Managing Drawdowns - Do This When You're Underperforming!Hello Traders. It's been awhile since I last uploaded a workshop. Myself as a full-time trader, to be frank, the past 6 months have been tough for my personally. I've gone through some really bad drawdowns, mostly due to my external pressure that's causing me to have lower performance.
In today's topic, I am going to talk about "Drawdowns", which is not something people usually talk about. Social media, Youtube, all these platforms are made to make you 'feel bad'! People are constantly showing off their profits, but who'd willing to really open up to their drawdowns and bad trades?
Drawdowns are inevitable in trading, the only you can eliminate drawdown is to not take any trade/ risk. Make sense?
From my humble six years of trading experience, i realize most of the successful traders have one thing they are very good at - which is managing drawdowns and negative emotions. Think about it, we're all human, we're all a normal trader, why would some constantly achieving such a high performance while some constantly losing?
These are the four simple steps to help you in refining your drawdowns and hopefully get you out of it.
1. Understanding probabilities
- While we're in a drawdown (negativity), it's vital for us to take a step back and look at the numbers. Three things to read - trading plan, strategies data, market condition. If you're whatever you do is wrong, that's usually due your forcing trades during uncertain market environment/ condition, try to re-assess everything.
2. 3R Process (Review, Reflect, Revise)
- This is the most important process i've utilized for years to improve my trading consistency. Review your trading plan and all your journaling, then reflect what's the root of the problems, then find solutions around it. Remember to simplify things! By over-complicating your journaling, trading plan, or trading systems, really don't help things to be better.
3. Eliminate negativity
- Us, especially as a full-time trader, is common for us to blame ourself due to our bad decisions. But sometimes understand that no one wants to be in a drawdown, as it is all probability-based. Who want to lose money? But over the years, i found that the most successful traders out there have one very common personality - Confident.
- Be confident on yourself, that's the easiest element that allows you to execute trades consistently and fearlessly. Believe in your system, the drawdown is only temporary, you still got a long way to go. FInd a solution, fix it.
4. Take a step back - Re-evaluate
- When you're in a drawdown, most likely your rational behaviour and emotion have been negatively impact. So stop trying to force things, take the time you need to refresh your mind, re-set your mental state then come back stronger.
- By not giving yourself time to re-set your mental state, you're not just halting your performance, it could be self-sabotaging as well. Because by that means you're not applying the 3R process, certainly not fixing the problems too.
- Most of the losing streaks have one common losing pattern (that is hidden), so it is our accountability to find our the root of the problem, then frame a set of routine and action plan to solve it.
Hope this short workshop helps you a little bit.
Let me know in the comment section below what's your worst drawdown and how do you fix it!
Do not forget to like if you enjoy the content, and share with someone who'd enjoy reading this.
Trading Plan
Calculate your 1% risk per Trading Account to identify 3:1 R:RHello traders:
Lately there are more and more newcomers in my community,
and some are not quite familiar with risk management, especially when it comes to calculating R:R based on 1% of your account size.
Risking 1%, simply means risking 1% of your total account size.
For example, $1000 account size, is $10 per risk at 1% of trading account
$100,000 account size, is $1,000 per risk at 1% of trading account
The goal is to forecast and plan out an entry that will potentially give you at least 3:1 RR per trade or more.
Meaning by risking 1%, $1000 of your $100,000 account, you should look to achieve a $3,000 profit or more, hence giving you 3:1 RR, or +3% profit.
There are many websites that help you to calculate your R:R and position size in relation to your account.
Utilise them to calculate exactly your LOT size position in relation to your SL amount so you have a proper risk management in place.
Any questions, comments or feedback welcome to let me know.
Thank you
Risk Management: When/How to move SL to BE and to profit in a running trade ?
Risk Management: How to filter trading opportunities if multiple setups are presenting entries:
Risk Management: 3 different entries on how to enter the impulsive phrase of price action
Risk Management: What Is Capital Partitioning ? How will it help you as a trader ?
Risk Management 101
Risk Management: How to set a Take Profit (TP) for your trades
Risk Management: How to Enter and set SL and TP for an impulse move in the market
Risk Management: How to scale in the impulsive phrase of the market condition?
Risk Management: Combine everything you learn to prevent blowing a trading account
What Time-Frame Should You Trade?Hey Traders!
One of the reason new traders don't do as well as what they first perceived is sometimes they could be trading a multitude of different things in the wrong style. That doesn't suit the way they are attempting to attack the market, or even their personality.
Today I wanted to have a look into trading the different time frames, what's required? What are the pros and what the cons of each time frame? Now there's a million different ways to trade the financial markets. The time frame you're trading is one of the most important. I wanted to jump in and provide clarity for some of the newer traders that perhaps are trading the wrong market based on what they are actually trying to achieve. I see a lot of people coming into the market to earn profits (obviously) and they come in because they want time freedom, yet they all seem to gravitate towards the scalping one minute, 5 minute and 15 minute charts, which are not going to provide time freedom even when you are successful.
I understand the adrenaline pumping in the intraday setups and then it can help people have and feed that get rich quick feeling that gravitates so many people to the market. But it's time we take it seriously. Let's seriously dive into the pros and the cons and analyze what's actually going to benefit you as a trader moving forward.
INTRADAY
Intraday trading is definitely the most frequent out of all the traders that come into the Forex market. The Forex market advertises intraday trading a lot more because the commissions and spreads are extremely affordable compared to trading other markets. Intraday traders, also known as scalpers, trade the markets on the lower timeframes, usually between the one minute and 15 minute, and trades are held throughout a day session and usually closed by the end of the day. You usually see these traders have your typical eight or nine hour window in which they sit in front of the charts and trade.
