Warning Signs for Traders: Are You at Risk?Trading can be exciting and profitable, but it's important to spot habits that might hurt your success. Here are key warning signs to help you become a more disciplined and successful trader:
Constantly Checking Charts : If you find yourself compulsively opening your charts every hour and feeling physical discomfort if you don't, it's time to reassess your approach. Constant monitoring can lead to impulsive decisions and increased stress.
Impulse Trading on Minor Changes : Do you get the urge to jump into a trade at the slightest percentage change of a currency? This habit can be detrimental. Reacting to every minor fluctuation often results in overtrading and can erode your capital.
Trading Without Stop Losses : Having open trades without setting stop losses is a recipe for disaster. Stop losses are crucial in managing risk and preventing significant losses.
Checking Apps Before Starting Your Day : If your first action in the morning is to check your trading app or charts before even washing your face, it's a sign that trading is consuming your life. This habit can lead to burnout and poor decision-making.
Not Keeping a Trading Journal : Failing to document your trades and thoughts can hinder your progress. A trading journal helps you learn from past mistakes and successes, allowing for continuous improvement.
Tips for Better Trading:
These warning signs highlight areas for improvement. By addressing these habits, you can enhance your trading strategy and outcomes. Here are some tips that have helped me become a better trader:
Set Specific Times to Check Charts: Limit chart checking to specific times of the day. This helps reduce stress and impulsive decisions.
Develop a Clear Trading Plan: Outline your trading strategy, including entry and exit points. Stick to your plan to avoid knee-jerk reactions to market movements.
Use Stop Losses: Always set stop losses to manage risk effectively. This practice can save you from significant losses and emotional distress.
Establish a Morning Routine: Start your day with a routine that doesn’t involve trading. This helps create a balanced life and a clear mind for trading decisions.
Maintain a Trading Journal: Documenting your trades, strategies, and outcomes helps you learn from your experiences and refine your trading methods.
By recognizing these warning signs and implementing these tips, you can cultivate a more disciplined and successful trading practice. Happy trading!
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Habits
It's not how but also whenA lot of emphasis is placed on how to trade. What the best indicators are, what the best R/R is. However, I don't see a lot of focus on WHEN you should trade. I don't specifically mean when to get in and when to get out. I mean what HOUR of the day should you trade? There are few factors to this:
- When is the time that you are most alert and can focus on the markets?
- What HOUR of the day do you tend to see your set-ups form?
Most new traders have no idea about these concepts and literally try to trade 24/7. This often leads to burnout and worse - account blow out.
It behooves you to use an integrated journal for your trade and see what time of day you are most profitable and you should try to stick to those times.
3 Rules To Follow When Trading While Working Full-Time👋 Hello, and welcome my name is Dean Muller from WealthTIP where our tip for wealth is to trade invest and prosper, today’s post is focused on the 3 rules that I believe you need to follow if you want to actively and successfully trade the markets while still working a full-time job, business, or side hustle. So, if you enjoy this type of content then go ahead to leave a thumbs up and that way we know that we’re on the right track to meeting your content needs. Now that we covered that, let’s jump over to the first rule you need to implement as a trader, working full-time.
1. 📝 Create a Watchlist
I remember when I started trading I only traded one pair, and that was the GBPUSD, as I began honing in on my skills as a technical trader, I started looking at a few more pairs, and the more pairs I looked at the more opportunities I saw, the problem was however, that I wasn’t able to keep up with the movements of each pair and this coursed me to lose focus on the pairs I had positions on and ultimately mismanage a lot of the trades.
I then reached out to a good friend of mine and he suggested I create a watchlist now at the time I had absolutely no clue what a watchlist was, and if you don’t know what it is, it’s simply a list of pairs that according to your strategy has potential trade setups coming together with a probabilistic profitable outcome.
Now if you would like me to do a video showing you how to put a watchlist together, then simply write a comment in the comment section below and if we get 100 likes on this video then I will be happy to put one together, but for now This is a cardinal rule for anyone trading, while still working full-time.
