Why Do You Need a Trading Plan?📝
If you want to become a consistently profitable trader you have two choices:
1️⃣strictly follow your trading plan
or
2️⃣fail.
Trading plan is essential for achieving your financial goals.
It is a set of actions to follow for making trading decisions
guiding you on how to react to certain events.
It reflects your personality and characteristics.
Moreover, its entire structure and content are primarily based on them.
Your way to success will be full of obstacles.
A lot of things will come in your way:
losses, drawdowns, and losing streaks;
mistakes, scams, and emotional decisions.
Only your trading plan will show you a correct path, it ensures you will stay on track on your journey to your desired destination.
When you make a wrong turn, it knows to make adjustments, and it points you back in the right direction.
It is your guard from making any hurried decisions you could later regret.
Trading without a trading plan wouldn’t be a smart idea. You wouldn’t know how to get to your destination and it’s highly likely that you get lost.
Most importantly, if you suck at trading (and you certainly will in the beginning), you will know it is down to one of only two reasons: either there’s a problem in your trading plan or you are not sticking to your trading plan.
Stick to your plan traders. "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail".
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Trading Psychology
Bearish Pressure Zone (3 Candles In Row With Upper Wicks)Chart example is of a Bearish Pressure Zone:
3 consecutive price bars with upper wicks (VERY strong/either bearish or bullish setups)
Note: Make a zone from top of highest wick to top of highest close with one of the consecutive wicks, this is what you use as you risk or initial stop loss.
Price Action is not about price, but more importantly about decisions other traders/big banks are making related to price action.
Half of Forex trading is psychology (see Mark Douglas- You tube or google him)- might even read and/or buy his trading books.
Wick Psychology: When we have three consecutive bars with overlapping lower or upper shadows, the traders undergo the same emotional cycle three times, all within a compact price range. But these wick bars can be in close area of each other, they do not have to be three in a row, see bullish pressure zone on the attach chart for an example.
Price Pressure Zones :Bearish & BullishTrade Plan:
Locate Buying and selling pressure zones implied by the lower and upper shadows/wicks of candlestick price bars.
These areas have THREE rejection shadows or wicks in a relatively close area or time period.
These pressure zones can be done on 15 minute time frames, but 1 hour, 4 hour or daily charts are stronger and more reliable.
Look at attached chart ( do you see numbers 1, 2 and 3? rejection lower shadows or wicks)- this suggest future bullish or buying trading.
* Buy next 1 hour candlestick bar (blue on chart) after the three rejection lower shadows or wicks, with right risk management under your strategy and plan.
Pro Tip:
A strong pressure zone is not defined just by one pin bar!!! These need a minimum of three rejection shadows and/or wicks, which make these zones ones which the big money or big banks have a wall up that they do not want price action to go thru at this time. Never fight big money/banks- trade with them.
Bullish Pressure Zones- Multiple price bars with lower wicks
Bearish Pressure Zones- Multiple price bars with higher wicks
Common Mistake: The buying or selling pressure found on a single price bar might not be sufficiently reliable for a trading setup. Instead of a single bar, look for at least three consecutive bars with overlapping upper or lower shadows. When multiple shadows overlap the create a price zone that is more likely to exhibit the buying or selling pressure you anticipate.
How To Trade Divergence
Divergence simply means separation.. When two similar things things---get separated and start going different directions, you have to consider which direction to follow. That's exactly the concept of divergence. When trading, and you spot a divergence, you want to be sure to understand what they are trying to tell you. In this video, I explain the concept of divergences, how to trade them and what to do when you sight one. Be sure to like, follow and comment.
I want to see those div trades!
Are Wicks Important? Types Of Wicks: Fill, Rejection & ReversalPlease look at your own charts:
Do you see all of the following?
Wick Fills? These type of wicks happen going with the trend and get filled with further price action on chart.
Rejection Wicks? Mostly happen at key support and resistance zones or key quarter theory psychological numbers, a lot of traders have orders there.
