Qualities of a BAD Trader1) Does not Journal
They do NOT journal and proceed to continuously do the SAME thing day in day out expecting different results each time
2) FOMO
Proceeds to see someones open position on social media
Form a bias from that and open a trade based upon the individuals setup without any research
3) NO reasoning
Proceeds to stutter and talk nonsense if asked about reasoning for entering their trade
4) Does not know Risk management
Basis their risk off hunch and does not have consistent risk management within their trading
They always go "all in" with max leverage
5) Too attached
They are extremely attached to the $ figure , now this is a little more subjective
I tend to find that the less attached you are to the actual $ figure the better you generally will be as a trader
6) Worry about the wrong things
One question you should ask yourself is simply.
Is this going to help me make more money and become a better trader?
If the answer is NO, then don't focus on it
Ive seen too many times people worrying about DRAMA and being a journalist
If you do any of one of these try to stop them
It won't be easy but incremental changes are easier than changing everything at once
Try knock off one of these bad habits per week or even month and the incremental changes overtime will add up to something larger
Stay Tuned and See you next Time!
Trading Plan
4 tips to make trading less stressful RIGHT AWAY1. Reduce position size
The biggest stressor for traders is losing money.
If you're worried about how much you could potentially lose then using smaller position sizes can help you stay level headed
Even the best traders don't have a 100% hit rate. Losses will happen
2. Find high quality set ups
If nothing jumps out at you the first 10 seconds you look at a chart then there's likely nothing there
Rather than force it, map out and/or set some alerts at key areas and come back to it later
Search for another chart that's more clear
3. Stop phone trading when you're busy with other things
When you're out with friends/family, at a wedding or in the middle of something is not a good time to be trading
Trading is hard enough already. Don't handicap yourself by only being 30% focused
Bad things will happen
4. Reduce your leverage
High leverage causes losses to happen fast & liquidations even faster
ESPECIALLY ON ALTCOINS
100x liqs on alts are only a 0.75% move which can happen rapidly
Trading isn't gambling
Reduce leverage + widen stops to reduce likelihood of stop outs
Price Channel TradingPrice Channel + RSI trading
Price channel trading involves identifying a range of prices in which is trading and buying when the price hits the lower end of the range and selling when it hits the upper end of the strategy to trade within the range and that the price will eventually revert the mean.
RSI trading involves using the Relative Index (RSI) identify overbought and oversold in a stock. When the RSI is above 70, is considered overbought, and when the RSI is 30, the stock is considered overs Traders may buy when the stock is oversold and it is overbought, assuming the price will eventually revert of these strategies can be used to make money trading stocks, but careful analysis and to be successful. It's important to do your own research and consult with a financial advisor before making investment decisions.
What Should Be Inside Your Trading Plan
Find out why you should have a trade plan—and the five elements that may help you put it to work successfully.
Element 1: Your time horizon
How long do you plan to hold a position? This will depend on your trading strategy. Generally, traders fit into one of three categories:
Single-session traders are very active and look to gain from small price variations over very short time periods (minutes or hours) throughout the trading day.
Swing traders target trades that can be completed in a few days to a few weeks.
Position traders seek larger gains and recognize that it often takes longer than a few weeks to achieve them.
Element 2: Your entry strategy
Look for entry signals—for instance, divergences from trend lines and support levels—to help you place your trades. The signals you employ and the orders you use to make good on them hinge on your trading style and preferences.
Element 3: Your exit plan
When it comes to an exit strategy, plan for two types of trades: those that go in your favor and those that don’t. You might be tempted to let favorable trades run, but don’t ignore opportunities to take some profits.
Element 4: Your position size
Trading is risky. A good trade plan establishes ground rules for how much you’re willing to risk on any single trade. Say, for example, you don’t want to risk losing more than 2%–3% of your account on a single trade. You could consider exercising portion control, or sizing positions, to fit your budget.
Element 5: Your trade performance
Look over your trading history to calculate your theoretical trade expectancy, meaning your average gain (or loss) per trade. You start by determining the percentage of your trades that have been profitable versus those that haven’t. This is known as your win/loss ratio.
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Things I wish I knew my first year of tradingI breakdown some common trading misconceptions and how I conquered them
1) There is no "best strategy"
Strategy is one relatively small part of trading success, most strategies can be profitable other variables such as discipline and emotional control will determine whether you see success.
2) Get comfortable losing
If you are comfortable losing (within the set rules/parameters of your strategy) it will make the aim of becoming more consistent much easier. Your next trade is less likely to be destroyed by PTSD of losing and have less clouded judgment.
3) More trades = More money = False
More time than not taking fewer trades (depending on your strategy and general frequency of trades) will mean you are likely to be more selective and thus make more money. Aim for quality over quantity.
4) Focus on controlling emotions
How I solved this was by journalling, evaluating where I was wrong or making any errors generally made it easier for me to put actions and steps into place to stop them from happening again.
5) Learning proper risk management
Simple enough, without this you will lose all of your money.
Understanding Scarcity, Choice, and Resource AllocationWelcome to our third ever blog in our economics masterclass. Today we will be going over and Understanding Scarcity, Choice, and Resource Allocation.
[Section 1.4: Scarcity, Choice, and Allocation of Resources
The basic economic problem stems from scarcity, where wants are unlimited, but resources are finite, necessitating choices. Optimal utilization and distribution of resources are crucial.
For example, when you have only £1 to spend at a shop, you must choose between buying a chocolate bar or a packet of crisps due to the scarcity of money. This leads to the concept of opportunity cost, which is the value of the next best alternative foregone. The opportunity cost of choosing the crisps, in this case, would be the chocolate bar. Economic agents such as consumers, producers, and governments must consider opportunity costs when making decisions. Finite resources require careful allocation to achieve the best outcomes.
This section leads on nicely to our first ever some what complex economic theory.
Production Possibility Frontiers (PPFs)
Production Possibility Frontiers (PPFs) depict the maximum productive potential of an economy by using a combination of two goods or services when resources are fully and efficiently employed. PPF curves illustrate the opportunity cost associated with using scarce resources.
Below is an example of a PPF curve for Cheese and yoghurt
(tradingview dot com /chart/AAPL/rNnd689O-PPC-GRAPH)
An example could be, if milk is a scarce resource, there is a trade-off between producing more cheese or more yogurt from the milk. The PPF showcases the most efficient combinations of output (points A and B), where producing more yogurt incurs an opportunity cost of producing less cheese.
The law of diminishing returns states that as more yogurt is produced, the opportunity cost in terms of lost cheese units increases. Points C and D on the PPF represent inefficient production, where resources are not fully utilized. Point E is currently unattainable with the existing resources.
