us energy and well-being.  

How we live eventually shapes how we trade.  

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2/8/2026 - Investors and active day traders achieve diversification differently.  An investor creates a portfolio of positions with positive expected return, where these positions are not highly correlated with one another.  One bet might be on economic strength in emerging markets vs. developed markets and could be expressed with a position that is long EEM and short SPX.  Another bet might be a long position in crude oil, expressing a view of economic growth/demand and weather-related demand.  Capital is divided among these different positions, so that the combination can make money even if individual views prove incorrect.  This diversification requires knowledge of multiple markets/stocks and strategies.  Its goal is not only solid absolute returns, but a smooth curve of returns buffering losses (i.e., high Sharpe ratio).

The active day trader achieves diversification by trading many instruments in a given day and trading different patterns among those instruments.  Thus, I could be long the ES futures on an anticipated morning breakout and then I could trade an individual stock short based on flows moving out of its sector and toward others.  Still another trade might be a volatility bet expressed through options by purchasing a straddle.  Diversification is achieved sequentially rather than simultaneously in a portfolio.

Understanding how diversification balances our returns helps us appreciate how diversification balances our mindset.  When we have multiple ways to adapt to ever-changing markets, we achieve a higher level of control over our returns.  One of the most common--and least appreciated--sources of emotional disruption of trading is our rigidity: our failure to adapt to shifting opportunity sets in markets.

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2/6/2026 - We get married to benefit from a concentrated investment.  We have friends, family, and colleagues to benefit from multiple investments, each of which pays off uniquely.  Together, our concentrated efforts and our diverse efforts make for a deep life and a broad and stimulating life.  

So it is within our careers.  To succeed, we typically need to concentrate on an area of expertise where we bring unique depth and value.  We also have to apply our knowledge broadly enough to ensure that we're learning from new challenges and applying our expertise as widely as possible.  

Success is a function of breadth and depth.  We need enough variety to keep life interesting and stimulating; we need enough depth to make our efforts not just successful, but meaning-full.

I've been hearing from a number of portfolio managers and traders who have benefited recently from concentrated bets in growth areas of the stock market, but who have been losing money lately.  This has shaken their confidence and will make it difficult to reengage when opportunity arises.  So much of what happens in the stock market--and across global equity, currency, and rates markets--is a rotation of assets out of one area and into others.  Notice in the US stock market how raw materials and energy shares have been strong, but tech stocks have been weak.  Just a matter of months ago, that was hardly the case!

Diversification means that we have the tools to find opportunity in multiple markets and the flexibility to deploy resources in those different areas.  When we don't just have an edge, but a set of edges that are unique (not highly correlated with one another), we create a much smoother equity curve.  Balancing the ups and downs of our returns is crucial to preserving a positive psychology.  

The more we can achieve consistency of returns, the more likely it will be that we can maintain a consistent mindset. 

How To Make Changes In Your Life

 

2/4/2026 - Because of the accumulation of painful consequences over time, most people are pretty clear about what they need to change.  They are typically less clear about how to change and often very unclear about what they need to change to.  For example, we might fully understand that we need to eliminate overtrading, but we don't necessarily have a clear, step-by-step plan for addressing the causes of overtrading and implementing those steps.  Even if they have the plan, they often don't have a clear idea about what will replace the overtrading.  The problem pattern is there because it is meeting a need.  If we don't identify that need and find a constructive way to meet it, it will eventually seep into our trading in unhelpful ways.

In the post below, we looked at the importance of following a plan--a playbook--for implementing what we're meant to be doing.  That is necessary, but for many traders it won't be sufficient.  The overtrading occurs because there is a need for stimulation--and not just any stimulation.  The trader may be craving a need to be productive and creative and is channeling those needs through (over)trading.  Giving the trader a more disciplined framework does not, in itself, meet the need for creative productivity.  In a sense, we need two kinds of playbooks:  one to combat our weaknesses; the other to implement our strengths.  

Just as much as a need to combat poor trading is the need to channel what we're good at--and what matters to us--through our trading.  The ideal trading process is one that thoroughly immerses us in the best of who we are.  It is much easier to change from what we don't want to be when we have a clear vision of what we want to become.

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2/3/2026 - The 90 in 90 framework for making changes truly stick in our lives is directly applicable to trading.  As I've emphasized in the past, whatever we do repeatedly becomes part of us.  In that sense, we're always doing 90 in 90 when we follow habit patterns.  The key to changing our trading is making habit formation intentional.

For example, suppose we study our best trades and best trading opportunities and create a set of rules for identifying these patterns, knowing where to enter positions, knowing how to size those positions, and knowing where to stop out and where to take profits.  In short, we're creating what Mike Bellafiore has called a "playbook".  Is that playbook a guide for our trading?  Of course.  But it's something more:  it's a guide for rehearsing our best trading again and again as part of deliberate practice.

Imagine using your playbook to anchor your 90 in 90 change process.  You are going to conduct 90 reviews in 90 days, tracking the opportunities that fit within your playbook and walking yourself through each step of the play.  This is a detailed review in which you literally move forward bar by bar and track what you are meant to do according to your rules.  You talk aloud each step of the trade and train yourself to operate in a way that is planned, not reactive.