Reversal Wicks? Happen at key areas mostly on 1 hour, 4 hr, daily, weekly and even monthly charts- these are areas with large wicks in past which once price action comes into these areas at key resistance and support areas- will accumulate orders and reverse directions.
See attached 1 hour charts----
How many different types of wicks can you see and/or spot.... you need to see quarter theory psychological numbers in actually real live time when trading Forex. Always start with monthly charts and keep going lower until you are trading with the chart of your choosing. Higher time frames will give you better risk to reward opportunities then under 1 hour...
If you truly understand wicks- you will be a better trader and know if you scalp trade, day trade or position trade when to look for quick wick fill candles to catch some quick pips. These are the easy Forex trades to do, make sure you are trading during high liquidity and volume time periods only.
Elements Of Candlesticks (You Need To Know)Each Candlestick consists of four important elements:
1) The Body- Large bodies equals more liquidity and more volume involved in candlestick, smaller is other side which is smaller liquidity and volume.
2) The Length Of The Wicks- Larger wicks equals higher or lower rejection of price action, from the other side. Example: Pin bar candlestick at top of a bullish run up equals bulls are losing their strength and bears are starting to get control over current price action.
3) The Ratio Between The Body And The Wicks- Example: Doji or indecision candlestick generally has around same length of upper and lower wicks and bodies are small- so both bears and bulls are at a stand off with each one not winning at the moment... sideways price action.
4) The Position Of The Body- Look to left, what do you see? Where are the quarter theory lines on charts- you can plot all xxx000, xxx250, xxx500 and xxx750 lines which are the standard ones to either highlight or be aware of on any chart you trade from. Did current body make either a pin bar candlestick pattern, harami candlestick pattern or an engulfing candlestick pattern?
You need to know that 12 hours a day in Forex is high liquidity and high volume times: End of Tokyo to End of London, this is when most big moves happen.
You can google or YouTube more on Quarters theory which I strongly advise you implement in all of your trading, specially in this choppy price action. Do not be greedy and protection your profits- risk management is always #1. Understand each pairs ATR, lot size , pip value so you can only use 1% to 2% of account per trade, if you slowly grow account using compounding in Forex trading and be a successful trader. Good luck and Good trading.
Trading Mountain: How to reach the top step-by-stepHey, family! Good time of the day and welcome on another educational post.
As we all know, the road that leads to successful and consistently profitable trading is a pretty difficult and long one. It takes years of hard work, patience, dedication, and experience to reach the top of the trading mountain. Many beginners make similar mistakes before starting their journey. They tend to have false expectations and a distorted vision of the big picture.
As it can be inferred from the graphical illustration, the mountain pattern connects dots and shows a realistic path of a successful trader to the top of the hill.
We all start somewhere, right? We start taking our first steps and making ourselves familiar with the thing we are interested in. In the example of trading, it can be the first YouTube video that we watch, a chapter of a book related to investments that we read, first chart analysis that we make and many more.
What comes next? We decide on the type of a trader that we are. Do you have enough time to sit in front of the charts for several hours and press BUY/SELL buttons, or you are busy 90% of the time and prefer having a portfolio full of long-term positions?
After we have decided what our strategy will look like, we build a trading plan around it and make it a part of our lifestyle. We identify our trade entry criteria, risk management plan and so forth.
Backtesting our trading plan is a vital part for the journey. It can take days, weeks or even months. However, it will be worth it at the end of the day, as it is crucial to link our strategy with the trading plan and find out how profitable it will be.
Executing, optimising, journaling. Where did I make a mistake? What could have been done better? What should I change in my trading plan? It is important to stick to one single trading plan and optimise it along the way.
Before trading with real money, it is recommended to open positions on a demo account with virtual money. Getting a hand of things, practising the market and gaining experience is important.
