Get started

Planning

Unlocking Opportunities: Maximizing Dec. Gains Beyond TradingUnlocking Opportunities: Maximizing December Gains Beyond Trading Introduction: As December unfolds and the year draws to a close, it's not uncommon for traders to take a step back and assess their performance. The trading landscape experiences a shift, with many prominent investors winding down for the year, paving the way for unique opportunities for those who approach the market strategically. In this blog post, we'll explore how traders can benefit from the distinctive conditions of December, leveraging the year-end dynamics to refine their trading strategies and set the stage for success in the upcoming year. 1. Reflect on the Year: Before diving into the specific opportunities December presents, take a moment to reflect on your trading journey throughout the year. Consider the overall performance of your trades, taking note of both successes and setbacks. This reflection is a crucial first step in understanding your strengths and weaknesses as a trader. Take a comprehensive look at your trading performance throughout the year. Consider the following aspects: Trade Outcomes: Evaluate the overall success of your trades. Identify the ones that were profitable and those that resulted in losses. Market Conditions: Examine how your strategies performed under various market conditions. Note any patterns in your trading success or challenges during specific market trends. As an example; I examine my trading performance throughout the year. I did observe that my swing trading strategy worked well during trending markets but struggled during choppy, sideways conditions. This reflection prompts me to consider adjustments to my strategy to better navigate varying market conditions. 2. Evaluate Pros and Cons: Identify the pros and cons of your trading strategies over the past year. What worked well for you, and what didn't? Analyzing these aspects can help you fine-tune your approach, building on your strengths and addressing any weaknesses. Take note of the market conditions under which your strategies excelled or faltered. Dig deeper into the strengths and weaknesses of your trading strategies: Successful Strategies: Identify the aspects of your trading approach that worked well. This could include specific indicators, timeframes, or types of assets that consistently yielded positive results. Challenges Faced: Analyze the reasons behind unsuccessful trades. Pinpoint any recurring issues, whether they are related to strategy execution, risk management, or market analysis. Adaptability: Ask yourself, "Is your strategy working for you?" If there's discomfort or a sense that your current strategy is not aligning with your trading goals, consider your options: - Explore New Strategies: Are you considering a shift in strategy? Perhaps there's a new approach or methodology that better suits your risk tolerance and market outlook. - Give More Time: Alternatively, are you planning to invest more time in your existing strategy? Sometimes, patience and fine-tuning can enhance the effectiveness of a proven approach. As an Example; I identified that my strengths lie in thorough technical analysis but acknowledges a weakness in managing emotions during periods of heightened volatility. I realized that implementing stricter risk management protocols could help mitigate losses during turbulent market phases. 3. Journal Your Trades: If you haven't already, start journaling your trades. Documenting your trading activities provides valuable insights into your decision-making process. Review your trades and identify patterns, both in successful and unsuccessful scenarios. What emotions were at play during specific trades? This self-awareness can be a powerful tool for refining your trading psychology. Initiate or revisit your trading journal, documenting each trade along with additional details: Decision-Making Process: Record the factors influencing your decisions for each trade. This includes technical and fundamental analysis, as well as any emotional factors that may have played a role. Emotional Reflection: Explore the emotional aspect of your trading. Note instances of fear, greed, or overconfidence. Understanding your emotional responses can help you make more informed decisions in the future. As an Example; I started a detailed trading journal, recording the rationale behind each trade and the emotions I’d experienced. Upon review, I noticed that I tend to become overly cautious during winning streaks, leading me to exit profitable trades prematurely. This awareness prompts me to work on maintaining discipline during profitable runs. 4. Statistical Analysis: Dig deeper into the statistics of your trades. Examine metrics such as win-loss