90 reviews in 90 days:  that is three months of intensively training yourself to operate at your best.  Now imagine doing those reviews within a team, where each replay of each trade reinforces what the team members are doing.  One day at a time, as they say in AA.  Because after many days, what started as our goals now are part of us.

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2/2/2026 - So far, the posts have talked about what creates change:  emotional experiences in the context of relationships that reorganize how we view ourselves and what we're doing.  This is how we initiate meaningful changes in life, but typically it takes more than this to sustain the changes that we make.

This is known as the problem of relapse.  It is very easy to go back to old ways, well-worn by habit.  To make change lasting, we need to create new habits--and that typically requires repetition.  So let's say I have a powerful insight and recognize that I need to be more loving and caring in my personal relationships.  That leads me to reach out to those I care about and rebuild connections.

That initiates change, but the change will only take root if my way of conducting relationships becomes a regular part of how I interact with others.  So each visit with friends, each conversation, each family interaction becomes an opportunity to practice being the kind of person I wish to be.  Quite literally, I am training myself to implement the change that had inspired me.

In Alcoholics Anonymous, when a person is quite serious about discontinuing drinking, they are encouraged to attend 90 meetings in 90 days.  Quite simply, if we repeat something every day for three months, it becomes a new routine--a new part of us.  "Bring the body and the mind will follow" is the slogan that recognizes that we internalize what we do regularly.  Indeed, this principle occurs across areas of life.  See, for instance, how 90 days of physical training can train us for a fit mindset.

Whatever change you want to become an ongoing part of you can benefit from a 90 in 90 process.  After ninety days of living a new life, we experience ourselves as new people.  In the next post, we'll look specifically at applying these ideas to our trading.

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2/1/2026 - In the two posts below, we took a look at how painful consequences open us to new modes of thought, feeling, and action--particularly when those consequences are processed in relationships that provide the new perspectives.  There is, however, another mode in which emotion catalyzes lasting life change:  powerful positive emotional experience, often captured in inspiration, can take us in entirely new directions.  This experience enables us to see ourselves and our lives in a fresh way reorganizing our priorities.  

When Margie and I took our first trip to Israel, literally walking the paths of religious history, the impact was so profound that I immediately returned to a more spiritual, religious life.  I've worked with traders who have been so inspired by the mentors they've worked with that they radically reshaped their approaches to markets.

A narrow focus on P/L and catching moves in markets not only exposes us to negative emotion (as we know well from greed, fear/FOMO, overtrading, etc.), but more crucially it keeps us from any experience of inspiration.  Eye-opening novelty and perspective is what can amaze us and lead us to reorganize our trading.  If we lack amazement, we cannot tap into inspiration.  The narrowness of our perspective prevents us from broadening our horizons.  

This leads to questions rarely asked:  What am I doing today and this week (month, year) that is wholly new, interesting, exciting, and potentially inspiring?  Is it a mentor we tap into or a new perspective on our markets and trading?  Is it an insight into a particularly successful trade?  What in my trading is giving me energy and renewal?  

We make great changes by greatly changing our experiences.

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1/31/2026 - Emotional arousal and awareness of the consequences of our actions often is the spark for personal change (see below).  By itself, however, it is not enough.  It is during that emotional awareness that we can become exposed to new thoughts, new ideas, new ways of doing things.  Take the example of the alcoholic who goes to AA.  Pain over the consequences of drinking brings the person to AA, but it is at AA that new experiences of community and new understandings of the need to replace alcohol with support--including the support of a "higher power"--take root.  The group experiences provide a new way of handling life's challenges.

So it is with trading.  We make the same mistakes over and over again until the pain (and the financial losses) become too great to bear.  One of the most interesting aspects of the Market Wizards interviews was how common it was for very successful traders to go through harrowing losses early in their careers.  (Paul Tudor Jones is a great example).  The pain of that experience completely opened the Wizards up to a new set of priorities regarding risk management and the need to trade in planned and not reactive ways.

We change by completely reorganizing what we do and how we do it, because the pain of what we went through is something we never want to repeat.  That happens in relationships; it happens with drugs and alcohol; it happens in markets.  We don't change because we want to.  We change because we have to.

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1/29/2026 - The integrative perspective in psychology is that the various approaches to change, such as cognitive therapy and psychoanalysis, are different ways of tapping into a common change process.  Research tells us that, by directly tapping into this process, we can accelerate change and make our change efforts more effective.  In these posts, I will highlight what we need to do to make meaningful changes, whether it's in our personal lives or in our trading.

The first element in the change process is emotional arousal.  We cannot sustain change if we stay in our usual states of mind and body.  It is when we are experiencing our lives most deeply and powerfully that we're open to the deepest and most powerful changes.  Very often, the emotional catalyst for change is emotional pain.  We have repeated a problem pattern so often and to such an extent that we feel despair.  We feel that we can't go on this way.  In AA, this is known as "hitting bottom".  Our pain becomes our greatest motivator to do things differently.

Sometimes there is a positive source of the emotional arousal.  We have such a powerful experience that it completely changes our perspective and our priorities.  Examples of this would be falling in love and committing to a life together; deep religious experiences; and unusual success in one of our pursuits.  Change occurs through inspiration:  by shaking up our priorities.