After having traded on a demo account for several consecutive weeks, months or even years, we can move to a real trading account. Demo account is completely different from a real account, both psychologically and mentally. Putting real money on the line is much harder than playing around with fake simulation money. Thus, it is advised to start with a small amount and get used to it before moving to larger sums of money and increasing the trading capital.
After everything is went through and all hills are climbed, the top of the mountain will be reached. Of course, being a professional trader does not necessarily signify that there will be no failing trades and the win rate will always be above 90%. Losing days, weeks and even months will always happen. However, as long as you diversify your portfolio, stay cold-blooded, disciplined, and follow risk management principles, you will be profitable in the long-run.
Busy Signal - Gamblertrading is not gambling and gambling is not trading , but like expert gamblers the best traders must think of trading as a numbers game and probability to produce consistent results. Probability may suggest inconsistency but it can still produce consistent results over a large sample of trades if the edge is good enough and is applied consistently.
there is no such thing as ''prefect science'' in trading but there are occurrences in the market that are critical to understand and these can only be discovered by research and experience.
It just takes practice and a lot of screen time to master this art, so be patient, your mind and eye need training, and lots of screen time till it
becomes second nature to you.
“"Easy money" means only one thing when it means money that has come easy: It means money goes even more easily than it came.”
Edwin Lefevre
The Journey of a Trader 🛣🚶
Hey traders,
Why 95% of traders fail?
In this post, we will discuss the trader's road to success and why most of the traders give up at the halfway point.
On the chart, I was trying to portray the journey of a trader:
most of the traders start this game with gambling.
They randomly buy and sell the market relying on their intuition and with a high degree of probability end up with nice cush.💰
However, as they proceed they realize that the profits that they made were the product of luck, not skill. 🍀
The more they trade, the less they win.
At some moment losing trades start to outperform winners.
Trying different things, jumping from one strategy to another, one comes to the conclusion that nothing seems to work.🙅♂️
He goes broke, he is panicking.
At that stage, the majority blame the market for their failure.
Forex, stocks, gold trading is complete scam.
Making profits on the market is not possible.
They give up and leave.👣
Only 5% are persistent. Only 5% are blaming themselves not the market for their failure.
They start following a strict trading plan, they follow risk management recommendations of pro traders and at some moment they start making 0.📝
Buying and selling the market, at the end of the day, they don't lose anymore.
That is the most important milestone in a trader's journey.
Realizing that the one stopped losing, a trader starts polishing and improving his rules in order to achieve better results.
He trains and works with his psyche.💪
After years of struggling, one finally contemplates a consistent account growth.
He became a pro trader.🏆
I wish you to be persistent, traders and don't give up.
Patience pay and at the end of the day winners win.
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The Power of a good Risk-to-Reward ratio. Reality of tradingRisk Management, alongside with discipline, experience and skillset, is one of the keys to unlock the doors of successful and profitable trading. As it can be inferred from the table, even with as low as 40% win rate, it is more than possible to stay consistent and make nice returns, as long as risk management principles are followed.
*We used 30 pips Stop Loss and 60/90/120 pips Target Profits as a projection. It does not necessarily signify that 1% risk equals 30 pips Stop Loss, as different pairs have different pip values, price differences etc. Moreover, we determine our Stop Loss based on the amount of capital we are willing to risk on a particular trade, price action, intuition and other factors.*
Things you should consider in trading to make it as a career
Hello everyone:
6 points I like to share on what you should consider in trading to make it as a career.
1. Trading is not a get rich quick scheme
Contrary to what social media, scammers, fakers and fake trading gurus want you to believe, trading is NOT a get rich quick scheme.
Those who believe such usually end up over trading, over leverage, blow accounts and give up.
(Trading is actually a reasonable method to yield money return. It is how consistent traders make a return on their original investment/deposit with proper risk management, strategies and methods. )
2. Technical/Fundamental Analysis dont work all the time.
Trading ANY sort of strategy, method or style will always have a percentage of failure and losses.