ratio, average gain/loss, and drawdowns. These quantitative measures can offer a more objective view of your performance, helping you identify areas for improvement. Look for patterns in your trading data and consider how adjustments to your strategy might enhance overall profitability. Delve into the quantitative aspects of your trading performance: Win-Loss Ratio: Calculate the ratio of your winning trades to losing trades. A higher ratio indicates more successful trades. Average Gain/Loss: Evaluate the average profit and loss per trade. This metric helps you gauge the effectiveness of your profit-taking and stop-loss strategies. Drawdowns: Identify periods of significant drawdown. Understanding these downturns is crucial for risk management and improving overall stability. As an Example; I analyze my trading statistics and discovered that while my win rate is respectable, I experience larger drawdowns than what is comfortable for me. I decided to adjust my position sizing to limit the impact of losing streaks on my overall portfolio. 5. Spend Time in Backtesting: Utilize the quieter period of December to engage in thorough backtesting: Strategy Validation: Test your strategies against historical data to validate their efficacy. Identify any potential adjustments needed to align with current market conditions. As an Example; Taking advantage of the quieter December market, I dedicate time to backtesting. I test variations of strategies against historical data, identifying adjustments that improve performance. This process gives me the confidence to implement refinements in the live market. 6. Set Goals for the New Year: As you assess your trading performance, set clear and realistic goals for the upcoming year. Define what you aim to achieve, whether it's improving your win rate, reducing drawdowns, or exploring new trading opportunities. Establishing these objectives provides a roadmap for your trading journey in the year ahead. Establish clear and actionable goals for the upcoming year: Specific Objectives: Define precise objectives such as achieving a target percentage return, improving risk-adjusted returns, or expanding your trading skill set. Realistic Targets: Ensure your goals are realistic and achievable within a given timeframe. Unrealistic expectations can lead to frustration and poor decision-making. As an Example; Reflecting on past years, I acknowledged that setting overly ambitious goals led to frustration. This year, I’d set realistic expectations, aiming for a modest increase in overall profitability. This approach allows me to focus on consistent improvement without the undue pressure of reaching unrealistic targets. Overall: December offers a unique window for traders to step back from active trading, assess their performance, and strategically plan for the future. By leveraging this period of reduced market activity, traders can gain valuable insights, refine their strategies, and set achievable goals for the upcoming year. Make the most of this opportune moment to position yourself for success in your trading endeavors.
Education
by Amr-Sadek
AUDCAD - Are we in 2006?Taking a look on how this pair trades led me to find similar patterns in the past that we may be going through in the charts today. Market moves labeled from W - Z showing approximately where we stand. Based off what we see this would be a signal to mainly look for long positions over shorts in the long run. As we creep into 2024 this gives us a quick bull run into 2025 anticipating future downdraw. This would put us in a sideways market like shown around the '06 - '09 years. With this data you can match your research to add confluence in your investment strategy, trade ideas, and much more. *Not Financial Advice - DYDD*
by Nathanl19
1
Range bound EURJPYIn our Q/M 250 pip view we are looking for the EURJPY pair to remain in a bullish range or an efficient market with a bullish bias. Being that we are looking at an efficient market we understand that we only get involved at range lows. Robin Hood Trading Community: Our play is to buy at the lows with nano lots 100 lots 0.001. We are looking to accumulate positions for a inefficient move higher and protect ourselves from a large downside loss with correct risk management for our portfolio size.
Long
by RobinhoodFX
When to up your share size?Many traders have 2 or more trade set ups. It is important to know the following: 1)The risk of your trade must be in accordance with the winning percentage of the trade set up. 1)Your share size should increase or decrease in accordance with the winning percentage of the trade set up. * Share size increase must be in accordance to you account size (account management) These concepts are what separates really good traders from average traders.