(tradingview dot com /chart/AAPL/YRb7mwU2-ppc-grpah-aks/)
This PPF shows the opportunity cost of producing each product. Producing 100 units of cheese means that only 40 units of yoghurt can be produced instead of the
potential of 90. Therefore, the opportunity cost is 90 - 40 = 50 units of yoghurt.
The PPF not only illustrates opportunity costs but can also indicate economic growth or decline. Economic growth is depicted by an outward shift of the PPF curve, indicating an increase in the economy's productive potential.
A decline in the economy is represented by an inward shift of the curve.
Economic growth can be achieved by increasing the quantity or quality of resources, resulting in an outward shift of the PPF curve.
Supply-side policies can facilitate this. Moving along the PPF incurs opportunity costs, while shifting the PPF curve outward reduces the opportunity cost of producing different goods.
Productive efficiency is achieved when resources are utilized optimally along the PPF curve, while allocative efficiency involves the optimal distribution of goods in society.
We have now covered every section for the first topic behind the A level spec for microeconomics!
4.1 Individuals, firms, markets and market failure ✅
4.1.1.1 Economic methodology ✅
4.1.1.2 The nature and purpose of economic activity ✅
4.1.1.3 Economic resources ✅
4.1.1.4 Scarcity, choice and the allocation of resources✅
4.1.1.5 Production possibility diagrams✅
Your Trading Plan Is Everything You NeedImagine yourself having the perfect trading plan. It suits your psychological needs and lifestyle. Yet, you're not confident in your strategy. Do you follow your trading plan? Or do you close winners early and take a full 1R loss on losers? This is what happened to me.
Why Trading?
I took up trading because it sounds like a very lucrative side hustle. Learning how to achieve a 1% profit can scale my earnings. A 1% gain on a $1,000 account is $10, but the same 1% gain on a $100,000 account is $1,000. This offers significant leverage of my time. This means that if I succeed in building trading as a career, I do not have to survive on a 9 - 5 job, paying me for 8 hours of my day. I can enjoy life wherever and whenever I want. I can take a day trip to Japan for some sushi and be back home at night in my bed to sleep. I want to be a very successful person, having everything I want, not worrying if I can afford to buy the latest iPhone.
The Plan
So my career plan is to build up my prop firm funded account into the 7 digits. Get consistent 4 digits payout per month. Build my personal trading account from the prop firms profits. I built my plan so that I will not deviate from what I want to achieve. I have to follow a step by step method to achieve what I want. There are also contingency plan. For example, if I do not succeed in trading, at least I have my day job as a safety net. Survival comes first. If you worry about putting food on the table or paying your bills, you should refocus your priorities.
This is exactly the same as a trading plan. Your trading plan is same as your career plan. You have your entry criteria. When price gives you confirmation, you take a trade. When price does X, you close the trade. When price does Y, you move your stop loss. When price does Z, you take partial profits. You have a step by step method to guide your trades.
Be honest with yourself. How many times have you broken your trading rules this month? How many times have you deviated from your trading plan this month? My number is 3 this month. Why? Greed. Overconfidence. Hopeful. I was greedy as my trades have tight stop losses and I was expecting price to do what I expected it to do. Everything lined up. Multi-timeframe directions, liquidity, and volume all pointed to a high probability trade. It's near a high-impact news event. My position was in a drawdown. 2 minutes before the news, my trading plan indicated that I should close the trade now. I closed 2 eyes. Went down to the 5 seconds chart. It's 08:29:50. The price is starting to turn volatile. My heart is pumping from all the adrenaline. 08:29:59.. 08:30:00. The price shot up taking me out. What happened next, is as you guessed it. Price went up too fast. Slippage occurred, resulting in a loss of -3% instead of the expected -0.5% if I had followed my trading plan. Yes I still do make mistakes.
Compounding Effect
This 3% loss might seem small to some of you. 1 or 2 winning trades can cover this loss. Imagine if I took 3 of such trades in a week. That's already close to a 10% loss. This will be a huge deal to your trading psychology. The risk of these high-risk trades might seem worthy to you. But they can't give you enough assurance that you will achieve positive results in the long term. There are a lot of uncertainty during red folder news release. Price moves very fast, and might take you out before moving in your direction. Spread increase and could take you out even before the price hits your stop loss.
You are not following your trading plan by taking such trades again and again. You are building very bad habits. You are developing your attitude and habit in a wrong way. You're training yourself to take trades based on gut feeling and emotions. You should be using a solid trading plan which has proven (I hope) to be profitable. You can only achieved this through many hours of backtesting.
Habits are hard to change. By developing your trading attitude in the wrong way, it will be hard for you to be profitable. You're relying on luck in trading, and luck is not a decent trading strategy nor trading plan. Bad trading habits can lead to serious consequences. You could over-risk, over-leverage and even over-trade. You will take on more losses than you wanted. All these compounds your trading account in the wrong direction. What you want is to compound positive actions and bring your account equity upwards. Without positive actions, you are reinforcing negative actions and attract losses.
Deviation From Your Trading Plan
Taking trades that deviate from your trading strategy is a no go, even if it ends up being a winner. This could be a lucky trade. Luck is not a sustainable trading strategy. What if you did this again and the trade turns out to be a winner again? It will inflate your ego and lead to more of such trades. When you luck runs out, you will find that you lose more than you win.
To be successful, you have to identify bad trades and cut them from your trade executions. Many times your trading results will improve by eliminating all the bad trades. Finding ways to improve your risk-to-reward ratio or your win rate is not the only way.
You build success through consistency and repetition. If you’re not putting in the work day in and day out, you will not succeed. To succeed, you have to do it even when no one is watching you. You have to follow strictly to your trading plans. You have to do it when you do not have an accountability partner. One day, you will get your “overnight success” because you’ve been putting in all the work consistently. No one says it’s going to be easy.
Transformation
The day that my trading changed was when I started to plan out what I want to do with my life. I'm 30 this year. How many more decades do I have left? I do not want to slog for another 30 years working in a 9 - 5. I do not want to squeeze in a crowded public transport every morning to go office to do work that I could have done at home.
I have my personal finance all planned out. Next, I planned out my trading career path. Knowing my personal finance ins and outs are the most important criteria in setting my path. I know on average how much do I need a month to survive and for entertainment. Let's say I need $3,000 a month to have a decent standard of living. I know my trading strategy can yield me an average of 2% a month. If I work backwards, I would need a $150,000 account. This can be done through funded prop firm accounts.
I gave myself 1 year to get a funded account, and to get my first payout. I started small. Started out with $10k challenges. The only rule I have, is to follow strictly to my trading plans that I've backtested for hundreds of hours. I gave myself permission to fail. I allocate enough budget for my challenges every month. I failed many challenges. I passed some, but did not manage to clear phase 2 challenges. I tried and tried again.