In both cases, emotion is a gateway to change.  The enemy of change is routine--and routine states of mind.  A simple example would be trading reviews at the end of a day, week, or month that are conducted quickly and in a rote fashion.  We write down some goals and observations and move on to other life activities.  There is nothing in the process that moves us.  It's not the lack of work or effort that prevents traders from succeeding; it's the absence of emotional arousal.  We either have to be so disgusted with our bad trading or so inspired by our successes that change becomes a must, not something to check on a list.

If we're not passionate about change, nothing ultimately changes.

The Special Talents and Skills of Short-Term Trading

 

1/28/2026 - How do short-term traders work on their long-term development?  This is one of the greatest weaknesses I have found among very active traders.  They are often quite good at reviewing the past day's activity and performance (see below), but there is little formal carryover of goals from week to week and month to month.  In other words, they are good at setting goals and priorities for tomorrow's trade, but they rarely step back and examine how they can broaden the strategies and markets they trade, how they can better make use of teamwork, and how they can adapt from one market environment to another.  When opportunity sets change, they are poorly equipped to make the larger changes needed in their trading.

It is worth noting that, among the professional traders I work with, monthly meetings and reviews are most popular.  The teams are focused on annual performance and monthly meetings give them twelve opportunities to learn from the past month, develop ideas for the next month, and renew teamwork and team focus.  That's twelve opportunities to do the bigger picture thinking that goes missing in the heat of daily market activity.  It's a process worth adopting for short-term traders as well.  It's great to adapt from day to day, but the ultimate goal is building a career.

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1/27/2026 - Short-term trading requires short-term coaching.  When I began working with traders whose average holding periods for trades was a matter of minutes, I was struck by one of their performance processes.  They prepared for trading at the start of the day, tracking order flow and short-term price action across a variety of markets.  They then took a midday break when markets slowed down and reviewed their morning trading and their morning P/L.  They adjusted their trading (direction, what was moving best) during that break and then took a longer review period after the market closed.  Often they would use the replay feature on their platform to see what they missed during the day and how they could have picked it up or traded it better.

Each day thus had three separate coaching periods.  This provided more opportunities for pattern recognition and more opportunities for learning.  Indeed, the morning sessions had their own stop loss levels, which preserved capital for the afternoon session.  Every day was really two days.  Their short-term trading was amazingly successful because they had turned performance improvement into a short-term process.

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1/26/2026 - What creates success among short-term traders is not only pattern recognition, but the ability to process many patterns quickly.  One of the reasons I chose to track the mentoring process at SMB Capital for my latest book is that I wanted a better sense for how active traders gain their performance edge.  What stood out is something I had observed in interacting with their best traders:  the ability to look at many different trading instruments and quickly find patterns worth trading.  The use of scanners greatly assisted this process, but there was also scanning being done by the trader to see how things were moving across different time frames.  Their expertise came not only from knowing how to trade, but by focusing on the best things to trade.  The ability to process large amounts of information quickly and identify patterns of patterns allowed them to participate in the greatest areas of opportunity.

The broaden and build model in psychology suggests that positive emotional experience helps us process more information and process that information better.  A positive mindset expands our awareness and makes us better at finding opportunity.  When we are in the right mindset, there is joy in preparing for trading:  the process of finding opportunity is intrinsically rewarding.  It is that joy that energizes our pattern recognition and helps us trade better ideas in better ways.

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1/25/2026 - As noted below, there are tremendous trading advantages to blending rapid pattern recognition skill with traditional analytical skill.  The current market is a great example of this, as we've seen very bullish moves in small cap stocks and in metals (copper, silver, gold), raw materials shares (XLB) and energy stocks (XLE).  That has led to considerable bullish speculation regarding the impact of the AI trade, as noted below.  But sector analysis provides caution.  Since 2020, when more than 85% of XLE and XLB stocks are trading above their 20-day moving averages, next 20-day returns in SPY have been subnormal.  Indeed, the next 20 days in SPY have averaged a loss of -.56% (N=134), an eye-opening return during a bull market period.  If I were only looking at charts and patterns, I might look for the uptrend to continue.  Based on the analysis, however, I can approach this week's market with a balanced perspective and let the market show its hand.

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1/25/2026 - I'll share what I've been discussing with a number of traders in recent days, addressing their frustration over not making more money in the AI stocks and missing the moves in silver, gold, and mining shares.  Note that, while this issue has psychological implications, no amount of work on psychology is going to provide answers as to asset allocation and trade selection.  Rather, a proper understanding of the situation might just help the psychology!  

The AI theme is alive and well, but the focus among the people I read and speak with has been toward the geopolitical competition for the raw materials that are in short supply if there is to be broad AI development.  So what we're seeing (Greenland is an example) are efforts to lock in these resources and generate the power and mining needed to exploit them.  That is why we're seeing recent relative strength, for example, in the XLE (energy) and XLB (materials) ETFs.

These might represent promising investment themes, but for the short-term trader the question becomes, "What price/volume action do I need to see to participate in these trends with favorable reward relative to risk?"  The short-term trader can thus participate in big picture market developments by breaking trends down into component moves.  A different way of saying this is that cycles occur even within strong trends, and those can offer excellent timing opportunities for the short-term trader.  

A promising combination is having the perspective of an investor and the nimbleness of a trader.