2. ⏰ Set Trade Alerts
When you are working, vary rarely are you able to access the charts freely, this means that you could miss out on the very opportunities you identified when you put your watchlist together. The best way to combat this is to use platforms like tradingview that allows you to set trade alerts that will notify you when the market is on an area you deem significant.
Setting these alerts ensures that you aren’t distracted by the charts while you working and you won’t have to check your phone every 5 min, instead, you only jump on the charts once you are notified, making it easier to focus on your job, while still having a hand in the markets.
3.🎯 Use Pending Orders
Pending orders are a powerful tool that trading platforms provide all traders with, and no one benefits more from pending orders than someone working a full-time job. Personally after putting my watchlist together I have a good idea with regards to where I intend to enter the markets, and because I do my watchlist over the weekend when the markets are closed, I set all my pending orders as soon as the markets opens Sunday midnight.
What this allows me, is the freedom to focus on other things while still having a hand in the markets. Now if you would like to know more about how you can use pending orders to make your trading easier give this video a thumbs up and I will be sure to put that into our project list.
And always remember, if you frustrated, annoyed, angry or anxious when trading, then you doing it wrong, and should check out our Foundation Series, where we explain the process to successful technical analysis in a plain, and simple way.
Furthermore, I really do hope that you were able to extract some value from today’s post, and if you did be sure to hit like and share so that we can continue creating content that not only serves you, but equips you to successfully and joyfully navigate your way through the financial markets.
So until next time, you should keep well and bye for now.
4️⃣ Trading habits that have to go 👋We've all done it.
At some point in your trading journeys bad habits set in.
Here is my four trading habits you've got to kick in order to stay profitable.
1. Overtrading
We all been there with this one.
We think we have to be in the market all the time.
We don't and its okay to be flat at times.
No strategy should have excessive trade volume.
More time in the markets the more chance of catching a cold.
Overtrading can happen when we also start revenge trading.
You've caught some losses and your trying to get it all back.
Don't overtrading combined with revenge trading is a no no. Take a break.
Trading with no strategy or system
Should never be in the markets with out a plan or system.
More importantly no trader should be entering markets with out a proven edge.
Back test and forward test your strategy and make sure you are entering markets with a proven plan.
Psychology wise it makes trading so much easier to deal with.
No plan will lead to nothing but stress and losses.
No stop loss
Trading with no stop loss is biggest sin of all.
It's just not worth risking huge amounts of your trading capital on the line.
One big crazy move in this uncertain world could do damage.
Plus how can you develop a proven plan if stop loss is not included.
Also moving your stop loss should not be part of your trading.
As you've just altered any strategy being trading into the unknown category.
No risk management
So I've mentioned stop loss but that is only one element of risk management and it doesn't stop there.
Risk management includes many aspects you'll need to consider.
That includes position sizing relative to your capital size.
The psychology behind losing runs and how they are factored into your trading plan.
Work to set and proven trading rules as part of your risk management.
Be sure not to add to losing positions.
Know when you are wrong and move on to the next.
Failure to follow risk management means you will essentially be gambling.
Be realistic in expected returns is a big factor in risk management.
Sticking to all of the above and not allowing these habits to enter your trading will ensure you keep that trading account growing.
Thanks for taking the time to read my idea.
Darren 👍
8 Trading Habits of Successful TradersConsistently profitable traders have a lot of things in common. Watching how they act and following their ideas & thoughts we can spot a lot of commonalities among them. In this post, I have collected 8 trading habits that a trader should have to become successful.
1️⃣ - Realistic Expectation & Vision
Many traders, most often beginners, commonly fall for the trap of wishful thinking. When analysing the charts, they usually only view the market from one bias and only perceive price heading in one direction.
And this is typically the one that their own analysis is pointing towards. However, going into each trade with a realistic expectation that the market doesn't care what you think may happen, and being prepared for a trade to go wrong will help keep you level headed.
2️⃣ - Anticipation of Different Outcomes
Anything can happen in financial markets and for this reason, professional traders always justify their decisions in probabilities.
They understand that 100% chances do not exist so looking at all possible probabilities before entering any trades, the trader is always ready for completely different outcomes and accepts each and every move given by the market.