3 May 2023 is the day of my first prop firm payout. It's only $200 post-profit split. Yet, this shows me what I can achieve by following my trading plans. This shows me what I can achieve by taking the same trades over and over again. Again, I'm still doing the same things over and over again, following my trading plan. Happy to share that I have another profit split incoming in June next month.
Trading Psychology
“There are two kinds of people: Those who think they can, and those who think they can’t, and they’re both right.”
- Henry Ford
Things will never be easy. Think about it. If you want 6-pack abs, it’s going to take you hard work and consistency over a long period of time. People want it to be easy. They crave for instant gratification. The reason why 6-pack abs is so sought after is because it’s hard to get. If having 6-pack abs is easy to get, then everyone can get it. If everyone has it, then it will lose its prestige and value.
Same goes for trading. If trading was so easy like following a trading plan, then everyone will be able to be profitable. Remember that 95% of the traders lose money. Constructing your trading plan might be easy, but executing is hard. What will you do if you're on a losing streak? Will you have the mental strength to execute the same trades that fit your trading plan? Do you doubt your trading strategy?
How A Trading Plan Should Look Like
1. Markup your chart. Mark the areas such as liquidity zone, point of interests, liquidity grab, direction of the market and the demand and supply zones. Do your multi-timeframe analysis here. Remember that high probability trade is to buy at discount levels, and sell at premium levels.
2. Set alert at your point of interests (Where to buy and sell)
3. Write down your analysis on the chart. If the price hits your point of interest, I would expect X to happen. When X happens, I will do Y.
4. When the alert goes off, go back to your chart and see if your analysis in step 3 still holds.
5a. If yes, mark out roughly where your stop loss and profit target will be. See if the RR is decent enough. If yes, then wait for the price to give you a confirmation. If no, either wait for a refined entry on the lower timeframe, or to wait for another confirmation.
5b. If not, repeat step 1.
6. Once price gives you a confirmation, calculate the lot size based on your risk management.
7. Once you're in the trade, you can either forget about your trade and let it hit TP or SL, or actively manage your position. This will depend on how you backtested your strategy.
8. Once your trade hits the TP or SL, journal it. Record your entry, take profit and stop loss. Take screenshots. Record your emotions and feelings before, during and after the trade.
Mentor
Creating a trading plan is 1 part of the trading puzzle you need to piece together. Trading strategy and psychology are other important components. They will make or break you, and your trading account. I have various mentors at different stages of my trading career. They helped me in their own ways, and shaping who I am today. I can confidently say that without either one of my mentors, I will not have found any successes in trading yet. I'd still drift around, looking for the next holy grail.
Stay consistent. Stay safe. Success is just around the corner.
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Secret of Success in Trading: Patience, Emotions, Psychology
I vividly remember how I started to trade 8 years ago, how I was learning, and the things that I was doing.
Contemplating my old self, I notice a dramatic shift in my mindset in regard to trading.
Staring at the charts and desiring to make money on price action, I wanted to become a consistently profitable trader. Making the priorities, I decided to sacrifice my time on studying technical analysis, totally neglecting trading psychology and risk management.
Learning different trading strategies, I always came to the same result: the account went blown and nothing seemed to work.
Strategies of fancy traders on YouTube, strategies from best-selling books on Amazon, nothing could produce any penny.
Not giving up and pursuing my ultimate goal, I came to the conclusion that I set my priorities absolutely incorrectly.
To be honest, I always thought that trading psychology (like psychology in general) is s*cks. Moreover, I considered risk management to be kind of obvious, banal topic not deserving much attention.
Learning risk management techniques, applying them in day trading, I finally saw a glimmer of hope.
Reading a dozen of books on trading psychology, contemplating my mistakes, and observing my behavior I noticed so many wrong, incorrect things that I did on a daily basis.
With time and practice, my mindset shifted.
I realized that most of the strategies that I applied and that seemed losing to me, in fact, were decent.
It turned out that mastery of technical analysis is not enough for profitable trading. Instead, that is just a tiny part of what must be learned.
Now, when my students ask me about the most important things to learn & study in trading, I always say:
trading psychology and risk management go first, technical analysis is the secondary.
❗️ Do not neglect these topics and give them due attention. They are an essential part of your success in trading.
🤔 Do you agree with the pyramid that I drew?
Understanding Basics of Candlestick Charts
Candlestick patterns play a key role in quantitative trading strategies owing to the simple pattern formation and ease of reading the same.
For using candlestick patterns, you only need to have a basic understanding of how the candlesticks are formed. Also having some idea about the various ways in which these candlesticks can be interpreted would be useful.
However, if you are new to candlesticks trading, this article will help you gain a complete understanding of candlesticks.
______
The anatomy of the Candlesticks has stayed almost similar throughout the ages to give us the current shape and meaning. It consists of 4 distinct values namely:
The opening price,
Closing price,
The highest prices for a given interval, and
The lowest prices for a given interval.
It’s like a combination of a line chart and a bar chart, where each bar represents all four important pieces of information for an interval.
______
Body
The hollow or the filled portion of the candlestick is called as the body of the candlestick.
Long Body - Indicates heavy trading in one direction and strong buying or selling pressure
Small Body - Indicates lighter trading or little buying or selling activity
Shadow
The long thin lines above and below the body is called the shadow of the candlestick.
Upper Shadow - High is marked by the topmost part of the upper shadow
Lower Shadow - Low is marked by the bottom part of the lower shadow.
______
On the chart above, you can see how the body to shadow ratio defines the strength of the candlestick.
Learning to apply that in a combination with other technical tool can help you to quite reliable predict the price movements.
What do you want to learn in the next post?
Learn Why Most of the Traders Fail
The evidence suggests that only a very small proportion of day traders makes money year over year.
There are certain patterns which may separate profitable traders from those who ultimately lose money. And indeed, there is one particular mistake that in our experience gets repeated time and time again. What is the single most important mistake that led to traders losing money?
Here is a hint – it has to do with how we as humans relate to winning and losing.
Our own human psychology makes it difficult to navigate financial markets, which are filled with uncertainty and risk, and as a result the most common mistakes traders make have to do with poor risk management strategies.
Traders are often correct on the direction of a market, but where the problem lies is in how much profit is made when they are right versus how much they lose when wrong.
Bottom line, traders tend to make less on winning trades than they lose on losing trades.
Humans aren’t machines, and working against our natural biases requires effort. Once you have a trading plan that uses a proper reward/risk ratio, the next challenge is to stick to the plan. Remember, it is natural for humans to want to hold on to losses and take profits early, but it makes for bad trading. We must overcome this natural tendency and remove our emotions from trading.