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1/23/2026 - Quickly review the previous sets of posts on hidden edges in the market.  All of these were over longer time frames, and all of them involved data collection and analysis.  By seeing how markets have behaved historically, we can develop hypotheses about how they might behave going forward.  Then we can use real time price action to gauge whether these scenarios are actually playing out.  Notice that this is a highly analytical process.  The hedge fund team managers who collect data and develop ideas based on the data are called analysts for a reason!

Short-term trading--particularly trading intraday--is a completely different activity.  Data collection and analysis are less important and pattern recognition becomes key.  For instance, if I see small cap stocks breaking out to new highs, resulting in strong market breadth, I can observe where selling in other areas of the market might pose opportunities to buy.  Alternatively, if I see that the market has traded in a relatively narrow range and now breaks higher on increased volume following a similar move in small caps, I can infer that large market players are perceiving opportunity on the long side and join their move.

Where investing requires slower, deeper thinking, short-term trading involves faster, nimbler processing.  This has important implications for training.  The only way to build faster pattern recognition is to be exposed to many patterns many times so that you can internalize those.  A major reason traders fail at daytrading is that they don't spend enough time experiencing patterns to be able to recognize those in real time.  When I wrote the book The Positive Psychology of Trading, I spent time with Jeff Holden and his group of trainees at SMB Capital to see how they were learning to trade the market actively.  What I saw is that he walked students through trades bar by bar, showing what was happening and what that meant.  This was something the group did day after day, until they could perceive opportunity on their own.

Training in short-term trading is training in perception.  Only by seeing things again and again can we recognize them in real time and take the right steps.  That is true for medical students learning to make diagnoses and treatment plans, and it's true of active traders.  Sound training builds a sound psychology.  No amount of psychological work can substitute for understanding what is happening in markets.

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1/22/2026 - Talents represent our inborn strengths.  As Goethe points out, we find our greatest happiness and fulfillment when what we're doing in life is aligned with our talents.  To make the most of our talent, we typically have to develop skills in any field.  Those are not inborn; they are conveyed through mentoring and practice.  Skills put talents into action; together they create success.  The football player who has natural athletic talents spends hours and hours in practice and in sessions with coaches to hone the skills that will turn raw talent into successful performance.  A key performance principle is that elite performers typically spend more time in practice and rehearsal than in formal performance.  That process of deliberate practice not only hones skills, but develops the winning mindset of the performer.  It is the role of the coach to structure practice sessions and provide the feedback that will allow performers to make the most of their talents.

Without mentoring/coaching and structured deliberate practice, talents never find their way to skills and elite performance.  In the upcoming posts, we'll take a look at the special talents and skills required by short-term trading and the ways in which these can be honed through the right kinds of learning processes.  

Finding Hidden Edges In The Market

 

1/21/2026 - One last edge that is hidden because few people are looking there:  Let's take the percentage of stocks in the SPX each day that are trading above their longer-term moving averages.  In this case, we'll look at the percentage above their 50-day averages (once again, data can be found on the Market Charts site).  We then look at see what the index (SPY) does five days later.  Sure enough, when the percentage of stocks above their 50-day averages is in its highest quartile, the next five day returns in SPY are subnormal:  .11% vs almost four times that amount when they're in their lowest quartile.  This makes sense...overbought markets tend to pull back and oversold markets are more likely to bounce.

But, wait!  What do we see when we look at the next 50-day returns?  Sure enough, returns are significantly more favorable following the strongest 50-day periods and after the weakest 50-day periods.  In other words, at longer time horizons, we see both momentum and reversal.

What this means is that, following a strong 50-day period of breadth, on average pullbacks are meant to be bought.  This goes hidden, however, because traders are unwilling/unable to take losses and bail out long before the bounce tends to occur.  To take advantage of the edge, it's necessary to think like an investor as well as like a trader.  And that dual mindset is rare indeed!

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1/20/2026 - Do we find hidden edges among small cap stocks as well as the large cap issues in the SPX?  For this analysis, we go back to 2015 and examine the percentage of stocks in the S&P 600 universe ($SML) that are trading above their 3, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, and 200-day moving averages.  These data are readily available on the excellent MarketCharts site.  I specifically examined the variability of the breadth readings: the standard deviation of each day's data.  The variability captures two market scenarios:  when short term breadth turns much higher following a longer-term period of weakness and when it turns much lower following a longer-term period of strength.  Note that this is a different way of identifying breadth thrusts.

When variability has been in its highest quartile (thrust conditions), the next 20 day return in $SML has been +1.70%.  That compares to a 20-day return of -.05% when breadth readings have been least variable.

There are many other patterns that can be found in the small cap data.  

Once again, the idea is not that you should trade small caps or trade them based on these particular historical patterns.  Rather, the idea is that a large number of traders focus on the information that is most readily available and that takes the least analysis (chart patterns, news reports), leaving significant opportunities to those willing and able to collect and analyze data.  Meaningful edges are to be found over time frames longer than most traders look, and that's why they're hiding in plain sight.