Its probability, not right or wrong. The main goal in trading is to make sure you have proper risk management, good Risk:Reward ratio, and look for consistency, sustainability in the long run.
(Sometimes traders blame their strategies, method, style, mentor and other things due to their trades not working out.
Not trading strategies can yield 100% strike rate, if there is, there will not need any risk management, and anyone trader should get rich)
3.Limit your risk per trade
Proper risk management is super crucial to a trader’s success. Many traders often risk way more than their accounts can handle, after all what's 10%-20% of a $100 to many people ?
But would you risk 10-20% on a $100,000 account ? and lose $10,000-$20,000 in one trade ?
(Too many new traders deposit a small amount of money hoping it can double and double and double. But they often over risk, over leverage the account.
The result is it only take a few trades to totally blow the account up.)
4.Must use stop loss
It may have worked out for you a few times where you remove your SL, and the price reverses and you close with profits. But what if the price goes against you more and more?
Can you stay mentally sharp enough and continue to hold the trade when the losses pile up more and more ?
You more likely can not, which will end up resulting in a margin call and/or blow the account.
(In the past I had a trader who approached me and showed me his losses on OIL where he removed his SL and price continued to go against him.
IT has come to a point where he reaches margin call, and the broker actually open opposite positions to “hedge” his losses)
5. Don’t over analysis and combine multiple trading strategies, methods and style
Over analysis and complicating your charts may lead to confusion and is not necessarily efficient.
Most trading strategies do work on their own, but when combined with so many other strategies, it creates conflicts, contradiction and confusion for traders.
(Often traders combine too many random indicators, S/R, trendlines…etc all on one chart. It makes it hard to analyze, and have a bias of the direction of the market)
6.Always use a top-down analysis approach.
Multi-time frame analysis is key. Always start from the higher time frame to the lower time frame.
The higher the time frame the stronger and noticeable the price action it is. Understanding a higher time frame can give you a possible direction and bias.
While the lower time frame will be your confirmation and entry.
(Have seen many new traders jump onto the 1 min chart to trade. While there are successful scalpers with proper years of experiences,
good trading psychology and emotion, most newcomers will not be able to handle the stress and pressure from it. )
Don’t give up
Don't put all your portfolio in a single trade -why?I was reading about maths and came across this very nice explanation, that we can apply to especially trading and also to investing in a very obvious way. We all know and are told not to put it all down to a single trade. Too risky. Crazy. But you can bet it all and get rich!
Well, just look at these numbers below:
[adapted from towardsdatascience.com ].
Imagine that we are playing the following game:
I use a random number generator to produce a number. If the number I generate is greater than or equal to 40, you win (so you have a 60% chance of victory) and I pay you some money. If it is below 40, I win and you pay me the same amount.
Now I offer you the the following choices. We can either:
Game 1 — play 100 times, betting $1 each time.
Game 2 — play 10 times, betting $10 each time.
Game 3 — play one time, betting $100.
Which one would you pick?
...
...
...
Outcome Distribution of 10,000 Simulations for each Game:
(this is a super-crude and inexact approximation to the plot you can see on the website I linked above, but you see the gist).
The "---" are the 100$ 1-time bet, followed by the 10$ 10-time and the 1$ 100-time ones.
(ignore the plot frame, just look at the text box within the plot. This was the only way I could figure out to introduce formatted text in this post!)
Seeing this, now which game would you pick?
Game 3 offers the chance to win big money, and to lose it all, at a flat 60% chance of winning. In Game 1, however, you win less money, but look at the consistency... you traded 100 times and you make money in 97% of them (believe the numbers, otherwise check the above link)!
Note that this example assumes a 60% winning chance, so you are not opening a position at random but based on indicators that increase your chance of a win. You can run your own numbers for a 50% winning chance.
Happy trading!