There's plenty of pros to intraday trading the high frequency of trades, the great adrenaline pumping feeling, the more opportunities across a range of different markets, you hold no overnight risk and it's very easy to dodge fundamental news. You also less reliant on those one or two big winners to bring in your yearly profits.
In saying that, there's also plenty of cons. Transaction costs are much higher when you're scalping. You have to incorporate spreads and commissions can sometimes eat up your profits. Mentally an emotionally, it is an extremely difficult task. You have to be able to be disciplined enough to make quick reaction decisions with money and risk on the line. As mentioned above, unlike the other trading systems and timeframes, it does require quite a lot of time and concentration throughout a trading session, which is why if you're chasing time freedom, I wouldn't recommend intraday trading.
SWING
Swing trading is a common way of trading, as a lot of people are able to do it part time away from whatever their main career. Swing traders trade the markets on a mid-range time frame, usually between the one hour to the four hour chart (sometimes going a little bit above). Trades are held for hours to a week and they try to profit from the larger moves in the market.
The pros to swing trading? There's plenty of opportunities, plus more than enough time to sit back and thoroughly think through your analysis. The ability to make money while doing something else, which I touched on just before, you can still have your full time job and trade after hours, and then also there are much lower transaction costs compared to intraday trading, as spreads and commissions don't tend to eat up as much as you kind of aiming for those larger moves in the market.
The cons? Swing trading of a sudden introduces this overnight risk. You're going to have to sleep at some point and you may have positions open during that time. That right there is a window of risk where you can not react to the market. I have also found that many people tend to lose sleep while they have open positions. Fundamental news releases start affecting your decision making. You're going to have to incorporate the economic calendar. It does require a lot more patience to be able to hold positions over long periods of time. You will have to be making decisions without your emotions affecting and changing your overall bias.
LONG-TERM
Finally, we start looking at our long-term investors. I call it investing because they tend to trade the markets on a higher range time frame like the daily, weekly or monthly chart. Trades are held throughout week and sometimes months trying to profit from the really large fundamental moves of the market.
The pros to long term investing or trading are you do not have to watch the market in today, the lower timeframes mean nothing to your analysis which allows you to step back and think clearly. You have much fewer transactions which relates to much lower transaction costs. You have more time to think about your trades and much more time to react to different news releases or change in market bias.
The constant long term trading are the very few opportunities per year. Fundamental knowledge is 100% required. There will be people that say you don't need it, but honestly I highly recommend you have a great deal of fundamental knowledge. It requires exponential amounts of patience and the ability to sit on your hands for weeks or months on end. It does require bigger account for more buying power so you can open multiple positions over long periods of time. Finally you will incur frequent losing months as you do not have many trades to bring that initial balance too profit.
I hope that bought a bit of clarity to the multiple timeframe traders and where you're currently sitting. Have a look at what your goals are with actually being involved with trading. Where do you want to get to? Is the time frame you're trading is actually going to allow you to get there? If you're here as a part time trader and you'd love to have that time freedom that so many people advertise. Maybe look for the bigger time frames as you can have that time to go do whatever it is you need, and you don't need to be sitting at a computer desk. If you love intraday trading and scalping and you're willing to put in the hours of work and more or less work a nine to five type role. Your scalp trading is going to be one for you.
Trading Psychology - Long Term Sustainability in the MarketHello traders:
Today I want to discuss an important topic on long term sustainability.
It is no surprise that trading any financial market has proven to be difficult, and stressful.
Many new traders come and go so fast in the industry, and it's often due to the wrong mindset, trading plan, risk management and expectations.
I want to focus on the psychology part of trading for sustainability,
as I have made many trading plan, risk management related videos already, though I can discuss more on mindset and emotion today.
My vision in trading psychology has always been: Consistency, and Sustainability .
These are a few things I tell myself each and everyday in my trading journey to help me stay sustainable in the market.
-I am NOT here to get rich quick, traders who have that mindset often failed fast and quit
-I am here to make a reasonable % return per month, based on proper risk management and trading plan.
-I understand in order to make a ridiculous return per month, it requires over-risking and over-trading,
but it's unsustainable on a larger account size. I do not wish to lose a larger account or ability to trade for larger prop firms’ accounts.
-I understand the uncertainty in the market, any strategy, method and approach will run into drawdowns and losses.
-To prevent revenge trading, over trading and over leveraged, proper mindset and emotion are needed to survive and sustain in the market
-I believe in long term sustainability, and looking to “win the lottery” by going all in on trades. 1
% per account risk with 5-7% return per month is reasonable, achievable, and sustainable in the long run.
These are just a few pointers and reminders I tell myself each and every day.
This year will mark my 9th year in trading, and I am thankful to have gone through all these trading experiences in the past that made me a better trader today.
I am still continuously learning and growing, very happy with the consistent and sustainable approach that I do.
I am sure there are many other traders with different opinions, methods, approaches in trading, with different mindset, expectations and goals.
I respect all trading strategy, perspective and options. At the end of the day, it's up to each individual trader to identify their journey and what method they wish to implement in trading.
I sincerely hope I can help some of the traders to understand the importance of long term sustainability, and that will enable traders to continue to be a part of the financial market for the years and years to come.
Thank you :)
Jojo
Risk Management Educational Video:
Risk Management: When/How to move SL to BE and to profit in a running trade ?