That will help you to be a consistently profitable trader.
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5 Easy Steps for Beginners to Start Trading in Forex 📝
Being a beginner, it is natural for you to feel overwhelmed when you first start forex trading. But that doesn’t mean that you should shy away from the market. By following the 5 steps listed below, you can start your trading journey in currencies in a smooth and efficient manner.
1. Get to know what drives the market 📈
When it comes to trading in currencies, the first ever step that you would need to make as a beginner is educate yourself about the market. Although the forex market works in a very similar fashion to the stock market, the factors behind the movement of the currencies tend to be different.
2. Choose the right broker 🤝
Selecting the right forex broker is as important as getting to know how to trade in currencies. Not all brokers offer the same level of services or are always reliable. Therefore, it is essential for you to spend some time looking into the various brokers offering forex trading services.
An ideal forex broker should have an easy account opening process, a simple trading platform, offer exceptional customer support and have low transaction costs. While evaluating brokers, make sure to look into their downtime frequency.
3. Establish your financial goals and targets💰
The next step is to work on your financial goals and targets. Introspect and ask yourself what you hope to achieve by trading in currencies. Also, before you actually buy and sell currencies, it is a good idea to first determine your financial targets.
For instance, you can set a target for each forex trade you make or a target for each day or month of trading. Establishing these goals can make you plan your trades much better by helping you come up with a trading plan, which will ultimately make you a better trader.
4. Practice with demo (paper) trading 📃
Through extensive virtual trading practice sessions, you can quickly get the hang of currency trading and try out new trading techniques and strategies. Since you’re not really trading with real money, you don’t have to worry about losing money on trades. Instead, you can spend some quality time learning the ropes and trying to analyze the trades that you make. This can give you some much-needed perspective on how to tackle forex trading in real-time.
5. Start slow and go easy on your trades🐢
Once you’ve gotten the hang of trading in currencies on demo account, you can slowly move onto the real thing. Now, there are a few things that you should keep in mind. The forex market’s volatility tends to be quite high and can lead to wild swings in the price. Therefore, it is a good idea to start slow by using just a fraction of your total investment amount.
Now that you’re aware of the 5 steps that you need to take to start trading in forex, go ahead and begin your journey. Good luck to you!
Hey traders, let me know what subject do you want to dive in in the next post?
Decoding the Structure of the Federal Reserve System 🏦
If you've ever wondered how the U.S. monetary system functions and who runs the show, keep reading. In this article, we will break down the structure of the Federal Reserve System and help you understand how it operates.
🏦 The Federal Reserve System, often referred to as the Fed, is the central banking system of the United States. It was created in 1913 by the Federal Reserve Act and is an independent entity within the government. The Fed has a three-part structure, including the Board of Governors, the Federal Reserve Banks, and the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).
1️⃣ Board of Governors:
The Board of Governors is the governing body of the Federal Reserve System. It consists of seven members appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate for 14-year non-renewable terms. One person is designated by the President as Chair and another as Vice-Chair. The Board's main function is to set monetary policy, supervise and regulate banking institutions, and maintain the stability of the financial system.
2️⃣Federal Reserve Banks:
There are 12 Federal Reserve Banks located throughout the United States. Each Federal Reserve Bank serves a specific geographic district and is responsible for carrying out the policies set forth by the Board of Governors. The Federal Reserve Banks are overseen by a board of nine directors, six of whom are appointed by banks in the district, and three by the Board of Governors.
In addition to overseeing the banking system, the Federal Reserve Banks also provide services to financial institutions and the U.S. Treasury. These services include processing and clearing checks, storing currency, and distributing new currency.
3️⃣Federal Open Market Committee:
The FOMC is the most powerful body within the Federal Reserve System. It is responsible for setting monetary policy, specifically the target for the federal funds rate, which is the interest rate that banks charge each other for overnight loans. The FOMC is made up of the seven members of the Board of Governors and five of the 12 Federal Reserve Bank presidents.
The FOMC meets eight times a year to analyze economic data and determine appropriate policy decisions. Their decisions impact not only the banking system but also the overall economy. For example, if the FOMC decides to raise interest rates, it will become more expensive to borrow money, affecting everything from mortgages to credit card payments.
Conclusion:
The Federal Reserve System is a complex organization that plays a critical role in the U.S. economy. Its structure is designed to ensure checks and balances across its three branches so that no one entity has too much power. While the Board of Governors sets policy and oversees the entire system, the Federal Reserve Banks carry out those policies and provide essential services to the financial system. The FOMC, on the other hand, is responsible for setting monetary policy, affecting the interest rates that impact our daily lives.
Understanding the Federal Reserve System is essential for anyone wanting to understand the U.S. economy. Knowing how the Fed operates can help individuals and businesses make informed decisions about their finances. With this knowledge, you can better navigate the ups and downs of the economy and protect your hard-earned money.
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Learn How to Improve Your Forex Trading 🔝
Whether you're new to Currency Trading or a seasoned trader, you can always improve your trading skills. Education is fundamental to successful trading. Here are some tips that will help hone your Currency trading skills.
⭐️Plan How You Will Trade
You may have heard the adage, "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail." This is particularly true in Forex speculation.
Successful traders start with a sound strategy and they stick to it at all times.
⭐️Most traders fail because they make the same mistakes over and over. A diary can help by keeping track of what works for you and what doesn't. Used consistently, a well-kept diary is your best friend.
⭐️Patience
Once you know what to expect from your system, have the patience to wait for the price to reach the levels that your system indicates for either the point of entry or exit. If your system indicates an entry at a certain level but the market never reaches it, then move on to the next opportunity. There will always be another trade.
⭐️Discipline
Discipline is the ability to be patient—to sit on your hands until your system triggers an action point. Sometimes, the price action won't reach your anticipated price point. At this time, you must have the discipline to believe in your system and not to second-guess it. Discipline is also the ability to pull the trigger when your system indicates to do so. This is especially true for stop losses.
⭐️Realistic Expectations
Even though the market can sometimes make a much bigger move than you anticipate, being realistic means that you cannot expect to invest $250 in your trading account and make $1,000 each trade. Although there is no such thing as a "safe" trading time frame, a short-term mindset may involve smaller risks if the trader exercises discipline in picking trades. This is also known as the trade-off between risk and reward.
Trading is nuanced and requires as much art as science to execute successfully, which means that there is only a profit-making trade or a loss-making trade. Warren Buffet said that there are two rules in trading: Rule 1: Never lose money. Rule 2: Remember Rule 1.
Stick a note on your computer that will remind you to take small losses often and quickly rather than wait for the big losses.