Trading PsychologyA positive mindset is perhaps the most important part of a successful trader's approach to the forex. Of course, developing the proper trading psychology is no easy task. Unless you are one of the chosen few who is not subject to the human element, taking a few tips from the market pros can help you consistently align risk to reward. Trade with no emotion as they say. Master your mind and you master yourself. Keep calm and may the pips be with you! :)
Elliott Wave Theory - Motive WavesElliott Wave Theory , developed by Ralph Nelson Elliott, proposes that the seemingly chaotic behaviour of the different financial markets isn’t actually chaotic. In fact the markets moves in predictable, repetitive cycles or waves and can be measured and forecast using Fibonacci numbers.
The very basics of Elliott Wave Theory ;
The Elliott wave principle at its core consists of motive waves, movement in the direction of the larger trend, and corrective waves, any correction against the main trend. Market prices alternate between a motive phase, and a corrective phase on all time scales of trend.
Wave analysis offers insights into trend dynamics and helps you understand price movements in a much deeper way and offers the trader a level of anticipation and/or prediction when searching for trading opportunities
Motive Waves
Motive waves in general can be categorized as Impulse and Diagonal waves
a- Impulse Waves
Impulse waves consist of five sub-waves in the same direction as the trend of one larger degree.
Elliott proposed that financial price trends, the waves, are created by investor psychology or sentiment and the waves can be measured and forecast using Fibonacci numbers . In adition to using fibonacci retracments and extetion to forcast probable targets, channeling technique is also presented, where channeling technique is used to forecast wave formations and targets using price action .
Disclaimer: besides the rules, the below presented figures displays guidelines that elliott waves may form. Guidelines are tendencies, not set in stone rules
b- Diagonal Waves (Wedges)
Another form of motive waves are diagonals, they appear in the beginning of a larger trend, called leading diagonal and at the end of the larger trend, called ending diagonal
They are five-wave structures in the direction of the main trend within which wave 4 almost always moves into the price territory of (overlaps) wave 1, breaking the rule of impulse motive wave
Diagonals take a wedge shape within two converging lines
Elliott was careful to note that these patterns do not provide any kind of certainty about future price movement, but rather, serve in helping to order the probabilities for future market action. They can be used in conjunction with other forms of technical and fundamental analysis, including technical indicators, to identify specific opportunities.
Technical Indicators
Using various technical indicators among elliott wave practitioners is not so common, except few, probably the common one used is a kind of momentum indicator, such as RSI or MACD , to detect divergencies
Fibonacci retracement and extension drawing tools are essential for elliott wave practitioners. In todays computerized era many of the darawing tool's auto indicator versions are availabe on the trading platforms, such as Auto Fib ( where and how tp apply )
Elliott Wave Oscillator ( EWO ) , is inspired by the Elliott Wave principle and helps counting the waves
Volume and Volume Profile ( Vol / Vol Profile ) combined with price action is esential in technical anlaysis and for elliott wave practitioners helps to identify impulse and correction phases
Other indicators that are referred among elliott wave practitioners
Pitchforks ( how to apply ), Pitchfans , FibFans ( how to apply ), FibChannels ( how to apply ), FibTime , LinReg Channel ( what it is ), Raff Regression Channel ( what it is ), etc
Your Trading Style and Holding Period ⌛ ⌛ ⌛
How long to hold your trading position?
Everything depends on your trading style.
In this post we will discuss the preferable holding period for your trading positions.
First,
Let's define 4 main trading styles:
Scalper, intraday trader, swing trader and investor.
One of the core differences between these styles is the time horizon of their predictions of a market behavior.
1️⃣Scalper attempts to predict minor price fluctuations. His goal is not to pursue the waves, rather a minor moves up and down.
For that reason, pro scalpers tend to hold their position minutes, sometimes even seconds.
Expanding the time horizon they are risking to be stopped out from their positions.
2️⃣Intraday traders operate on intraday time frames.
They are trying to predict the price movements within a day or even a trading session.
The average holding period of a pro intraday trader is ranging from minutes to hours.
3️⃣Swing traders are aiming to catch swing moves - the waves.