BEducation
by UnknownUnicorn37963351
3
US Pre Market DashboardI'm based in the UK. This is my dashboard to keep an eye on in the run up to the US open. It includes NDQ, SPX & DJI futures (white line = current contract, blue line = contract in front), US Treasury 2/10 and 3m/10 yield curves, DXY, BTC and UK100 index. On the US index charts I've overlayed spot candle charts to see the difference between spot prices vs futures. Initially I had 2 layouts, one for futures/pre market and another with spot/open market. However, having tried using both in line and candle formats on the same layout, I'm finding this is suitable for pre and open hours. I frequently switch between hourly or daily, but during pre market hours in the run up to open, it's always the hourly chart, zoomed so that the full previous day's trading hours are visible. Comments, questions and suggestions welcome! Trade safe folks :-)
TVC:DXY
by jrgoodland
1 MINUTE OF THIS WILL SAVE 10 MINUTES OF YOUR TIME 🕒Yes, we’re talking about planning. We’ve all heard this from different “gurus”, professionals, even friends and family. “What is your plan” is one of the most frequently asked questions in the world, yet most people usually don’t have a clear answer to it. Why? Most people don’t know the technique of proper planning. Investroy is here to help clarify this basic yet vital skill. When you want your road to a better life to begin right now, planning may seem inconvenient. Getting around unfamiliar territory is much easier with a map and planning is our key here. It is important to note when we say planning in this context, we don’t only mean your trades. You have to look at the bigger picture. Why are you trading? To attain financial independence, make some extra money or maybe you just enjoy it (hmm.. we might have a psycho here). Without much talking, let’s jump right into it. First of all, “Make a list of your objectives”. Well, some of you might have heard about the SMART formula. This means that your objectives have to be: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound. In simpler words, you have to know exactly what you want, you need to have means to measure the progress, they have be realistic, make sense to you and have a timeline with an end date. Secondly, “Make a strategy by breaking down your goal into manageable bits” The first step is to figure out what you want to achieve. Big ambitions, on the other hand, might be intimidating, and you may feel as if you don't know how to get there. Unfortunately, here is when a lot of people lose up. Break it down into segments now that you know where you want to end. Where do you need to be in one year if your objective is to create a profitable business in two years? Is it really six months? What about next week? Make a strategy that breaks down your aim into tiny, manageable steps. Make a list of each step and establish a deadline for completing it. Third step is to review your plan on a daily basis. Sometimes reality is different from what we have in mind, that’s fine. Make some adjustments and move along. Lastly, you MUST stay focused and have a tunnel vision regarding your plan. “Sticking” to the plan sounds easy and complicated at the same time. Personally for us, creating habits off the market (going to the gym and having a healthy routine) helps significantly with following the planning process on the markets. We truly this made you stop and think for a second and start planning now. At the end a goal without a plan is just a wish!
BITSTAMP:BTCUSDEducation
by Investroy
13
My Planning Process Revealed In 4 Simple StepsIn this article, I want to show you exactly how I am planning to achieve more in 12 weeks than others achieve in 12 months. First of all, I’m not saying that I’m an expert on goal setting, because I’m not. I’m just sharing the planning process that works for me, it might be completely different for you. The Most Important Thing For Me In My Planning Process One of the things that I have learned over the years that works best for me is, I don’t create a plan for everything. Let me explain what I mean by this. Many, years ago, I heard about a concept that they use in the military, which is called Backwards Planning. And you might have heard about this. Backwards Planning The idea here is that you start with the exact goal in mind and then plan backwards. I have heard this example many years ago where it was used in the military where they say, for example, let’s say you want to invade a camp on the enemy’s territory. So the idea here now, is to go backward and say, “OK, what exactly has to happen right before you invade the camp?” Well, this is where obviously you need to have your troops surrounding the camp. Then you go one step backward. What needs to happen before you have your troops surrounding the camp? And I’m making this up here as we go. I don’t recall this example exactly. I was not in the military, this is just an example that I’ve heard. So in order to surround this camp with your troops, what do you need to do? You need to get your troops to that camp that you want to invade. In order to do this, first of all, let’s assume that this is on foreign soil, so you need to get your troops