3️⃣ - Emotional Stability
The market is a wild beast who always wants to bite us and most of the time it manages to do that e.g. drawdowns & losing streaks...
Those who trade for at least 1 year know how unpredictable and unstable the market can be. A perfectly looking trading setup can easily turn into a big losing trade.
Of course, that is painful and of course with more & more losses, the anxiety will begin to chase us, the stress will overwhelm us and you may begin to start second guessing yourself.
Only by remaining stable and calm, you will manage to overcome the negative periods. Learn to control your emotions, learn to take losses!
4️⃣ - Continuous Learning
The markets are infinitely deep in their nature. Trading & constant monitoring of the market always unveil new, uncharted elements and things.
Throughout all my years of day trading, I can't help wondering how many new things I learn each and every day. With continuous learning you evolve, you become better and it improves your trading performance & results.
5️⃣ - Flexibility & Adaptivity
The markets are always changing. If you were trading before COVID crisis, I guess you feel how the reality among us shifted. With fundamental changes in our daily lives, the markets changed as well.
It is hard to say what exactly has altered though, however, we all can feel it. In order to survive in a constantly changing environment we must always be adapting and never stagnant.
6️⃣ - Trade Journaling
Pro traders always assess their past performance & results. They track each and every trading position that they opened.
Both losing trades and winning trades require analysis and observations. Only by studying the past results the trader can improve his trading performance and evolve. Only by identifying mistakes & peculiar commonalities, the trader learns to lose less than he makes.
7️⃣ - Risk Management
90% of traders lose 90% of their funds within 90 days and under 90 trades . This is a well known statistic in the trading industry and aside from psychological factors, it mainly boils down to incorrect risk management.
If you're looking to survive in this game and have a long, prosperous career in trading. You must have your risk management locked down.
One beneficial risk management habit to develop is to not enter any trades unless they have a risk:reward ratio of at least 1:3+ .
8️⃣ - Trading Plan
Sticking to your trading plan is one way of promoting long-term success throughout your trading journey. Undoubtedly, you will go through many psychological ups & downs, mental battles and periods of low confidence.
Abiding by your own trading plan will help assist in ensuring that you don't step out of line from your own trading rules and allow you to stop yourself from developing bad habits overtime.
9️⃣ - Constant Practice
Professional traders never stop, they always watch the charts, they always monitor the prices, and follow the market.
Trading requires constant TRADING. Just spending one single week on a vacation without charts, you can not imagine how hard it is to return back. The trading skills must be constantly maintained.
Are you revenge trading 😖🤔Revenge trading!
It all catches us all out at some point in our trading journey's.
The markets don't care about your loss and neither should you!
Losses are a part of trading and have to be accepted.
No one can be right 100% of the time regardless of method used.
Revenge trading will add to those losses and compound that account draw down even more.
Irrational emotions have no place in trading and they are what lead to revenge trading.
The way to eradicate this issue is by going about your trading a logical manner.
First off is build or use a strategy with a known proven edge.
Second is follow that strategy to the letter and only enter trades when all your parameters/confluences are met.
The markets take from the impatient and give to the patient ones.
The example I am using on chart is using a trend following strategy of our own.
This strategy is a good win percentage and I know that as the built in strategy tester shows me all the stats.
As always the report box is at the bottom of the idea showing those very stats.
A 61% win rate means losers still happen and as you will see on the chart the buy trade hit stop loss before price went on an upward trend.
The old trader in me would of been pouring over this chart trying to guess which way will it go?
What should I do enter a long again? That would of paid of in this instance but not the logical thing to have done it would of been luck and luck only.
Who knows with emotions at play would I of had a thought the price was going to head down? Then place a sell order?
Luckily I didn't have to make any of those choices with emotions at play.
I accepted the loss on the fact I know I'm trading a proven strategy and I simply waited for the next trade alert and let probability play out.
The next trade was a short that found it's intended take profit target.
This process is more simpler for those who are using a mechanical trading system like the one on chart.
But regardless of system or approach in use if you are following the trading plan to the letter revenge trading shouldn't occur.
Find an edge, apply that edge, stick to the proven plan and revenge trading won't be your issue.