Typically by a wave we call a trend following movement.
Pro scalpers usually close their positions once the market starts retracing (correcting itself).
Following such a strategy, scalpers tend to hold their trades days to weeks.
4️⃣In contrast to a swing trader, the investor does not care about the retracements and pullbacks.
The investor is trying to pursue the entire movement within the trend.
Usually he hold his position till the trend lasts and closes that only when the market starts reversing.
Investors tend to hold their positions months, even years.
Recognizing an average holding period is crucially important for a selection of your trading style.
Which one do you prefer?
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Are Losing Trades Still Winners?Alright, before I show you the “light at the end of the tunnel,” we need to create a fictitious system so I can logically demonstrate my point. I want you to bear with me here— it may seem a little ridiculous, but trust me, there’s a solid point I’m going to make. Let’s face the facts here: It’s easy to blame the market and commiserate with other traders, but it’s a lot harder to think for yourself and look for the silver lining after a bad trade.
I know, “Are Losing Trades Still Winners?” sounds like a crazy question, right? Read on and you may just find that it’s not really an irrational thought once it’s put into perspective.
Let’s list some trading rules to start:
1. You can only trade between the hours of 07:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. (UTC) London
2. You can only trade with the current trend of the market (up or down)
3. You must base your entries and exits using only support and resistance
4. You must have had a good night’s rest (no trading on 4 hours of sleep)
5. You must be drinking a Coffee while trading (just to be ridiculous)
Some trading rules to set for yourself, Right? I know, it’s a little silly, but what can I say? I like Coffee.
For this example, we’ll use an unrealistic stop for the EURUSD of 10 pips
Looks like we have a winner! You followed the rules by only trading during the established hours, you entered as the price breaks the support, you took the trade (SHORT) in the direction of the current trend, and your still in the trade right now as you hold trades over the weekend or youv exited at a round no level of 1.09 for a neat 1:11 RR come 14:30 p.m. , as planned (all while sipping your Coffee)!
We’re good, right?
Wrong: you broke a rule! By “widening” your stop, as you can see from the chart above the price surpassed your 10 pip stop loss set at 1.10200 reaching 1.10242 give or take a few pips (spread) before resuming the freefall, but hey your still in the trade or youv closed the full position for a healthy 110 pip gain, you violated one of your day trading rules; does this send you to the traders naughty corner?
Well, this is a losing trade (there will be losses, sorry), but you stuck to your guns and you've even created an opportunity to learn from your loss.
I’ll be honest here, a 10 pip stop on the EURUSD with as much volatility as there is these days isn’t only too tight, it’s not realistic.
Do some back-testing and you may find that the initial break of your rules (adjusting to 15 or 30 pips) may be what you need to set your stops at to weather the volatility and stay in the trade. If this is true, then make it a rule and stick with it.
For starters, I want you to know how important trading rules are and how important it is to stick to them. I mean, what if you widened the stop to, say, 50 or 100 pips and got stopped out?! You’d be mad at yourself! There is ofcourse different ways of deciding how many pips risk you are are happy to risk per individual trade as stop loss doesn't have to be fixed number you can adjust accordingly depending on the trade type/where price is when you reach your charts but this is an interlinked-subject that is beyond the scope of this idea
Another reason is that you can take a bad trade where you did stick to your rules and learn something from it. Who knows? Maybe you can even improve your day trading strategy.
Last but not least, your rules can help keep you on track. What if you did do the back-testing and you discovered that, more often than not, “that” particular rule held true?
If that’s the case, why change it?
After all, in trading, you’ll have some losses— it’s just part of the business. And remember: Don’t beat yourself up if you have a bad trade. If you stick to your rules, you’ve made the best decision you can. Give yourself an A!
Stay cool, drink Coffee, and trade well.
FX:EURUSD
👍
Is it okay to FOMO?You need to look at price action, and specifically, Heikin Ashi candles along with the Volume Indicator to tell you whether it's okay to FOMO. Use lower time frames to get in quicker.