to foreign soil. So this is what the military often uses, so I was told, which is backward planning. The idea here with backwards planning is that you create a detailed step by step plan of what to do. Here’s one of the challenges. I don’t do this, because based on my experience, the problem with this is what do you do if something goes wrong? So let’s say that one of the first steps is that you are getting your troops on foreign soil, well what happens if somehow you can’t because there’s bad weather or you’re getting attacked? This is where I found that often when you do this, the whole plan becomes kind of useless. This is where for me, I figured out that planning can be overwhelming. It can make the process daunting and can make me feel paralyzed. I don’t know about you, but what happened in the past before I did what I’m about to show you here is, I got paralyzed. I never achieved my goals because I couldn’t get over the first hurdle of planning. I want to show you exactly what I do these days to avoid this. 4 Steps To My Planning Process Step One: I write down my goal. Step Two: I plan the next two to three steps, and here’s why. My idea is, and this is what I found to be true, when I walk the first steps the path will reveal itself. Imagine walking down a foggy path. You don’t actually see the end of the path where it is leading. When I have a goal, I realized that when I plan out the first few steps and start walking, as soon as I get towards the end where I can see, the path will again reveal itself. So this is where, going back to my planning process, it works really for me to plan the next two to three steps. Step Three: I take action and complete these steps. Step Four: When the fog starts clearing and I see the next step, then I add more steps or to dos to it. Planning Process Example This article is all about my planning process and how to achieve more in 12 weeks than most people achieve in 12 months. So let me give you a very specific example of how I’m doing this. One of my goals is to buy a resort in Mexico. Goal & Overview Usually I write myself a quick overview of what is it that I want to achieve. I’m meeting with my private Mastermind members usually three times per year in exotic locations to trade, relax and make money together. In the past, we have done it in the Cayman Islands, Bahamas, Puerto Rico, and Mexico and other locations, but finding a hotel with reliable Wi-Fi as well as getting all of our equipment there has been really challenging. Right now I think that there’s a tremendous opportunity because I know for a fact that the travel and hospitality industry is hurt because of Covid-19. I don’t know for a fact, but there might be a possibility to buy a hotel or resort for $0.60 to $0.70 on the dollar. So if that’s the case, it would be possible to make a 50% ROI within one to two years and that’s not bad at all, right? It could be even more, it could be 100%. So this is now where I write down a few to dos. This is where it goes back to my planning process. So I write down my goal and an overview of what I want to accomplish. So now you know why I’m doing this, what I want to accomplish here, and now I plan the next two to three steps. Planning Process Steps My first step is I want to get an idea of what kind of investment is needed. Is a resort around one million dollars? Two million dollars? Is it more, is it less? Then I want to get an idea if this is at all possible to make money with, because ultimately if I can make money with it, why wouldn’t I do it? I mean, just having a hotel to have a hotel does not make sense. So what’s the best location? The location should be up to 1,000 miles away from Austin and here’s why. I’m planning to buy a plane, and this plane that I have in mind right now has a reach of 1,000 miles. So I’m looking at possibly Mexico, Puerto Rico, Belize, Dominican Republic, Honduras, who knows. This is where I first wanted to find out what a possible price point is? Last weekend I was in Sacramento meeting with my head coach Mark, my CEO Debbie, and marketing director Jared. I shared this crazy idea with them and we had some fun looking for hotels online. Based on my research, I’ve found it’s probably between 1 to 2 million dollars that I would have to invest for anywhere between 20 and 30 rooms. That was fairly easy and only took me a few hours. I can now move on to the next step in the planning process. Now the question is, is it possible at all to make money with this? Because if not, then I can stop right here. Does It Make Sense? I have been investing in apartment complexes for the past five years. To give you an example, I bought an apartment complex with 48 units here in Austin for 2.3 million dollars. I’m making $30,000 in rent per month so I know how to run this. $30,000 in rent per month is covering my financing, which is a mortgage, also insurance. This is also taking care of the property management, utilities, maintenance, renovations as well as capital improvements. Now I know, having an apartment complex is not the same as running a hotel or resort, but I just wanted to see if this is feasible, and in a moment, I’ll show you why this is making sense. So you see, I already