Risk Management 101
Risk Management: Combine everything you learn to prevent blowing a trading account
Trading Psychology Educational Video:
Trading Psychology: How to deal & manage losses/consecutive losses in trading ?
Trading Psychology: Revenge Trading
Trading Psychology: Fear Of Missing Out
Trading Psychology: Over Leveraged Trading
Trading Psychology: Is there Stop Loss Hunting in Trading ? How to deal with it ?
Your strategy will inevitably go through a Drawdown!Your strategy will inevitably go through a Drawdown. And there's nothing you can do about it to stop that. However, you can learn how to survive it!
Today I will give you actionable steps, that you can use for the next time the market hit your strategy and you feel that everything is going wrong.
Let's start with an idea of what a drawdown is, and why drawdowns happen.
There are an infinite amount of trading strategies and tools that people use to trade and take advantage of specific market conditions.
Some traders are better in trending markets, they trade breakouts. Other traders feel more comfortable in ranging markets, where they trade quick reversals on key levels.
The Math is simple here. Trending strategies will have a poor performance on ranging markets, while reversal strategies will have a poor performance on trending markets.
Detecting the beginning and end of trending cycles or ranging cycles, is blurry. So, if you agree with that, as I do, you can expect your strategy to start failing at some point. And that's the beginning of the drawdown. (This is true for the best traders in the world, as for the worst traders in the world. Nobody scape drawdowns, the quickest you accept this, the faster you can learn how to handle them properly)
So let's start by saying that drawdowns are situations where your strategy experiences a lasting decline in performance, even if you are doing everything perfectly. Drawdowns, happen because strategies are made to take advantage of specific anomalies that can be found in one part of the market cycle, and when that market cycle finishes, or changes, your strategies become less accurate.
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It's important that you become aware of the Psychological consequences of Draw Downs , so you can have a countermeasure for this. Let's take a look at the most common ones:
1) Decrease in confidence (constant negative thoughts about your system)
2) Fear of entering the next trade.
3) Thinking about changing things in your strategy (deviations from the original plan)
4) Thinking about modifying the risk you are using to cover losses quicker.
5) Ceasing your trading execution, and looking for a new strategy.
ALL THESE ITEMS, are the main situations you may start feeling when going through a drawdown. IF you are going through that, it's important that you understand that you are under a delicate emotional state, where your confidence is low, and you are prone to make more emotional decisions that 99% of the time, tend to increase the drawdown.
So the way we handle drawdowns is by having logical and systematic processes in place instead of emotional ones.
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Here you have actionable steps to handle drawdowns:
STEP 1 : You handle drawdowns by getting ready before they happen, not when they are happening.
This is true for almost all disciplines, not only for trading. Airplanes have clear plans in case things start going wrong, instead of figuring out the problem at the moment, pilots go to the manual book, and use the template for this situation, plus the fact that they trained those situations several times in simulations.
So, if you want to understand what a drawdown situation looks like in your strategy, you MUST go into the past, and when I say this, I'm not saying making a 3 week backtest. You need to go as far as you can in the past, to find that exact moment where your strategy is not working as expected.
How many consecutive stop losses do I have? 3? 5? 15? 20?
How long does this period last until everything goes on track again? 1 month? 3 months? or a year?
These are the kind of answers you are trying to solve. When doing a backtest you are trying to understand two things. The first one is if your strategy has an edge. The second one is how hard you get hit when things go wrong!
STEP 2: Work your risk management around the stats of your system. Imagine we reach the following conclusion "I have a system, that executes 10 setups per month" and the worst-case scenario I have found is 20 consecutive stop losses during 2 months. What I would personally assume is that 20 consecutive stop losses can be 30. So how much capital percentage should I risk on this system so I don't get knocked out if this TERRIBLE scenario happens.
The answer for me would be 1% per setup. Under the assumption of this unique scenario, I would be 30% down, which is something acceptable, compared to the drawdown of conventional investment vehicles like S&P500 where we observed those kinds of declines, in the last years. The main point here is that you need to adapt the risk you are using on the strategy, to the stats of it, and your risk tolerance.
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Let's recap the key aspects of this post.
1) Drawdowns are inevitable, your strategy will be hit by this scenario eventually.
2) Drawdowns cause an emotional disturbance and are the main reason why people make really bad decisions.
3) We handle drawdowns by getting ready in advance. Through backtest, we can understand the edge of our strategy and the worst-case scenarios.
4) We adapt the risk of our strategy, by considering a terrible scenario, like 30 consecutive losses.
This will not eliminate the feeling during this period, but it will bring you a work frame to make logical decisions based on data, instead of emotions. Implementing this type of thinking will make your strategy more robust, it will help you go through these situations, and most importantly it will protect you from making stupid things with a strategy that has an edge, and actually works!
Thanks for reading!
SETTING REALISTIC GOALSHey Traders,
Traders whether they are new to the world of finance or have been involved for a while can benefit greatly from setting specific goals in correlation to what it is they actually want to achieve. There's a million different ways on focusing and goal setting in trading and a lot of people get it wrong straight out of the gates. To this day I still see some professional traders still setting their goals wrong. Traders need to get to focusing on the process of trading, including strategies, structures, journaling, whatever it may be. You have to focus on these processes set in place for yourself regardless of results. This can be so much more effective with getting to an area of consistency compared to just focusing on returns.