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1/19/2026 - Many traders view technical indicators as something to chart; then they look for chart patterns.  In fact, many technical indicators produce data that, when backtested, yield important hidden edges.  The stockcharts.com site gives daily readings on a number of technical measures that can be downloaded and tested.  For example, when a large number of stocks in the NYSE display an improving Chaikin Money Flow (top quartile of distribution since 2021), the next 30 days in SPY average a gain of only +.55% compared with almost three times that much for the rest of the sample.  When a large number of stocks display a weakening Money Flow (weakest half of the distribution), returns average twice as much over the next 30 days than the rest of the sample.

Consider Bollinger Bands.  When very few stocks in the NYSE close above their upper Bollinger Bands since 2021 (lowest quartile of distribution), the next 30 days in SPY have shown a dramatic upside edge:  three times the average returns of the remainder of the sample.  

Most powerful is when relatively uncorrelated indicators display historical edges that line up with one another.  Conviction is not just a state of mind.  It follows from rigorous analysis and understanding of market behavior.

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1/18/2026 - Now let's take a look at a different hidden edge in the market:  not strength, but the absence of weakness.  For this analysis, we'll go back to August, 2010 when I began collecting these data (available via Barchart.com) and take a look at the number of stocks in the NYSE universe that are making fresh monthly highs and fresh monthly lows.  What we find is that next 20-day returns in SPY average +1.44% when monthly lows are in their lowest quartile.  That is about double the return of the next two quartiles.  When few stocks are weak, overall market declines are rarer.  It takes weakness in some areas of the market to lead the broad averages lower.

Interestingly, next 20-day returns are also superior (+1.27%) when new monthly lows are in their highest quartile.  In other words, when we have lots of stocks making new lows and the market is flushing out, that has often been a good time to find value.  A similar pattern shows quite superior returns 50 days out when three-month new lows are either very low or very high.  

So why are these edges hidden to most traders?  They haven't taken the time to download and analyze the data, and they are looking for things to trade in the next few minutes and days--not what has dramatic edge over a period of weeks to months.  The need to trade actively hides the edges that play out over time.

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1/16/2026 - Some of the best hidden edges in the market occur, not when institutions are piling into stocks or fleeing them, but when they are rotating existing assets from one sector of the market/economy to others.  This sector rotation can easily be tracked by following the breadth within each sector.  In this post, we'll use the percentage of stocks trading above their 20-day moving averages as a breadth proxy for each sector.  (Data available from Barchart.com).

So let's take the breadth within the energy sector (XLE) minus the breadth of the overall market (SPY).  When energy breadth is in the top half of its distribution since 2020, returns in SPY over the next 10, 20, and 30 days are distinctly subnormal.  Indeed, when energy sector breadth is highest relative to overall market breadth, the returns over the next 3-5 days have been negative--quite a feat in a bull market period!

Energy stocks do well when energy prices are rising.  But that is not an environment that is necessarily good for the overall economy.  Seeing where money is flowing alerts us to potential headwinds and tailwinds in the broad market.

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1/15/2026 - Some of the most promising edges in the stock market are found in places traders generally don't look.  Actually, this dynamic occurs across markets.  For example, the majority of traders in the fixed income (interest rates) markets look for events (central bank policy changes; shifts in patterns of growth) to buy or sell rates.  A more subtle approach looks at how rates vary from one another within and across bond markets and trades those relative relationships.  So, for instance, if nothing has changed in central bank policies and in macroeconomic news, one part of the rate curve may be priced cheaply relative to another point, or rates in one region of the world will be expensive relative to another region.  This offers the opportunity to buy what's cheap, sell what's expensive, and profit from the "mean reversion" when rates return to a more normal relationship.  

This is a great example of how we can improve our trading psychology by expanding our understanding and perception of opportunity.

So let's start looking at relative relationships within the stock market.  I went back to 2020 and calculated the difference between the percentage of stocks above their 5-day moving averages within the consumer staples sector minus the percentage of stocks above their 5-day moving averages within the consumer discretionary sector.  These data are readily available on the Barchart.com site.  When investors are expecting growth and a strong economy, they are drawn to the consumer discretionary shares which benefit from consumer spending on things like travel, entertainment, etc.  When investors are expecting economic weakness, they expect that spending on essential staples will continue, while discretionary spending will decline.  By tracking the percentage of stocks in the consumer staples sector above given moving averages minus the percentage of stocks in the consumer discretionary sector, we have a handy economic sentiment measure.

Interestingly, in the quartile of occasions in which the difference between the percentage of stocks above their 5-day moving averages for XLP (staples) minus those for XLY (discretionary) is greatest, the next 20 days of performance in SPY averages only +.42%.  All other occasions average +1.36%.  When investors flee growth relative to stability, that theme tends to continue in the short run.  When we look at the difference between the percentage of stocks above their 20-day moving averages for XLP minus those for XLY, we find a similar pattern 20-50 days ahead.  Forward returns in SPY are subnormal when investors are fleeing to the safety of staples.

The point isn't that you should run to trade this pattern.  The point is that patterns exist where most traders aren't looking.  While the noobs are looking at directional charts, a world of opportunity is being found by the pros in relative space.  When you have more ways to identify opportunity, you build an opportunity mindset.  Better trading leads to better psychology. 

Self-Care and Performance

 

1/14/2026 - One consistent piece of advice I've given traders is to always, always, always have something more important in your life than trading and P/L.  That might be a very special relationship with a spouse or family; it might be your faith and religion; it might be a career pursuit outside of markets or a life activity you're passionate about.  But trading must fit into your life.  It cannot run your life, and it cannot substitute for the joys that come from our physical, relationship, and spiritual well-being.