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Economic Fundamentals: Methodology, Activity, and ResourcesIn our second ever blog in our economics masterclass, we will be going over the extremely basic yet important basics of the markets. Today we will be going over Economic Methodology, The Nature and Purpose of Economic Activity and Economic Resources.
Economic methodology
Now Economics is a social science, it seeks to understand how individuals, businesses, and societies make choices and allocate resources to fulfil their needs and wants. As a social science, economics analyses human behaviour and interactions in the context of economic systems. Economists need to make assumptions in their analysis, often relying on the ceteris paribus principle. where it assume that other factors remain constant, allowing economists to build models based on real-life scenarios.
It is also crucial to distinguish between positive and normative statements in economics.
Positive statements are objective and can be tested with factual evidence. They are facts and contain words like will or is
Normative statements are subjective and based on opinions. these judgments can influence economic decision-making and policy, leading to different conclusions from the same data. They often contain words like should, would or could.
Phew, all the boring stuff done! 😅 Now onto the slightly more interesting stuff
1.2 The nature and purpose of economic activity
In economics there is the golden rule, as humans we have unlimited needs and limited resourced
The purpose of economic activity is to produce goods and services that effectively allocating resources to satisfy consumer needs and wants. which involves using scarce resources (inputs in the form of the factors of production) to produce desired outputs.
Economists face decisions about what to produce, how to produce it efficiently, and who will benefit from the goods and services produced. Careful consideration is given to factors such as opportunity cost, distribution, costs, and productivity to ensure optimal decision-making, all of which we will go through in the future.
Section 4.1.1.3: Economic Resources
Economic resources encompass the following factors of production:
land, labour, capital, and enterprise.
Capital refers to physical goods used in production, while entrepreneurship (enterprise) involves managerial abilities and taking risks. Land represents natural resources, and labour refers to the workforce. These resources are rewarded through incentives such as interest, profit, rent, and wages. It's important to recognize that the environment itself is a scarce resource, comprising renewable and non-renewable resources. Proper management and sustainable practices are essential to maintain resource availability for future generations.
3 short yet boring lessons, In my opinion the section we are doing now (4.1 Individuals, firms, markets and market failure) is probably the most boring of them all.
Please let me know in the comments how you found my first lesson!
In the next one we will be going through Scarcity, choice and the allocation of resources and Production possibility diagrams, which will be slightly more interesting. I will also show a progress bar at the bottom of our posts.
Happy Trading!
Microeconomics
4.1 Individuals, firms, markets and market failure
4.1.1.1 Economic methodology ✅
4.1.1.2 The nature and purpose of economic activity ✅
4.1.1.3 Economic resources ✅
4.1.1.4 Scarcity, choice and the allocation of resources ⭕
4.1.1.5 Production possibility diagrams ⭕
4.1.2 Individual economic decision making
4.1.2.1 Consumer behaviour ⭕
4.1.2.2 Imperfect information ⭕
4.1.2.3 Aspects of behavioural economic theory ⭕
4.1.2.4 Behavioural economics and economic policy ⭕
4.1.3 Price determination in a competitive market
4.1.3.1 The determinants of the demand for goods and services ⭕
4.1.3.2 Price, income and cross elasticities of demand ⭕
4.1.3.3 The determinants of the supply of goods and service ⭕
4.1.3.4 Price elasticity of supply ⭕
4.1.3.5 The determination of equilibrium market prices ⭕
4.1.3.6 The interrelationship between markets ⭕
4.1.4 Production, costs and revenue
4.1.4.1 Production and productivity ⭕
4.1.4.2 Specialisation, division of labour and exchange ⭕
4.1.4.3 The law of diminishing returns and returns to scale ⭕
4.1.4.4 Costs of production ⭕
4.1.4.5 Economies and diseconomies of scale ⭕
4.1.4.6 Marginal, average and total revenue ⭕
4.1.4.7 Profit ⭕
4.1.4.8 Technological change ⭕
4.1.5 Perfect competition, imperfectly competitive markets and
monopoly
4.1.5.1 Market structures ⭕
4.1.5.2 The objectives of firms ⭕
4.1.5.3 Perfect competition ⭕
4.1.5.4 Monopolistic competition ⭕
4.1.5.5 Oligopoly ⭕
4.1.5.6 Monopoly and monopoly power ⭕
4.1.5.7 Price discrimination ⭕
4.1.5.8 The dynamics of competition and competitive market processes ⭕
4.1.5.8 The dynamics of competition and competitive market processes ⭕
4.1.5.10 Market structure, static efficiency, dynamic efficiency and resource allocation ⭕
4.1.5.11 Consumer and producer surplus ⭕
4.1.6 The labour market
4.1.6.1 The demand for labour, marginal productivity theory ⭕
4.1.6.2 Influences upon the supply of labour to different markets ⭕
4.1.6.3 The determination of relative wage rates and levels of employment in perfectly
competitive labour markets ⭕
4.1.6.4 The determination of relative wage rates and levels of employment in
imperfectly competitive labour markets ⭕
4.1.6.5 The Influence of trade unions in determining wages and levels of employment ⭕
4.1.6.6 The National Minimum Wage ⭕
4.1.6.7 Discrimination in the labour market ⭕
4.1.7 The distribution of income and wealth: poverty and inequality
4.1.7.1 The distribution of income and wealth ⭕
4.1.7.2 The problem of poverty ⭕
4.1.7.3 Government policies to alleviate poverty and to influence the distribution of
income and wealth ⭕
4.1.8 The market mechanism, market failure and government
intervention
4.1.8.1 How markets and prices allocate resources ⭕
4.1.8.2 The meaning of market failure ⭕
4.1.8.3 Public goods, private goods and quasi-public goods ⭕
4.1.8.4 Positive and negative externalities in consumption and production ⭕
4.1.8.5 Merit and demerit goods ⭕
4.1.8.6 Market imperfections ⭕
4.1.8.7 Competition policy ⭕
4.1.8.8 Public ownership, privatization, regulation and deregulation of markets ⭕
4.1.8.9 Government intervention in markets ⭕
4.1.8.10 Government failure ⭕
Macroeconomics
4.2.1 The measurement of macroeconomic performance
4.2.1.1 The objectives of government economic policy ⭕
4.2.1.2 Macroeconomic indicators ⭕
4.2.1.3 Uses of index numbers ⭕
4.2.1.4 Uses of national income data ⭕
4.2.2 How the macroeconomy works: the circular flow of income,
aggregate demand/aggregate supply analysis and related concepts
4.2.2.1 The circular flow of income ⭕
4.2.2.2 Aggregate demand and aggregate supply analysis ⭕
4.2.2.3 The determinants of aggregate demand ⭕
4.2.2.4 Aggregate demand and the level of economic activity ⭕
4.2.2.5 Determinants of short-run aggregate supply ⭕
4.2.2.6 Determinants of long-run aggregate supply ⭕
4.2.3 Economic performance
4.2.3.1 Economic growth and the economic cycle ⭕
4.2.3.2 Employment and unemployment ⭕
4.2.3.3 Inflation and deflation ⭕
4.2.3.4 Possible conflicts between macroeconomic policy objectives ⭕
4.2.4 Financial markets and monetary policy ⭕
4.2.4.1 The structure of financial markets and financial assets ⭕
4.2.4.2 Commercial banks and investment banks ⭕
4.2.4.3 Central banks and monetary policy ⭕
4.2.4.4 The regulation of the financial system ⭕
4.2.5 Fiscal policy and supply-side policies
4.2.5.1 Fiscal policy ⭕
4.2.5.2 Supply-side policies ⭕
4.2.6.1 Globalisation ⭕
4.2.6.2 Trade ⭕
4.2.6.3 The balance of payments ⭕
4.2.6.4 Exchange rate systems ⭕
4.2.6.5 Economic growth and development ⭕
8 Trading Tips to Help You Increase Your Trading Profits
Whether you are just getting started or you’ve been on your journey for a while now, you’ve probably discovered that day trading is not easy. You’re putting your hard-earned money on the line and facing new challenges daily. That said, every challenge you conquer takes you one step closer to your ultimate goal.