One key takeaway I want you to get from this post is all traders, whether novice or whether you're experienced, you should be basing your trading results off of how well thought out the trading plan was, which includes how the trades will be entered, exited, how the money will be managed. That right there is how you measure performance, not the Profit and Loss that comes from the trades.
Process Goal Setting -
Initially, when getting into trading, most traders look for some kind of goal surrounding numbers. We are all here to make money, to make percentage gains. So we tend to gravitate towards setting our goals based on what we want to return, what type of money we want to make, what time are percentage yield we want to bring in. This is damaging in its own right. It's very easy for people to say, OK, I'm going to try an make 1% per day and I'm going to do all my trading to make 1% per day. Then all of a sudden they start planning in the future. "Okay, I make 1% per day everyday for the rest of the year," and then all of a sudden they start calculating what they're expected to return and they give themselves these high hopes in achieving that. But The thing is, what they're not understanding is given their strategy, 1% per day might not be possible. We can't say yes. I'm going to make 1% per day and our strategy not allow that to happen. We may only find one opportunity per week given our strategy, we might only find three opportunities, but we have a 33% win rate. So having these unrealistic, number focused goals are really damaging because no matter how much work you put into it, it may not be possible.
Just like any other business, we need to develop a process. Anna system and our goals need to be set on doing that process an working that system correctly and consistently. So rather setting goals for, I want to make 5% this month. Set goals like I want to only take trades which are an A-Grade set-up in accordance to my strategy. I want to journal every trade for the next 4 weeks. Goals like these make you focus on the process, and I don't know a single business that is successful without a good process. Most businesses don't get profitable for a set period of time. Some even just fail. Without a process and without setting goals aligning with those processes will make your results be based on chance and not based on skill.
Aim for consistency -
When it's early on and you may still be demo trading or trading with a small amount of money, I want you to start aiming for consistency. Now I know that can be hard when running in drawdowns or perhaps even trading a strategy that isn't profitable, but what you can do is aim to be consistent in your process aim to be consistent in your decision making. Aim to be consistent in your risk management. What you will learn is whether your strategy is profitable or not. You will learn a lot about the market. What you will notice after a long period of consistency (Trade for at-least three months) is your areas that need improvement. let's stay consistent and every single day you do the same thing, you trade the same setups, you trade exactly the same way, which a lot of people don't have the self discipline to do. You will notice areas where you can improve on based off of those results. Most people give up and fail because they're not disciplined enough to remain consistent in a strategy which isn't providing them with the unrealistic returns that they're aiming for. If you sit down and you take it seriously for three months, win or lose, I guarantee you will take about 18 steps forward in the right direction compared to just sitting on the balance rope jumping from strategy to strategy.
It is okay to not trade -
This is where consistency and discipline delivers the reality check. The market is constantly moving, sometimes slow, sometimes fast, and that gives people the impression that their strategy is always valid and they always have to be risk on and always have to be trading. This isn't the case. Trading during slow times or making impulsive trades outside of the scope of your plan is such a common issue that I feel the need to point it out in today's message. So many people will try and force their strategy or force themselves to get in and make money when the opportunity isn't there. Have a plan. Understand what it is you want to see. Understand what it is you want to trade and wait patiently until that opportunity arises. Do not try and force trading. It will only result in one way and it will not result in you achieving the goals that you want to achieve.
Start small, then grow -
I witness day in day out, traders just trying to get onto big accounts because they believe if they had more money they would achieve better results. They build the most complex strategies and trade four different strategies across 12 different assets straight out of the gates. This is not an easy game. This is not an easy money grab. It can generate thousands and thousands of dollars if done right. But it has to be done right. The learning process is the exact same. Start small, be a niche trader focused on a few manageable goals. Results will come in time. If you trade according to your trading plan you've remained disciplined and you do everything I spoke about today, you will see improvements and progress. Set goals, realistic goals that have nothing to do with profit and loss, but have everything to do with being a consistent, self disciplined trader and you will see returns come in the long run. If you develop the foundations to being a profitable trader, the profits will be delivered once you get a greater understanding of what needs to be done.
I wish you all great success and cannot wait to hear about your consistency in trading!
Trading the bleeding markets with a winning mindset ;)There's a great struggle going from profit to loss.
A burst of a bubble, which in it's essence is hope.
But this is false.
The odds are, that your profits were on paper, so how does a loss on paper differ from a profit on paper?
Truth is - It doesn't.
But what it does do is play with your emotion.
Our mind has a tendency of expecting the worst once things start rolling in that direction.
Take a step back and think about what life threw at you so many times in the past, think about the times you thought things are going to end up the worst but actually didn't.
It could be you planned a nice day outside with your partner in the park but it started to rain.
But instead of crying about the day wasted and how this is just awful, you ended up cooking together a nice lunch and drinking wine while finding a new great TV show to watch, ending up being one of the best days in a while.
Not let's roll back to trading.
And let's cut out negative thinking completely just for 3 minutes and look only at the positive.
Positive points -
1) Cheap instruments all around to invest in
2) Great practice of mental skills while trading, which truly is the most influential aspect of mastering trading
3) It reminds you the very basics of trading that we lose track of once markets start flying up - Buy low, sell high.
4) Opportunity, opportunity, opportunity - Every time you would have bought into the stock market, over a few year period you would make great returns, same thing goes even for people who bought Bitcoin after the decline of 2018 and pretty much any other pop financial instrument.
5) You're a day trader? Great! Volatility is amazing if you have a strategy which is disciplined and consistent as well as based on risk management.
See how bright the light shines at this very moment?