know on 48 units, which is quite a lot, on $30,000, I can do all of this and I’m making a profit. So that’s good, not a big profit but I’m making a profit. Now the question is if I need $30,000, let’s divide this by 30 days because now we are going to the resort, this means that I would have to bring in $1,000 in revenue per day. The resorts that I started to look into were around 26 rooms, 17 rooms, 22 rooms, so let’s just say that I will find something around the 2 million dollar mark that has maybe 25 rooms. This is what I’m looking for. So the key question is, can I make $1,000 per day in revenue, not in profits, with 25 rooms? It sounds like it’s possible, right? Again, I have no clue. There’s probably more vacancy, but if I can rent out half of the rooms every day, so 50% vacancy, and I rent them out for $80 per day, this means that I would have rented 12 rooms for $80, which is $1,000. I know that there’s housekeeping, so there’s probably more than property management and maintenance, right? But I believe that these are quite realistic assumptions. If they are not, and if you have experience in this space, leave me a comment below and let me know. Summary Here’s the important thing. Let’s tie this back to what today’s show is all about, right? How I get more done in 12 weeks than most people get in 12 months. Now, here’s the deal. How long did it take me to do the first two things thus far? Well, I can tell you four to five hours. And now I know whether it makes sense to pursue it before I go down a rabbit hole. What is my point with all of this? My point is to stick to something really, really simple when going through the planning process. Keep it easy where you set a goal, then plan the next two to three steps. Or if you want to go crazy, as I did here, we could do three to five steps. Then the most important thing is to take action and complete these first steps. Once you do this, you’ll see whether it makes sense and you can plan the next three to five steps and complete this process.
TVC:NDQEducation
by rockwelltrading
Planning the 'big long' and 'big short'They say don't trade against the trend, and the trend is your friend. But if you ask me, bitcoin has lost its trend. There is no clear direction anymore. From my experience this means there might be large wicks coming to a consolidation in the 35000-38000 range before a big trade can be made. It is normal to be stopped out of your trades if you actually want to trade the break-out. That's why I'm skipping the first, and the second time one of these entries hit and will wait for a third time before putting in my money. I have to add a disclaimer to this, they say noobs trade breakouts and pro's trade reverse to mean. So the pro advice will be to start preparing a trading range from 35000-38000 where plenty of money can be earned with appropriate leverage.
COINBASE:BTCUSD
by UnknownUnicorn12005085
USDCAD: Upcoming potential positionsI'm stalking this one for a strike, whilst resisting FOMO. Waiting, watching and planning is 90% of the job! The action could kick off on a lower time frame. Disclaimers : This is not advice or encouragement to trade securities. Chart positions shown are not suggestions. No predictions and no guarantees supplied or implied. Heavy losses can be expected. Any previous advantageous performance shown in other scenarios, is not indicative of future performance. If you make decisions based on opinion expressed here or on my profile and you lose your money, kindly sue yourself.
by Captain_Walker
FALSE BREAKDOWN—BUY OPPORTUNITY!!HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE! Breath...2...3....4...Exhale...2...3...4...5...6.. 2020 will be the year of patience. Have a trading plan or you are going to be left behind in the bull market. The crypto bull markets are more powerful than anyone can imagine, especially if you are a person that bought in at the beginning of the bear market. Don't wait for two year only to be left in the dust by selling to relieve the weight of bag holding. Practice breathing and calming your body to make decisions with a clear mind. And, again, have a plan! ——— I think this could be a false breakdown of support. There is such enormous buy power at the $6500 level. I'm expecting to see more upside in the coming days. This could be a beautiful buy opportunity!! Who knows? Good luck!
BITSTAMP:BTCUSDLong
by jjjk00
1
AUDNZD - patience, vigilance and planning required.This video is not about an instant opportunity for jumping in the markets. I'm sharing how I stalk the markets. New or novice traders - all too eager to make a fast buck - tend to miss the big issues i.e. that it is about patience, vigilance and planning ahead. The methodology shown is relevant to trend following. How do we find trends? Well, we need to be tracking price action on all time frames and key levels of probabilistic reversal. It's been a long journey for me and many new traders out there. For too long I've been told by the experts that it is mainly about vigilance and planning. Pain delivered by the markets brings home the truth of that golden message. These days I say it's about 80 to 90% vigilance and planning, and 10 - 20% execution.
by Captain_Walker