Instead you'll be one of the patient ones that the market is giving to 👌👍
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I try and share as many ideas as I can as and when I have time. My trades are automated so I am not sat in front of a screen daily.
Jumping on random trade ideas 'willy-nilly' on Trading View trying to find that one trade that you can retire from is not a sustainable way to trade. You might get lucky, but it will always end one way.
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Please hit the 👍 LIKE button if you like my ideas🙏
Also follow my profile, then you will receive a notification whenever I post a trading idea - so you don't miss them. 🙌
No one likes missing out, do they?
Also, see my 'related ideas' below to see more just like this.
The stats for this pair are shown below too.
Thank you.
Darren
Becoming a Successful Trader is a Process of EliminationBecoming a trader is not a journey for the faint of heart. Becoming a successful trader is ultimately an act of determination . Not unlike the titular character of the John Wick trilogy (Quadrology? Pentology?), we traders have to be "a man of focus, commitment, sheer will." (and I'm certainly not being sexist... this goes for you female traders as well!) We have to get up early, stay up late, follow a routine, backtest, journal, rinse, and... repeat... and repeat ... and REPEAT .
Focus . Commitment . Sheer will .
Ultimately, the journey of becoming a successful trader is a process of elimination, not much unlike Michelangelo sculpting his great masterpiece, David, from a mediocre piece of marble . Reportedly, someone asked the artist how he made such a magnificent sculpture from the hulking slab of what was a previously abandoned project – literally a 'leftover' piece of marble. His reply was "Simple... I just chipped away all the parts that weren't David."
Likewise, the successful trader we want to be is inside us... we just have to chip away all the pieces that are "un-traderlike".
Early in my trading journey I had several friends, who career-wise, were in "high places", who tried to convince me that the road I was about to travel was a pathway to failure. One is a fund manager who oversees 8-figure retirement accounts for wealthy clients. Another friend is an industry recognized globetrotting auditor for Fortune-100 clients. Another friend was a nuclear engineer. (All smart cookies, right?) All three tried to sway me from my plans of becoming a trader by recounting stories of friend after friend who lost their homes, lost their fortunes, lost their marriages, lost their minds, etc. after losing their proverbial shorts in the markets. Their universal theme: "Trading is a path doomed for failure. It's legalized Gambling! Nobody makes money trading."
Well, friends, just watch the news... somebody is making money in the markets, and the secret to success is to do what successful people do. My motto: "Do what successful people do, get what successful people got." Just because you are a successful accountant, a successful investor, a successful nuclear engineer, it doesn't make you a successful trader, and it's hard to take advice from someone who you respect, but has no experience in the field they are pontificating on, saying, "you can't make money doing 'X' " if they themselves have never done it.
I'm not going to listen to my brother for financial advice... he's broke.
I'm not going to listen to my uncle for marriage advice... he's been divorced 3 times.
I'm not going to listen to my brother-in-law for business advice... he's started and shut down 10 businesses in 5 years.
Likewise, I wasn't about to listen to anyone, friends and family included, who have never traded tell me that I can't become a successful trader.
It is said that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with . If we want to become successful at trading, we have to associate with successful traders ... and we have to simply do what they did to get what they've got . We not only need to take on certain new behaviors and attitudes... more importantly we have to stop doing certain activities and stop believing certain things to start heading in the direction we want to go in our trading, or any aspect of our lives for that matter. These are the things that are preventing us from being successful. We have to take away all the "bits that aren't trader-like" and become the magnificent trader we are destined to be.
This is a simple process of elimination.
Elimination Point 1: Eliminate or limit relationships that do not support you and your goals.
I had to 'eliminate' or limit some relationships (as mentioned above, people who never traded before trying to tell me that "nobody makes money trading"), and establish new relationships (those among the trading community who are successful at trading) and follow in the footsteps of the successful. One of my mottos as I alluded to before is: "If you do what successful people do ... you will get what successful people've got ."
Why spend time with or take advice from someone with literally zero experience in a field they feel qualified to pontificate about?) Just look at all our FaceBook "friends" who think they're qualified to give advice on immunology, virology, or geopolitics of the Middle East. Turn that noise off... Ain't nobody got time for that!