Keep it. Be positive. Be hopeful. Be practical.
The negative quotes such as -
I can lose everything!
It's never going to rally back!
This is taking too long!
I don't have patience for this!
This is turning out to be so not fun!
I didn't expect to hold this trade this long!
How will any of this benefit you in any way? Where's the logic? Where's the gain? Where's the analysis? Where's the market view? Where's the money management?
Only look at what is relevant to your success. Block the negative, ignore it completely as much as you can and eventually always.
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Thank you so much for reading! I hope you found my idea useful, if you did, please like and follow! It would mean the world to me.
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ow to Apply Trailing Stop | PRICE ACTION TRADING 📚
Hey traders,
In this post, I will share with you my strategy to apply a trailing stop.
Please, note that I am applying a trailing stop only in trend-following trades and only when a trade is opened on a key level. I trade price action patterns, so the following technique will be appropriate primarily for price action traders. Moreover, my entries are strictly on a retest.
1️⃣
Spotting a price action pattern I am always waiting for its neckline breakout. (if we talk about different channels, then by a neckline we mean its trend line)
Once I see a candle close below/above the neckline, I set my sell/buy limit order on a retest.
Stop loss will strictly lie below the lows of the pattern if we buy and above the highs of the pattern if we sell.
2️⃣
Once we are in a trade, you should measure the pattern's range (distance from its high to its low based on wicks) and then project that range from the entry to the direction of the trade.
In the picture, the pattern range and its projection are the underlined blue areas.
Once the price reaches the projection of the pattern's range, you should move your stop loss to entry and make your position risk-free.
Move stop to breakeven in traders' slang.
3️⃣
Then you should let the market go.
📈If you are holding a long position you should let the market retrace and set a higher low and then a new higher high or AT LEAST an equal high. Once these conditions are met you can trail your stop and set it below the last higher low.
📉If you are holding a short position you should let the market retrace and set a lower high and then a new lower low or AT LEAST an equal low. Once these conditions are met you can trail your stop and set it above the last lower high.
Catching a trending market you should trail your stop based on new higher lows / lower highs that the price sets. Occasionally you will catch big winners.
How do you apply a trailing stop?
❤️If you have any questions, please, ask me in the comment section.
Please, support my work with like, thank you!❤️
What Are My Daily Trading Routine As A Consistent TraderHello everyone:
Today I want to share my personal daily routine in trading.
Many have asked me about how a typical day of mine would be,
and I have no problem sharing that with everyone in hope to provide some examples on how you can construct your own day as well.
It's important to know that each person is unique, has different priorities, business, jobs, family, and other things to attend to.
So it's best to understand that what I propose here is more of a guideline that you can utilize, and ultimately comes down to your own schedule and time.
I am a strong believer in not needing to be on the chart all day long, in order to create a healthy trading lifestyle.
Morning 6-9 AM
-check the chart, go through all my flagged watchlist
-prepare for my weekly and mid-week market update live stream OR private quick daily market updates
-answer any questions within my community, platforms, and areas
-go on with my day (family, other businesses)
-wont need to check the chart again until the roll over time
-will set alerts to monitor any trades, entries..etc
Afternoon 3-5 PM
-after the day is rolled over
-construct a new daily watchlist for the day ahead
-check or uncheck flag in my watchlist to see if there's anything developed or confirmed my forecast/analysis
-answer any questions within my community, platforms, and areas
-go on with my day (family, other businesses)
-wont need to check the chart again until my night time before London Session starts
-will set alerts to monitor any trades, entries..etc
Evening 10-11 PM
-check the chart, go through all my flagged watchlist
-will set alerts to monitor any trades, entries..etc
Always remember to have a healthy trading lifestyle and don't get burn out
Have priorities in life
Thank you all :)
LET'S GET REAL: Fear of Losing! Hey Traders,
Most traders battle it. I myself had to progress past this in order to achieve consistent returns trading the markets. It is seen as one of the hardest challenges to pass in terms of emotional discipline. Understanding yourself better so you can make decisions in a calm, composed and consistent manner is crucial to success.
Today I wanted to touch on that. I wanted to talk about the fear of losing what spurred from my fear of losing, how I progressed through it (it still creeps in from time to time). Hopefully you can take from my story and how it improved your trading or how it can help you progress past that fear of losing.
If anyone has any questions or maybe some other stories in the way they progressed through a fear of losing or a fear of being a failure, please feel free to share in the comments and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.
Have a fantastic trading week!
Learning to Utilize bots in uncertainty and capitulationOften times when the moments passed, we have lingering hopes of still finding the values of our initial opportunities…however I’ve realized it’s better to win & walk away…come back fresh and plan and execute fresh again! It seems the perspective we have gets colored as we trade. So all my family here and my haters to I simply ask when not certain what to do? Those times utilize trade bots and you’ll certainly woohoo! Matters of capitulation, and when community signals galore! Those who diversify all of their practices will certainly see this through. Imagine setting your parameters based on the channels we draw? Then don’t worry just adjust as it rises and falls ^_^ #BotsFTW
Do You Have an Edge in The Market?Hello, traders!
Have you ever wondered why it feels so hard to be consistently profitable in trading?
If you have, It's okay. You're not the only one
In fact 90% of traders lose money consistently.
What have they done to deserve that?