Small behavioral changes can have profound impacts. Your goal is to minimize losses and maximize profits in order to increase your net profitability.
Here are some tips:
1. Avoid Overtrading
Traders are ambitious, sometimes too much so. Many traders feel the need to always be doing something. It’s important to remember that trading requires patience, and the quality of your trades is far more important than the quantity.
2. Avoid Under-trading
Do you ever find a great trade setup that you don’t take action on, only to look back later and realize your idea was spot on?
3. Take Control of Your Losses
As traders, we’re always focused on profits. After all, the main goal of trading is to turn money into more money. It’s easy to get carried away and forget about the very real potential for losses. In reality, limiting losses has the same net effect as increasing profits.
4. Simplify Your Approach
There is an incredible amount of data available to traders in this digital millennium. This data is intended to improve our decision-making abilities, however it can also be overwhelming.
5. Trade Robotically
As you begin to simplify your approach to trading, you can focus on making your strategy more robotic. The goal is to take all emotions out of trading so you can take a systematic approach to your trading.
6. Learn Your Strengths and Weaknesses
Becoming a successful trader requires introspection, self-analysis, and evolution. Simply put, you need to analyze your own behavior and look for areas of improvement.
7. Double Down on What’s Working
Learn to double down on areas of strength. Focus your efforts to trading activity that yields the highest rewards.
8. Don’t be Afraid to Go Back to Square One
If you find yourself in a rut, don’t hesitate to go back to basics.
In the trading world, a simple piece of advice can be a game changer. We’ve all heard quotes, lessons, or tips that have elevated our trading to new levels. What’s the best trading tip you’ve ever received?
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Love you, my dear followers!👩💻🌸
How To Trade For A Living?Have you ever thought what is it like to be living life without a day job?
I'm sure many of you have the same experiences as me. Let's take a trip down the memory lane.
A life without a day job. That's nice. You don't have to wake up at 7am to prepare your day, dragging your feet to the washroom to washup. 7.45am you're out of your house, getting ready to squeeze in the public transport. Looking around you are people similar to you, scrolling through their phone, watching Netflix, or closing their eyes trying to get some last minute rest before the 9 - 5 grind begin. I sure think about it every time I need to go office instead of working from home. I have a dream of enjoying a life without day job, and I don't want to leave it as a dream.
When I found out about trading on YouTube, I thought how easy trading was. I just need to draw some demand and supply, some trendlines and wait for breakout. Take a long or short based on the confirmations given and I'll be rich.
Next moment, I'm in the live market with my $500 account buying and selling 10 lots of forex pairs. I got lucky on my first few trades, turning that $500 into $1,000. I feel like a god. This is so easy. I'm gona quit my day job in a few months time. What happened next is as you guessed it. I blew up the account with a few losses.
Over the next few months, I tried to take trading seriously. Absorbing all the content on YouTube every single day. Time and time again, I blew my accounts. Maybe trading isn't so easy after all. Think about how many times have you blown your accounts so far?
I tried looking around, from Babypips to Reddit to Forexfactory. I was introduced to copy trading, signals, expert advisors and account management services. I tried them all, losing 5 figures of money in total in a span of 2 years. That's a story for another day.
I took trading really seriously a few years back after signing up for a mentorship which took me to profitability eventually.
Time To See Success?
I worked hard and eventually came up with a strategy with a win rate of 34% and average return of 2.6R. I thought of borrowing money to fund my trading "career", or even just trade full-time without a safety net. My backtest results showed me an average return of 10% every single month. In my mind, I thought that I could be really rich by compounding all these profits. I can't remember why, but I realized it wasn't a good idea.
It was a good decision I didn't go ahead with my plan. What I failed to considered was that a period of drawdown and losing streak can damage my trading psychology. I did not have any live experience back then. On paper it sounded nice, having an average return of 10% every month, I could literally double my account once every few months.
The problem here is that like many of you, I was overly optimistic with my backtest results. You have to understand that a trading strategy accounts for only 30% of your trading career. There are actually many profitable trading strategy out there that are very simple. However, as simple as they might seem, we just like to think that the grass is greener on the other side, always wanting to find the next holy grail with high win rate and high returns strategy.
Meat Of Your Trading Career
If a trading strategy only accounts for 30% of your trading career, where do the other 70% go to? If you've been reading attentively, you will know that the answer is trading psychology.
Trading psychology is an underrated skill that many traders and investors ignore. Even if I give you a profitable strategy, if you do not have a trained trading psychology, you will turn it into an unprofitable one and call me a scammer.
Do you remember how do you feel when you lose a trade? Do you feel sad, angry, and demoralized? How do you feel when you lose 3 trades in a row? Let me ask you again, how do you feel when you lose 5 trades in a row? You start to deviate from your trading plan and start taking bigger positions, hoping that the next trade will help to cover the losses you've made. I don't have to remind you that this is a recipe for disaster.
Without getting your trading psychology in tip-top condition, you are unlikely to survive trading for a living for long.
Trading For A Living
Trading as a full-time trader is very different compared to when you're trading with a full-time employment income. Without your day job, you do not have a steady stream of income. Let's say your monthly expenditure is $2,000 and your day job gives you a steady income of $5,000. You have nothing to worry about. You are not afraid of not able to pay your bills on time, you do not need to be afraid of not having enough money for groceries. You still have leftover money to have fun and invest.