When trading becomes all-important, we find our moods and outlook dominated by P/L.  Our self-esteem becomes conditional:  we feel only as good as our performance.  The ups and downs of P/L become ups and downs of our energy level and that stress takes a toll on everything else we do.  One consistent finding from my research on successful traders is that they lead very full lives.  They have lots of sources of joy and energy that sustain them through difficult trading periods.  In broadening our lives, we can cope with any life setback and we maximize overall positive psychology.

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1/13/2026 - The best way to deal with stress is to make sure it doesn't become distress.  All of us feel overloaded and stressed at times with life's challenges and the ups and downs of markets.  The problem is not the stress--that is inevitable--but our letting it accumulate to the point where it turns into anxiety, self-doubt, and a loss of energy.  

Research in positive psychology is clear:  when we balance our sources of stress with activities that bring well-being, we do not experience distress.  This is why it's so important that there be elements in your trading processes that are rewarding and fulfilling to you whether or not you're enjoying solid P/L.  Perhaps what brings you happiness and fulfillment is working closely with other traders and participating in their growth.  Perhaps your well-being comes from learning and the stimulation of finding new ideas and opportunities.  Perhaps your balance comes from life activities outside of trading that are rewarding when markets are not.  

The best way to deal with stress is enjoy a broad portfolio of activities that will always pay off in some fashion.  Happy and fulfilled people do get stressed--life would be boring otherwise!--but they don't fall into the trap of distress.

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1/12/2026 - Our life's tank can be empty, not because we've been working so long and hard, but because the work we're doing does not truly inspire and challenge us.  Similarly, the tank of our romantic and family lives can be empty because we fail to engage in the kind of new, stimulating activities that keep relationships fresh.  When Margie and I felt overloaded with our responsibilities, we didn't automatically assume that we needed rest.  In fact, many times those occasions led us to travel to interesting locations, whether it be a tour of Iceland, a small boat trip to the glaciers surrounding Alaska, or a drive down Italy's Amalfi coast.  Recharging meant making new and different efforts and sharing fresh activities--even if it was just going to a new creperie or looking for cats to rescue.

The answer to burnout is often not to do less, but to do different.  At some point, routine becomes deadening.  Our challenge amidst life's routines is to always pursue activities that energize us, challenge us, and stimulate us.  Work-life balance is great, but what is most important is ensuring that the "life" part of that equation truly gives us life.  Burnout does not come from too much work, but too little rejuvenation.

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1/11/2026 - A great life is the culmination of individual days, weeks, months, and years lived greatly.  Can we lead a meaningful life if we aren't doing things meaningfully on a regular basis?  Can we lead a productive life if productivity isn't our norm?  Such an important question is:  What can I do today that will move me forward toward my goals for the new year and for my life?

I recently tried on a sport coat that I had not worn in quite a while.  In the jacket pocket, I found notes in a diary that I wrote in preparation for a talk to a hedge fund in NYC.  The notes were headed "Questions to Consider" and the first item was as follows:

If every day was like this day:

a)  How would that impact my physical health/wellbeing?

b)  How would that impact my emotional wellness?

c)  How would that impact my significant relationships?

Today is not a toss away trade.  Today is an investment in the future.  What are you doing today that will pay off manyfold in the days to come?

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1/9/2026 - It is very easy--particularly for driven, achievement-oriented people--to work so hard and push so persistently for success that they stop taking proper care of themselves and the people that matter to them.  If we think of our lives as gardens--and our friends, family, and colleagues as the flowers and plants of the garden--then we can ask ourselves how often we're fertilizing, planting, watering, and weeding.  Or, to use another analogy, our relationships are essential sources of emotional and spiritual fuel.  We can work so hard that we burn out and run out of fuel.

Great questions for self-assessment are:  During this past week, how often did I connect meaningfully with people I care about?  How often did I engage in activities that are fun and enjoyable?  That are fresh and stimulating?  Essential to an energized mind state is variety.  That includes activities that work us out physically, that grow us intellectually, that inspire us spiritually, and connect us socially.  When we care for ourselves, we keep ourselves in peak creative condition and peak focus.

If athletes spent all their time working out and playing competitively, their bodies would break down and their performance would suffer.  Perfect performance never comes from perfectionism.  

How we spend our time shapes the value of our life's efforts.  Drive hard and refuel often. 

Marjorie Sue Steenbarger: Leaving Your Legacy

 

1/8/2026 - With Margie's passing, all the family--myself, kids, and grandkids--assembled their photos of her and with her, creating quite an album.  I contributed many pictures and was surprised at how many of them (like the one above) were taken during our travels.  We had pictures from the UK, from Alaska, from Israel, from Europe, from Iceland, and of course from all over the U.S.  I'm convinced that one of the best ways of keeping relationships fresh is to share in fresh experiences.  Seeing and doing new things kept a 42 year marriage fresh.  Inscribed in our wedding rings--and now also on our gravestone--is "Perpetual Passion".  

Keeping the passion alive in any endeavor, whether it be marriage, career, or trading, requires a breaking from routine and a willingness to explore new and different things.  See the world, see and experience the whole trading world, see and experience different people and cultures.  