This is what 90% of traders do:
- looking for holy grail strategy
- when it fails, they jump to other strategy
- they never verify the strategy by doing their own research (back testing, forward testing, live account demonstration)
- rinse and repeat
With this mentality, they've become jack of all trades and masters of none. They took every possible opportunity without knowing the probability of the outcome. With so much strategy in their mind, the trading outcome become random and haphazard. If you include the emotional damage factor, this approach in trading will bring negative equity expectancy in the long run.
Instead of jumping from one method to another, ask yourself this question:
1. What specific method do you use?
2. What timeframe?
3. What kind of market work with the method?
4. How many sample do you have in your back test?
5. How much is your average win rate, risk reward?
The clearer your answer, the better. It will give you more confidence in your strategy execution. You'll also be calmer when losing streak comes. Less emotional damage = better outcome and more consistent result. Here's an example from one of my backtest (not a recommendation to use my method, please do your homework):
1. What specific method do I use?
In this example, I use trend continuation chart pattern (mostly flag, rising/falling wedge, pennant, symmetrical triangle).
I use ema200 as filter. If the price is below ema200 I have sell bias. If the price is above ema200 I have buy bias. So if I see bullish chart pattern while the price is far below ema200, I won't take the trade
I add MACD as momentum indicator. If the setup accompanied with MACD crossover, it shows momentum shift and good potential entry point.
2. What timeframe?
I use m30 timeframe in this back test
3. What kind of market work with the method?
I tested with best results in JPY forex pairs (especially AUDJPY, GBPJPY, CADJPY) and AUDUSD
4. How many sample do you have in your back test?
in GBPJPY I have collected 110 trade sample with the same method from January 2021 to December 2021. (I recorded the screenshot of the back test too)
5. How much is your average win rate, risk reward?
In those 110 sample, I got 72 wins and 38 losses with 1:1.5 risk to reward ratio. This means I have about 65.45% win rate. So this system gives me positive return expectancy based on the back test.
After you've answered these 5 questions, you can do forward testing with a small account (if you want to use demo account first, It's okay. But take into account you won't experience the emotional factor). Record your trading result until you've gathered enough data and you feel comfortable with the result.
Congratulation, you've got yourself a proven strategy that you're comfortable to trade with. After that, all you need to do is be so good with that system until it becomes very intuitive to you.
Stick to one method and become the master of that method.
Just as Bruce Lee said:
"I fear not the man who practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times"
Don't be lazy and do your homework dear traders!
What Does Consistency Mean In Trading ? Hello traders:
Today let's talk about “consistency” in trading.
Many traders understand they need to be consistent, but what exactly is consistent in trading ?
To me, it's not just making consistent “profit”, rather it's being consistent with your trading strategy, risk management, trading psychology, mindset and emotion.
Let's take a look at a few examples of consistency in trading:
Consistency in profits:
More often traders think about hitting a set amount of % return in consistency.
This is certainly one way to look at it, but I would say to challenge ourselves to do more.
Each and every month, the market will develop differently, hence our profits are not gonna always be the “same” each and every month.
Some month with more profits, some month with more losses. We need to have the ability to stay “consistent” no matter what the market condition is.
Consistency in strategy and Trading Plan:
Remember, there are many different trading strategies out there.
The ability to stay “consistent” with your current trading strategy, and not jump from strategy to strategy.
Even if your strategy right now isn't getting any entries available in the current market condition, while others are entering trade, you need to stay consistent with your strategy and let the probability play out.
Understand no strategy can catch every move in the market. Some will catch this particular run, while others will catch other developments.
Consistency in risk management:
When you are at a series of drawdowns and losses, the ability to stay “consistent” with your risk management.
Not risking more than 1%, not entering more than 2-3 trades at a time. No revenge trade, and/or over leverage trade.
Respect your SL and honour the SL. More often traders fall into this stage while they take a number of losses and throw their risk management out the window.
Consistency in mindset and emotion:
When your strategy isn't playing out on a short term, the ability to stay “consistent” and not to start randomly taking trades based on FOMO, Greed and emotion.
Sometimes traders get impatient and feel like waiting for setups to happen is a hassle and they don't want to wait.
This is when they start to rush their trading journey and backfires on them.
Consistency in your goal:
Set goals for your result and progress. The ability to stay “consistent” with yourself and don't let external factors like social media, fake guru, scammers affect you and your goal.
If you plan to have 5% per month profit, then don't let other people affect you in a negative way.
Everyone trades differently, and with different strategy, method and approach. No need to compare and compete with others, rather, with yourself each and every year.
Below I will forward some good educational videos on the above topics that we have discussed:
Trading Psychology: Revenge Trading
Trading Psychology: Fear Of Missing Out
Trading Psychology: Over Leveraged Trading
Risk Management: Combine everything you learn to prevent blowing a trading account
Interest rates, Inflation and how to trade it.Hey Traders,
Massive week this week fundamentally for the Forex market. 3 big interest rate decisions being released so I thought there was no better time than now to have a chat about what it is, what it indicates and finally, how traders profit from it. Fed and BOE almost guaranteed to hike rates, RBA is sitting unsure.
Have a watch of the video and I am more than happy to have a discussion in the comment section!
As always, have a fantastic trading week and I wish you all many profits.
How to win over greed?🎃1. Greed is the problem
Many beginners and even experienced traders face greed. It's a feeling that makes you believe in your superiority over the market:
• Opening a lot of trades, breaking risk management
• Continuing to trade after incurring a loss
• Refusing to take profits, hoping to earn more
• Averaging losing trades, because everything is about to change.
• Believing in the reliability of your pattern, although no pattern or indicator always works out 100%.