Mostly, I never recommend it, but sometimes where there is strong buying and a clear trend change, a dip might not come for a while. And when it does, because it went up so fast, it can usually lead to a downtrend so you have to be careful. Especially in crypto where there is Bull Trap manipulations upwards.
However, the Volume Indicator can tell you if the bears have lost, which on the left hand side, they clearly lost as we went from Green to red to immediately Green again, showing the strength of the Bulls.
Journey of a Trader: All of us have gone through this!Good time of the day, dear TradingView family. Happy new month! May March bring you lots of happiness, love, and profits.
Today we are gonna be doing a quick reality check and scrutinizing a long way every trader goes through before becoming successful and consistent.
All beginning traders get super motivated and excited before beginning this long journey. Instagram “gurus” create false expectations and trick people into thinking they will be making quick profits and becoming millionaires with a $100 capital. Beginner’s luck is real and super relevant in this case. Without having a proper trading plan and a backtested strategy, newbies jump into the markets and start trading full-speed. “Wow, I made my first profits! I can keep going like this and make lots of “Benjamins”. Overtrading, greed and self-confidence lead to a losing streak, panic, anger, and loss of faith. Solutions need to be found, and therefore traders start changing strategies and trying to find a way to the doors of success. They lack motivation and hunger to keep going. They start questioning themselves and thinking whether they should quit or keep pushing. At this stage of the journey, around 90% of beginners give up and leave the markets. The remaining 10% still have hope, so they keep grinding and enhancing their trading capabilities. After some time, they start seeing some progress in their abilities. They start having more winning trades now, and they become breakeven traders, meaning they neither make any profits nor encounter any losses. They stick to their strategy and optimize it along the way. They plan, execute and journal all trades. After a few months, they finally reach the doors of success and profitability. Of course, they do not get greedy or self-confident. Though, they still have losing days/weeks/months, their main focus is concentrated on long-term growth and prosperity. They know that if they keep following their trading strategy, obeying risk management principles and being disciplined, they will always be profitable in the long run.
To sum up and to motivate the beginners reading this: if you are going through hard time in the markets, if you do not know what to do or how to make thing work, keep pushing more and more. There is always a golden sky at the end of every storm. Therefore, never feel discouraged, do not give up, and keep grinding. YOU WILL ALL MAKE IT!
The Only Proven Way To Success in Trading 🥇
Hey traders,
Like any discipline, consistently profitable trading requires many years of practice.
In this post, we will discuss the only proven way to become successful in trading.
🔰First, let's start with the axiom: there are no inborn traders, trading is a skill, a skill that can be learned. Though talent may help you in some manner it does not guarantee your success.
One more axiom that is logically derived from the first one is the fact that trading is a complex skill.
The one that can be split into dozens of subskills.
Making that statement we may assume that our success in trading directly depends on mastering each subskill, each domain that it consists of.
But how do we master these skills?🤔
The only way to do that is to practice. Practice means doing something regularly in order to be able to do it better.
With your first attempts, you are doomed to fail. Inevitable you will suffer and you will feel miserable because of your incompetence.
Trying and doing the same thing again and again, at some moment you will feel the progress and growth. Your perseverance will bear fruit.
Knock, and it shall be opened to you.
And as a consequence, with some attempt, you will feel that finally the skill is mastered, that one more stage in your journey is passed.
Polishing the entire set of subskills and learning to apply that as a single unit will make you a consistently profitable trader.
Just stipulate the domains properly, name them and be ready to work hard.
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Can't stop trading Stock/Options? You may be addictedTraders with symptoms of gambling addiction “tend to follow a more active and speculative trading style, indicated by a higher frequency of stock trading, day trading and investing in derivatives and leveraged products.”
Here are some signs of addiction:
Trading becomes the main focus of your daily life.
You are trading at work, which isn’t your job.
You are chasing losses.
You can’t stop trading.