Elimination Point 2: Eliminate or limit activities that do not move you forward in your goals.
I love movies. One of the reasons (well, the primary reason) I built my home was that I could build my dream home theater in its massive bonus room. It has 2-tier seating, a 144" projection screen, an ear-splitting loveseat-pounding surround sound system, custom cabinetry, and so on... I would binge TV shows (7 seasons of 24, 5 seasons of Breaking Bad), I would have Movie Marathons (9 Star Wars films, 6 Middle Earth movies, 8 Fast & Furious films) and host monthly movie nights with our friends. Other hobbies included woodworking, writing, getting on the JetSki several times each week, not to mention all my other 'commitments'.
We live fast-paced, hectic lives full of 'good' things. However, our glasses are full . In order to add "developing my trading skills" to our glass we have to "empty" that glass of 'good' things in order to make room for 'better' things. This can be a very difficult thing for us to admit: We have to sacrifice the "good" for the "better." My movie routine is now simply Friday afternoons with friends and a twice-a-month movie "date night". I'm not on the lake as often as I'd 'want' to be but I'm still getting out on the 'ol SeaDoo. I haven't done a recreational woodworking project in a long while. Freeing up or reorganizing my time gave me the ability to spend at least four (and sometimes eight) hours per day to hone my trading skills and develop my own consistently profitable trading system...
Every day we need to focus on whittling away bad habits and building on good habits ... Every day we need to build our trading psychology from "I hope I can trade full time someday" to "By doing what these successful traders are doing I will get what I deserve after my consistent efforts in short order!" We need to change our commitment level from "I'll find time to fit in learning how to trade when I can" to "I'm committing the time to develop this skill in order to never be dependent on an employer, customers, on the economy, ever again!" And day by day I and my fellow traders who followed this philosophy alongside me were committed to build our trading performance from a 20% win rate, to a 40% win rate, to a 60% win rate... to where we now have a reliable, consistent income from the markets.
Elimination Point 3: Eliminate all education channels but one: Become an education minimalist.
One of the blessings of the internet today is the plethora of information available about trading. One of the curses however is you can easily find yourself "spinning plates" jumping from guru to guru, watching video after video, following technique after technique and six months later after spending hour after hour doing all that you find you are no farther ahead in your trading journey than when you started. (I speak from personal experience!) I one day decided to simplify : simply look at the trading styles of all my favorite traders and choose one single trading method which I thought would be the best fit for me. My goal was to turn my light bulb into a laser .
Fun fact: a 5-watt light bulb will barely keep a muffin warm. A 5-watt laser will cut through steel . If you focus all of your energy and efforts into one spot , you can literally burn through the barriers that have been holding you back from becoming the trader you want to be, the trader that you need to be.
What one technique do you know, which one mentor or trader do you respect, which one timeframe can you focus on, what one market will you trade over and over until you have the win rate you need to take your trading full time ?
Elimination Point 4: Excuses. Eliminate them!
It has been said that "Excuses are reasons wrapped up in a lie." We can all justify, give a 'reason' for why we can't wake up early, why we can't stay up late, why we can't carve out 90 minutes per day to develop our skill, why we can't commit that first $10K in capital, why we can't join that trading group...
You can make Money , or you can make excuses . You can't do both.
Find the reasons you can and will do what you need to do to get what you are committed to get. Put together a playlist of inspiring music. Put your alarm clock on the other side of the room. Read The Miracle Morning . (More importantly, don't just read it, DO the Miracle Morning!)
We don't have the time to do everything in the world that we want. But we do have the time to do everything that we need to do that is important . If you "don't have time" to trade or develop your skill to the next level then it's just not "important" enough. If you really want to be a successful trader, (the great) it has to be important enough that it will usurp the time previously committed (or squandered) on other activities (the good).
Take 15 minutes to look at what people, activities, excuses, you need to eliminate or limit, and what habits, routines, and relationships you will add or magnify in your life. Then put those items on the calendar and as the most successful ad campaign in history commands, "Just Do It!"
Trade Well!