2. Why does greed take over?
We all have our own desires and goals. Society teaches us that we shouldn't deny ourselves comfort. This leads the vast majority to take out loans for new clothes, iPhones, Cars.. This is how people get used to greed's superiority and put it before discipline, getting accustomed to being able to live beyond their means.
What do you think happens to such people when they come into trading?
God forbid, such a person immediately learns about futures, then he will lose everything in a month at most. This is exactly the 95% who lose money in the market.
They suddenly see an opportunity to make a million out of $10,000 in a month, and, inspired by the stories of dogecoin millionaires from YouTube and Reddit, start to long bitcoin with x125 leverage.
There is another type. They do not rush to make money, they act more cautiously. They set themselves up right away that "trading is a long game and there is no hurry". They develop steadily and study pattern after pattern. However, their game pays off very slowly, and under the influence of their expertise they allow themselves more and more "experiments". They are like King Theoden from Lord of the Rings, who was slowly losing his mind under the watchful eye of Wormtongue.
3. How do you get around greed and start using it to your advantage?
Change your perspective. Instead of being greedy for money, become greedy for your professional growth . Ironically, if you stop focusing on money, they will come.
Create a journal and start analyzing your trades:
• What were your reasons for entering?
• Did you need to open that trade or was it suboptimal?
• Did you act under the influence of emotions, and if so, which one and why?
Develop, grow, and reward yourself when you get better, even if your trading results are unchanged. Your brain needs to get used to the fact that the most important thing now is discipline and small improvements. Step by step, you will become a profitable trader and, when you do, withdraw your honestly earned profits into fiat to reward yourself for your fortitude and persistence. You will succeed, because unlike all casino players, you will have the backbone and endurance!
Good luck on your journey! If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments, I always check and answer them.
Leave a like so you can enjoy the trader psychology posts in the future as well, and thanks for reading to the end. You are the best!
10 Trading Commandments of a Successful Trader 📜
Hey traders,
In this post, we will discuss 10 divine rules that every trader must obey:
1️⃣ - Accept that risk and losses are a necessary part of trading.
Even though most of the traders are looking for a holy grail, for a system that produces 100% win rate, in fact, losses are inevitable, they are part of the game.
No matter how good you are as a trader, occasionally, the market will outsmart you.
2️⃣ - Have a proven trading system.
Trade only with a trading strategy that you backtested, that proved its accuracy and efficiency.
3️⃣ - Concentrate on the risk, not the reward.
Cut losses, and control your risk. Remember about risk management and never neglect that.
4️⃣ - Never trade without stop loss.
Some traders say that they can easily control losses without stop loss. Don't listen to them. Always set a stop loss once you are in a trade.
5️⃣ - Have an attainable target.
Setting a stop loss remember to know where to close your trade in profit. Follow strict rules and do not let your greed take you under control.
6️⃣ - Take your emotions under control.
No matter whether you are losing, winning, or do not see any trading setups to trade, your emotions will always try to distract you.
Be cold-hearted.
7️⃣ - Always stick to your trading plan.
Never break your rules, follow your system, and do not deviate.
Your trading plan is your only map.
8️⃣ - Limit your losses, never limit your profits.
While your gains can be scalable, your risks and losses must be fixed.
9️⃣ - Treat your trading as a business.
Trading should be treated with the same discipline as a business.
Every business has a solid business plan which entails how the day-to-day running of the business is done, and this also guides the decision-making process.
🔟 - Always journal your trades.
Always keep a trading journal. Record your winners and losers, entry reasons, mistakes, failures etc. Revise and learn from your mistakes.
Of course, that list can be extended and more commandments and rules can be added. However, these 10 in my view are the most important. Print this list and let it guide you in your trading journey.
What would you add to that list?
❤️If you have any questions, please, ask me in the comment section.
Please, support my work with like, thank you!❤️
The basics of back-testing (HOW TO)Hey Traders,
Today I wanted to follow on from the fantastic amount of comments that we are receiving from the previous video, "stop strategy jumping." It seems that so many of you took a whole heap of value from that video and for that I am very thankful and to everyone who reached out and told their story or let me know that it really touched them.
As highly requested, I wanted to run through a basic way to start getting the grips with strategy back-testing. How can we go about back-testing our strategies to ensure that they are profitable for us in the long run? Take a look, have a listen and tune in. Set up an excel sheet the way I do and get back testing. There's only one way to do this, and it is to do the hard work.
Let me know what you guys find. I can go more in depth in the future, but for now. It seems like most people wanted to get to grips with the absolute basics, which is what I'm going to show you today.
If you have any questions at all, please the comment section is the place to be. As always, have a fantastic trading week and a fantastic weekend traders. I'll see you very soon.
MAIN ELEMENTS OF YOUR TRADING PLAN | Trading Basics 📝
Hey traders,
One month ago I wrote an article about the importance of a trading plan. Now it is time to discuss what should be inside your trading plan.
Before we start let me note that a trading plan is a very personal thing and depending on your personality you may have some other elements. In this article, we discuss key elements that must be in every trading plan.
🔰Trading Strategy.
I want you to realize that a trading strategy is not a trading plan. A trading strategy is simply one of its main elements.
A trading strategy defines a set of rules and market conditions that one is looking for to open a trade and then manage that.
🔰Trading Time.
Relying on your trading strategy you should know exactly when you trade. The time range must be precise and fixed. If you think that today you can trade the opening of the London session, tomorrow the Asian one, and then the US opening, I have very bad news for you.