May we all live life with perpetual passion.

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1/7/2026 - The most recent post encouraged us to focus on the legacy we would like to leave behind and concentrate our efforts on what is truly most important to us.  Might it be possible that the best way to leave our legacy is to connect deeply with the legacies of those we most admire?

A number of years ago, I wrote something that Margie liked so much she had it framed as a gift to me.  It reads "The best way to stand on the shoulders of giants is to hoist them upon our own".  In other words, if we want to elevate our lives, we can do no better than to elevate those we most respect and cherish and draw upon their inspiration and example.

Imagine that you are writing a book that captures the meaning, purpose, and essence of who you are.  Who would you dedicate that book to?  Who would be counted in your "acknowledgements" section?  How can we hoist those people on our shoulders each day, week, month, and year by following their examples?  

In furthering the legacies of those we love and respect through our actions and accomplishments, we build a life worthy of legacy.  By honoring others through our example, we live an honorable life.

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1/6/2026 - I have been touched by the number of traders who have reached out, including ones who shared their personal experiences with Margie.  It's amazing how we have so much more impact than we realize when we live the right kinds of lives.

How would you like to be remembered after you leave this earth?  What impacts would you want to have; what memories would you like to leave?  These are important measures of wealth, and yet we can spend more time anguishing over day to day P/L and ups/downs than on doing the things that enrich our lives--and the lives of others.

Here we are in a new year, so here's a great new year's challenge:  

Imagine that you will pass away at the end of the year.  Knowing that, how would you want to spend 2026?  What would you most want to do to cement your legacy--your impact on those you love, on your community, and on the world?

In this exercise, every single day that passes places you one day closer to your own passing.  There's no time to fret about bad trading or daily frustrations.  Your single mission is to live your life in a way that will truly live on in its positive influence.  

This exercise is more than the making of a new year's resolution.  It is turning your life into an expression of your resolve.

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1/5/2026 - Margie Steenbarger, my wife of 42 years, passed away this weekend.  For me, it's been a tremendous loss and also an inspiration.  Family members have come from all over to be with each other and to celebrate her life.  We have been sharing photos and stories and have created a website where all our memories can be shared for years to come.  Leaving a legacy means leaving others with experiences and lessons that make everyone better.  A life well-lived is a life that keeps living even beyond our passing.  It lives on with those whose lives we have touched.

So what is the mark on the world that you will be leaving when your days come to an end?  How will you live on in ways that enrich the lives of others?  It's great to focus on P/L and the next set of trade ideas, but that will never build your legacy.  It is how we impact others that makes the mark that can't be erased.  

What are you doing right now that will make a positive difference later?

With Margie's passing, a close family has grown even closer and family members that were only loosely connected are now committed to one another.  That was Margie's legacy:  building lasting bonds--in the students she taught, in her family, and, yes, with me.  With her passing, I am committed to becoming a better bond-builder and crafting a legacy as meaningful and valuable as hers.

A saying in the Jewish religion is "May their memory be a blessing", taken from Proverbs 10:7 ("The memory of the righteous is blessed").  When we leave a positive legacy, we don't leave others with a sense of loss, but a sense of having been blessed.  

The legacy we build is the most important P/L of all. 

Special Sale on Positive Trading Psychology Book

 

1/1/2026 - Happy New Year!  This end of year period is a perfect opportunity to reflect on the past year and especially on what we can do in 2026 to make the coming year as rewarding in all ways.  The Barnes & Noble sale on the Positive Trading Psychology book ends today (see below).  What I've found in my personal life as well as my professional work is that positive psychology is a game changer.  So much of what we focus on is the negative:  correcting the mistakes we make.  That is necessary for success, but it is not sufficient.  Your experiences of meaning and fulfillment are your best coaches of all, telling you what you need to do to make the most of your trading, your relationships, and your life activities.  Our passion points the way to our path; our positive psychology points the way to a positive life.

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12/31/2025 - Many thanks to Barnes & Noble for sponsoring this sale of the upcoming Positive Trading Psychology book.  The sale runs today and tomorrow and covers both the print/electronic book and the audiobook for B&N members.  When ordering the text, all you have to do is enter the code PREORDER25 and you'll get 25% off the book price.

My hope is that the book can be a helpful resource for you personally as well as for your trading.  The idea is to clearly identify you at your best--your ideal self--and then build your life around that vision and inspiration.  I wish you a very happy New Year and look forward to being a resource for you and your trading in 2026!  

Brett

 

What Creates Trading Success

 

12/30/2025 - What creates success in trading is what creates success in life.  Not minimizing life's negatives and avoiding conflicts, but pursuing meaningful opportunity and developing "processes"--sets of life activities--that offer joy, fulfillment, stimulation, and significant connection with others.  The psychological well-being that I cover in detail in my upcoming book, Positive Trading Psychology, is something that can be achieved in every facet of trading--and every facet of life.  There is a big part of each of us that seeks comfort and that avoids strenuous effort.  That doesn't work in the gym, and it doesn't work in life.  Psychological well-being represents our personal, psychological fitness and that fitness means that we seek challenges in our work, in our relationships, and in our personal pursuits.  We grow through tackling new things in new ways, whether in trading or in romantic relationships.  