You have feelings for frustration, aggression, or attempt to suppress other personal problems.
Losing money makes you depressed.
You're constantly checking the latest value.
You hide the degree of participation in trading.
You rely on social media “experts” for investment advice.
You borrow money on a home equity line or a personal loan to invest.
No self-control or ability to stay away from your trading app.
Your emotional state is directly tied to the outcome of the stock market.
One of the strongest psychological factors that influence day trading is the fear of missing out (FOMO). That’s why day traders often suffer from ad-lib actions as they are not capable of anticipating sudden market changes.
Trading is fun when it doesn’t hurt your health and daily life. Addiction-prone traders have a gambler’s mentality. The strategies to avoid harm associated with pathological trading that have similarities with gambling could be the following: Do not spend more than you can afford. Stick to the budget. Do not chase losses.
Automated trading tools help to:
Address the lack of time issue: many traders have day jobs, families, etc., and can't spend all day in front of a screen.
React to the opportunity faster: Algos are way faster than people.
Remove emotions: Algos have no emotions.
Low code allows traders to experiment faster.
Risk/Reward trade setups are more important than Win RateIf you told somebody new to trading that markets can only go in one of two directions, it would be natural for them to conclude that even a beginner could be right half the time. That’s not the reality because traders don’t make a binary up/down calls on their outright positions. What traders do is say, “I think it’s going to go up to point x (target) and in the process NOT hit point y (stop).”
Markets do only go up and down, but the trades we place aren’t a binary call. Our target is “where we think the market will go” and our stop should be “I’m wrong if it hits this point.” It's not a binary decision, it is a decision on the direction and the amount of 'wiggle room' it needs on the way.
Don’t Be Fooled by Trading Strategy Win Rate
When novice traders come to the markets for the first time, they are bombarded with ads for magical trading systems offering extremely high win rates. It plays on the logical (but false) assumption that a higher win rate is always better. It ignores the cost of the higher win rate, what did we do to achieve it?
For example, it's unlikely the S&P 500 Futures will ever hit 0.00, so you could go long S&P 500 over and over and have a 100%-win rate. In the process, you will no doubt sit in trades for extended periods with massive drawdowns. In the event of a market correction, you could quickly draw down $40-$50k per futures contract and sit in for years waiting for a recovery.
A high win rate alone is not a measure of success. Should it be a goal? Not in absolute terms. Instead, a trader should chase a decent win rate relative to the break-even point of any specific opportunity.
How Traders Think About Risk Reward
Let's say you have an opportunity where you believe a price in the market is a key trading level. You think the market will rally higher from current prices 40 ticks. You enter the trade with a 10-tick stop. You risk 10 to make 40.
Can you do this and be right every single time? Probably not but you could be right 50% of the time and make great money. This is where confusion creeps in. People associate a 50%-win rate with no edge, with a coin toss. In this example, our win rate is way above the break-even rate for this setup, and so 50% is excellent. It represents an edge.
If you combine this with more active trade management, such as scaling into positions that go your way, you change the equation again. Your losers might be 2 lots but your winners 8 lots.
This is of course what a lot of 'outright' proprietary day traders are doing — looking for an opportunity with a low break-even point, where they can beat the odds.
They don’t care if the actual win rate is 40,50 or 60%. It doesn’t matter.
Trading Strategy Win Rate and Run of Losing Trades
One other important consideration is the ability to survive the inevitable run of losing trades. Let's say you use an artificially large stop to help achieve a 90%-win rate - an 8 tick stop and a 2-tick target. The moment your win rate dips below 80%, you will start to lose. Take 5 or 6 losers in a row, and you are looking at a drawn down account and the NEED to maintain a high win rate to stop the bleeding. Keep on down that road and the next thing you know they'll be calling you "the new Nick Leeson".
Trader Takeaway
The ability to exceed the break-even rate is where profits lie. Focusing on trading strategies with a low break-even rate will help you thrive and survive as a trader.
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