Your trading hours must be fixed and objective.
🔰Trading Instruments.
As with your trading time, you should have a fixed trading list. A set of financial instruments that you monitor on a daily basis.
🔰Trading Journal.
You should learn to journal your trades. Just a single performance is not enough. You should note the exact market conditions that made you open the trade and many other factors that you consider to be important.
Then learn from your mistakes and improve your trading strategy based on your journal.
🔰Risk Management.
Having the best trading strategy in the world one can fail simply because of neglecting the rules of risk management.
Define your risk per trade, maximum drawdown, and biggest losing streak you can take.
Optimize your trading to keep your losses under control.
Of course, that list can be extended. We can add, for example, trading psychology into that.
As I said, a trading plan is a very personal thing and while you mature in trading it will become more and more sophisticated.
The elements that we discussed in this article are crucial for your success in trading. In my view, their absence will lead you to a failure.
What do you want to learn in the next article?
❤️If you have any questions, please, ask me in the comment section.
Please, support my work with like, thank you!❤️
LET'S GET REAL: Stop Strategy Jumping!Hey Traders,
This one is going to be a little bit different, a little bit deeper and a little bit harder to listen to rather than usual technical analysis. I recommend you sit down and listen to this. Have a think whether it relates to you or whether you found yourself in this position, or even if you've gone through this position and share your experience on how you go through it. A lot of traders struggle with their strategy, jumping from aspects of trading and that's why so many educators out there make a lot of money off of them. It is time to stop.
In this video I outlay a challenge that I put to all the traders who may find themselves in this position to sit down and to thoroughly test their current or previous strategies and understand them on a deeper level. No more jumping around, no more looking outwards. Let's start looking inwards. Let's see the data that we have handed to us and what we can do to improve that data.
If you enjoyed this video, please leave a comment. Leave a like, if we do get enough likes and comments, I will make a Part 2 on how to go about this with a more depth avenue while using different resources.
As always, have a fantastic training week.
great setup for swing trading on #btc🔥hi there traders all around the world👋
one of the great setups that we can count on it is breaking the trend line and it simple.
when a trend line breaks spatially if that trend was a pullback in previous(we had a good bear trend line here) we must wait for price to reach and touch the trend line then we can enter.
tip: if price touches 2or 3 times its much better.
I hoper you enjoy the lessen I just teaches you, wish you all a great day with good profit.
cheers 🥂.
The Dunning–Kruger effectAfter recently doing a review of my last 6 months of trading, I recognized that my portfolio value over this period looked very similar to the Dunning–Kruger effect curve. (a psychological phenomenon that suggests people are not always the best evaluators of their own performance). The theory is often applied to trading because most retail traders experience a similar effect.
After spending 3 months of a practice simulator, I deposited real funds into a trading platform. Within the first week I saw a 24% increase which was shortly followed by loosing half my account value in the coming months. I then decided to take two weeks out and reflect on my performance. It was in these two weeks where I stumbled across an article called "5 steps to becoming a trader" (which I have linked to this post). I came to realize that I was completely incompetent. I didn't follow my trading plans, I got caught up in emotions and I was almost gambling money away in the hopes of getting rich quick.
The harsh reality is trading is hard. After a total of 9 month, I have only just managed to see a net positive return. I have spent thousands of hours only to be outperformed by an Index fund. One article won't change your performance, but these are some things that I learnt which could get you closer to conscious competence:
1. Don't trade with emotions, trade with your plan
2. Keep your risk/reward >1.75
3. Never risk enough money to loose sleep (enter each trade as if you have already lost the money you placed)
4. Reflect on performance and learn from mistakes
5. You don't need to win lots, you just need a mathematical edge
As a trader gains more experience, they become increasingly confident and more likely to see positive returns.
Stay dedicated!!!
Not having a position is also a position - When trading is bad?Every day we start by choosing between long and short.
Sometimes you wake up, look at the btc chart - and clearly see your setup.
And sometimes you don't see it. But you still saw how many of your friends traded shorts successfully and decide to enter a hostile market.
Bottom line: Lost profit, exhausted nerves, stress, a blow to self-esteem.
Most traders forget that there is a third option - to stand aside.
Let's discuss when such position can be useful and why most people use it so rarely.
Pro traders can be split into 2 types:
Bulls and bears. They trade for profit only in one direction, because they have a trained eye to see only their kind of setups.
When a bull finds himself in a bear market, he either trades in the red or breakeven. The same true for the bear.
And yet, even knowing this, the trader continues to trade unfriendly setups. Fueled by success that he carries from his market, he is sure that just a little more, a LITTLE LITTLE more, and he will be able to trade profitably in this market as well. "And if I can trade for profit in both directions, then I will become an absolute terminator and even Warren Buffett himself will personally beg me to share my market forecast with him!" I don’t know if you woke up with such thoughts in the morning, but I definitely had a couple of times.
The answer to this phenomenon is GREED (for money or fame). And the easiest way to get rid of such incidents is to write the following rule in your trading algorithm (I hope you have it):
• Trading during correction is prohibited.
Just one sentence will save you a huge amount of money and help you increase your capital much faster.
Instead of losing money trading corrections, it is better to:
• Relax and spend part of your honestly earned profit on yourself and your loved ones.
• Patiently wait for your market and return to the game.
Do this - and trading will bring you much more pleasure, and you will earn even more and enjoy your life!
If this article was useful to you, please like and leave a comment so that I understand that it has value to you and will continue to write educational material in the future✌️