As we approach the new year, it's worth asking how you will grow in every aspect of your life--including your trading.  How will your life become more enjoyable, more meaningful, more stimulating, more connected to those who matter?  It's difficult to trade positively if we're not leading positive lives.

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12/29/2025 - The complexity of markets guarantees that no one will ever achieve complete mastery in their trading.  Indeed, as I've shared in the past, even the best discretionary, directional traders are not profitable on much more than half of their trades.  They have the conscientiousness to limit their downside and the aggressiveness to size up trades as they work.  But their trading is always a work in progress.  That is why the drive for improvement is essential to trading success.

The drive for improvement shows up in the effort, detail, and amount of time spent in performance review; the seriousness of journaling and pre-market preparation; and the continuous work on finding new sources of edge.  Think of all the ways in which the drive for improvement shows up in an Olympic athlete; a winning sports team; a world-class performing artist; or a state-of-the art medical program.  Motivation comes, not only from winning, but from becoming better and better versions of ourselves.

There will always be winning and losing periods in markets.  The great traders turn both into fuel for development of their craft.

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12/28/2025 - Perhaps nothing is as commonplace--and superficial--as declaring that one has a "passion" for trading.  Usually that means a passion for making money.  One might have a passion for sex as well, but that is not what makes a lifelong, successful relationship.  Still, passion is clearly evident among the world's best traders.  It's not a job or even a career.  It's a calling.  It's what they feel that they are meant to do.  And that pertains to every aspect of trading process, from generating ideas through research and collaboration to finding better and better ways to express and manage the positions that come from idea generation.  Many traders hope to make money so that they don't have to work from 9 to 5.  The great traders track markets and generate ideas well before 9 am and well after 5 pm.  We pursue a job; a calling tugs at us.

Nothing is more important to developing traders than figuring out where your calling in markets might lie.  Or perhaps in figuring out that your calling is to be found elsewhere in life.  All the silliness about controlling emotions and avoiding FOMO goes away when markets call to our highest aspirations.  

Callings call to the best of us.  

When Margie and I got married, this was our wedding dance song.  Not a fun song or an ordinary song of love, but an expression of what a romantic calling is all about.  Almost 42 years later, it's still one of the few songs I listen to for inspiration.  

May you always live life passionately!

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12/26/2025 - Closely related to curiosity (see below) is insight.  Insight into markets comes from intuition and intuition comes from pattern recognition.  Our curiosity leads us to observe markets again and again--and in many different ways--and that leads us to observe patterns.  Just because we perceive a pattern doesn't necessarily mean that the pattern is uniquely informative, but it does provide us with a useful hypothesis worth testing.  Some of the best trade ideas begin with a flash of intuitive insight.  Our minds are putting together the information we've been processing again and again in different ways, enabling us to perceive what we would otherwise miss.

The other day I was reviewing my market breadth data and comparing the information from one database (sector specific breadth) with the information from another (overall market breadth across multiple time periods).  A thought popped into my head that what is important in the breadth data is "height" and "width".  The thought came with the striking clarity that has usually accompanied my best insights--whether about people or markets.

"Height", I decided, meant the vertical component of the spreadsheets, which is time.  "Width" meant the distribution of the breadth data across various sectors or various lookback periods.  I immediately constructed spreadsheets to capture upside and downside breadth thrusts (which I had been reading about on the SentimenTrader site) over varying time periods and for various indexes and sectors.  From my analysis of the data, it became clear that thrusts that occur in the context of multiple overbought and oversold markets and periods display promising price continuation and reversal.  An upside short-term breadth thrust in an oversold market, for example, often begins a short-term trend--particularly when it occurs across multiple sectors.

The point here is not that you should necessarily trade breadth patterns in equities.  The point is that, if you true examine enough important information in enough ways, promising ideas will come to you.  Creativity begins with creative perception--and that can only come when we look at new things in new ways.  

Insight provides us with our greatest market vision.

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12/25/2025 - Reducing and eliminating trading mistakes is necessary for success but not sufficient.  Having worked at many successful trading firms, I've been able to see success up close and personal.  In these posts, I hope to share what I've learned.

The first element in success is curiosity.  The really great traders spend a good amount of time screening for opportunity:  across the universe of stocks and stock markets, across a variety of strategies and systems, across a range of asset classes.  They explore what is happening in the world--and what is happening in markets--and actively looking for what is likely to move next.  I spoke with a portfolio manager recently who described scouring the interest rate curves of various sovereign markets to see what might be mispriced within and across markets.  This process requires digesting news across the world, an understanding of central bank policies, and a continual updating of economic and geopolitical developments.  No one can sustain that kind of curiosity without unusual open-mindedness and a passion for puzzle-solving.

Day traders in the stock market may not be scanning for those global drivers of markets, but will be equally detailed in tracking the prices where volume expands and contracts; the ways in which stocks are moving together or in rotational patterns; and the patterns of shares that are most active and volatile.  In my books, I've shared how successful traders I worked with spent all day following and trading the market--and then spent further time replaying the day and examining what happened, how it happened, what they missed, and how they could improve their execution and trade selection.  Day after day.  That is more than motivation.  It is a passion for learning and an undying curiosity.  It's what drives world-class athletes to spend hour after hour watching game videos...Their motivation is not just to win, but to live life as a winner.