You don't stress over having a steady stream of $5,000 monthly. As long as you don't screw up, you are unlikely to get fired from your day job.
Trading for a living is different. First, you have to ensure that your strategy is profitable. Second, you have to ensure that your trading psychology is strong enough for you to survive in the live market. Third, you have to ensure that your capital is large enough for you to make constant withdrawal, AND compound your trading account at the same time.
Before you say "this is easy" and submit your resignation letter, please take a few moment to understand the importance of this. Are you already trading live at least for a few years? You must ensure that your trading strategy can survive all kinds of market condition - a year is a good gauge to begin with.
Personal Finances
Aside from your trading, it's good that you make sure you have your personal finances in order. Jumping to trading live means that you will forgo your monthly recurring income and solely relying on trading for income, which is not consistent. This is even worse if you are in a period of drawdown.
Imagine you have bills to pay, mouths to feed and debt to pay off. Without any income for a few months, you will feel the stress and pressure start to kick in. This will inevitably affect your trading psychology, leading you to overtrade or even taking trades that don't fit your trading plan.
The most important thing is to ensure you have at least 1 year's worth of your living expenses saved up. Of course if you can save more, it will be better. This is to cover your basic necessities and to pay off mortgage, bills and potentially any medical needs that might arise in the future. Having this stash of money in your savings account will take pressure off your back as you do not have to worry about not profiting from the market. During period of drawdowns, you will be less affected and pressured to make the "right" and "profitable" trades.
Taking It "Slower"
I know it's very exciting wanting to trade for a living by ditching the 9 - 5. You don't have to report to anyone. You don't have to wake up early and squeeze on the public transport. You don't have to adhere to a working culture that you don't like.
I don't like to take too much risk. What I'm doing right now is on top of my 9 - 5 job, I trade. To fit my current lifestyle, I'm trading on the higher timeframe instead of scalping on the seconds or 1 minute timeframes. This allow me to still have a consistent monthly cash inflow while allowing me to trade and build my account size. At the same time, I'm also tackling funded account challenges and have been consistently getting payouts. I want to make sure that I have a decent safety net before transitioning into a full-time trader. It might take me a few more years, but I would rather not having stress and pressure which might screw up years of my progress. It is the time and freedom I will have while trading full-time that I value. If trading full-time means feeling stressed out everyday, I'd rather not do it.
Taking Accountability
While it's easy to say that you will be accountable for your own actions and trades, how many of you are actually taking accountability? Look at your trading journals (if you even have one), look at how many times have you deviate from your trading rules? It is not easy following your own rules when you're alone. No one is watching you. No one is there to look out for you. No one is there to encourage you. No one is there to punish you. You have to do it yourself. It is a lonely path.
Having an accountability partner or a trading mentor changes everything. Not only do you have someone to talk to, but you have someone to be responsible for. Trading can be a lonely journey as you're the only one clicking on the buy and sell buttons. Talking to your mentor can help you discover flaws in your personality or habits that you never knew you had.
Now, imagine you have a habit of taking trades without confirmation but you're oblivious to this. By explaining your thought process of taking a trade to a mentor, you will realize this is a problem that you didn't know you had. Just by eliminating this habit, you see your win rate increase. Profitability doesn't comes from winning more trades. Sometimes, all it takes is just to take fewer losing trades.
I'm currently coaching a mentee - let's call him Andy. Andy has been trading for a few years in the indices and forex markets. Often times, he will make quite a sum of money, only to lose them all back into the market. Why? A doesn't make use of stop losses. He knows that this not a good way to trade. He knows. But no one is there to keep him accountable for not using a stop loss. He does not have a concrete trading plan to follow.
Before the start of our mentorship, Andy admits that he has a gambling mindset which made him lost a lot. This is close to 7 figures of losses, which is really A LOT. Friends and families asked him to stop with his nonsense and stop dreaming about achieving financial freedom through trading. Right now, Andy has a solid grasp of technical analysis skills, as well as risk management. His trading psychology improved greatly from when I first get to know him. He is currently backtesting a profitable trading strategy with a guided trading plan. He will be trading live once he has all the necessary backtested data for him to be confident in trading the live market.
Stay consistent. Stay safe. Success is just around the corner.
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Let me know what are your thoughts and learning points in the comments below so others can learn from you too!
Please let me know what kind of topic you would like to read next :)
Happy weekend!
☆ The Relative Strenght Index (RSI) # on4 ! ☆The Relative Strength Index (RSI)
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is a popular technical indicator used by traders to identify overbought and oversold conditions in the market. The RSI with a period of 4 is a shorter-term version that can provide more frequent signals.
I use RSI 4 effectively following these steps:
Understanding RSI Basics:
The RSI measures the strength and speed of price movements.
It oscillates between 0 and 100, with values above 89 indicating overbought conditions and values below 11 indicating oversold conditions.
Identifying Overbought and Oversold Conditions:
When the RSI 4 rises above 89, it suggests that the market may be overbought, indicating a potential reversal or a corrective pullback.
When the RSI 4 falls below 11, it suggests that the market may be oversold, indicating a potential buying opportunity.
Confirming Signals with Price Action:
While RSI 4 can provide valuable insights, it is important to confirm its signals with other technical indicators or price action.
Look for additional confirmation such as trendlines, support/resistance levels, or candlestick patterns to strengthen the validity of the RSI signals.
Divergence Analysis:
RSI 4 can also be used to identify bullish or bearish divergences.
Bullish divergence occurs when price makes a lower low while RSI 4 makes a higher low, indicating potential upward momentum.
Bearish divergence occurs when price makes a higher high while RSI 4 makes a lower high, suggesting potential downward pressure.
Setting Stop Loss and Take Profit Levels:
Determine appropriate stop-loss levels to protect your trades in case the market moves against you.
Set take-profit levels based on your risk-reward ratio and the potential of the trade.
Remember, RSI 4 is just one tool in your trading arsenal. It is essential to combine it with other technical indicators, chart patterns, and fundamental analysis for a comprehensive trading strategy. Regularly monitor the performance of RSI 4 in different market conditions and adjust your trading approach accordingly.
Note:
The use of any technical indicator, including RSI 4, does not guarantee successful trades. It is important to practice risk management, conduct thorough analysis, and make informed trading decisions based on a holistic view of the market.
Always remember that no single indicator or strategy can predict market movements with 100% accuracy. Utilize RSI 4 as part of a well-rounded trading methodology, and continually refine your skills and knowledge through experience and ongoing education.
HappyForexTrading ☆ J
Unlocking the 6 Levels to Financial Freedom
If you’re living paycheck-to-paycheck or stuck in a job you don’t love just to pay the bills, it can be easy to feel as though you’re financially trapped. But financial freedom doesn’t need to be elusive—with some focused and consistent effort, you may be able to achieve financial freedom sooner than you expected. Below, we’ll discuss the different stages of the financial freedom journey
Stage 1: Dependence ✔️
The “dependence” stage of financial freedom can last from your childhood and teen years even into your adult life. If you rely on a parent, a significant other, or someone else to pay your living expenses, you’re in this stage. Fortunately, as soon as you become solvent—that is, when your income exceeds your expenses—you’ve moved on to stage 2.
Stage 2: Solvency ✔️
Solvency comes when you’re able to meet your financial obligations on your own. (If you’re partnered, you can still be considered solvent even if your partner’s income is necessary to meet your total household expenses—since you’re supporting two or more people instead of just yourself.)
Stage 3: Stability ✔️
You’ll transition from solvency to stability once you’ve created an emergency fund of a few months’ expenses, repaid high-interest debt, and are continuing to live within your means. While stability doesn’t require you to be debt-free—as you may still have a mortgage, student loans, or even credit card debt—you’ll have a savings buffer to ensure that you won’t go into debt if you encounter an emergency or unexpected expense.
Stage 4: Security ✔️
You’ll feel financially secure once you’ve eliminated your debt (or have enough assets to pay off all your debt) and could weather a period of unemployment without worry. At this point, money is not just a safety net, but also a tool you can use to build the future you’ve been planning. At this point, you may consider investing in other assets besides retirement accounts — a taxable account, rental real estate, or even your own small business.
Stage 5: Independence ✔️
Once your investment income or passive income is enough to cover your basic needs, you’ve achieved financial independence. A financially independent person can retire at any time without worrying about how to cover their costs of living, even if they may have to downsize their lifestyle a bit.
Stage 6: Freedom ✔️
The line between financial independence and financial freedom can be a fine one; for many, it’s simply the difference between having enough to cover your needs or having more than enough. Once you have financial freedom, you don’t need to pinch pennies (unless you want to), and you can take more risks with money you’re willing to lose.
Now that you know the stages of financial freedom, think about where you are. How much do you need to get to the next level?
What do you want to learn in the next post?
Swing | Intraday | Scalp: pros and cons of three trading stylesAs we all know, the three most popular trading styles are the following: Swing trading, Day trading, and Scalping.
This educational post is concentrated on highlighting some of the pros and cons of all three techniques.
When it comes to Swing Trading (middle to long-term trading), some of the advantages are less screen time, less anxiety, less risk, and less candle noise. This style of trading is beneficial for those individuals that do not have enough time to sit in front of the charts and execute positions on a daily basis. However, some drawbacks should be mentioned as well. In order to be a swing trader, one needs to master the skill of remaining patient, disciplined and cold-blooded. Swing trades can run from one day up to a week, and hence, it is crucial to know how to sit on your hands and do nothing upon witnessing slow price action, indecision, drawdown and so forth.
Moving to intraday trading, no overnight and over-the-weekend risks can be associated with this style as executed positions are usually closed within a couple of hours when trading the H1 and lower-timeframe graphs. On the negative side, in order to make a living off day trading, a strong psychological temperament is needed along with a sufficient trading capital. If swing trading requires a minimum of a risk of 1-2% per trade, the number is lower for day trading. Hence, a bigger input (capital) is required in order to be able to make decent returns.
Last but not least: Scalping. The fans of this style of trading usually dedicate their focus on timeframes as low as the M5 and M1. Aiming towards capturing 5-10 pip movements, scalpers use smaller lot sizes in comparison to swing and day traders. Nevertheless, this trading style comprises of drawbacks such as indecision and a high degree of emotional state. Since the main purpose of scalping is capturing small price movements identified on lower-timeframe graphics, the noise and confusion is relatively high.
While all trading strategies have their own benefits and drawbacks, choosing a trading style that suits your goals and interests the most is highly linked with your personality. If you are a patient and, at the same time, a busy person, swing trading might be the best option for you. On the other hand, if you have enough time and patience to sit in front of the charts and execute trades on a daily and hourly bases, then either day trading or scalping might be the best variants to opt for.
Either way, it all narrows down to patience, long-term vision, discipline, persistence, and risk management. Choose one or two securities that you like trading the most, do not get discouraged while experiencing losses and moments of hardship, remain cold blooded and long-run oriented.
Investroy
Learn The Iceberg Illusion | The Fallacies & Reality
We often get mesmerized by someone’s above the surface success and don’t factor in all the below the surface opportunity-costs they paid to achieve that success.
This is the ‘iceberg illusion’. It’s been a fav analogy of mine for years. And yet, this just might be a better visual for sport than the ‘iceberg illusion’.
You see… the hyper focus on outcomes is one of the biggest failings (or façades) that comes from social media. It creates a false impression of what leads to success.
We see the success, but not the work that went into it… The unseen hours, necessary failures, setbacks, crises of confidence, the not-now’s (to the countless asks), the loneliness, the late nights and early mornings; and, all the wobbling that comes before the walking—much less running.
There are no shortcuts. There are no overnight successes.
The iceberg doesn’t move quickly. It’s not sped up. It just moves consistently; at often a barely discernible speed.
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Common trading mistakes to avoid as a trader ❌
For new market traders, review these common trading mistakes so you can avoid emotional blunders with your investments and take advantage of psychological edges.
The mechanics of trading are relatively simple. A click or two gets you into a trade, and a click or two gets you out. But the decision-making process behind those clicks is much more complex. And with complexity comes more opportunities to make mistakes that can affect your bottom line. Here are seven common mistakes that traders—both new and experienced—sometimes make.
1️⃣Mistake 1: Emotional trading/psychological trading
Trading can bring out the best and the worst in us. For a trader, nothing is more frustrating than opening a long position and seeing the market drop, bringing the value of your long position to levels well below the price you bought it. The same can be said about missing out on a move in a stock that's been on your radar for a while.
Anger, fear, and anxiety can lead traders to make quick and even irrational emotion-based decisions.
The reality is that markets are cyclical, moving through ups and downs. Trading decisions based on emotions may not always give the results you want. Instead, take a step back and think through the situation logically. Every situation is different, and instead of buying or selling in a panic, think about how you can best manage risk.
2️⃣Mistake 2: Pulling stop orders
When a position hits a stop order, it can often mean you're going to take a loss on it. Pulling—or canceling—a stop is often a subliminal attempt to avoid admitting you were wrong. After all, as long as the position is open, there's still a chance it could come back and be profitable.
The problem is every 50% loss starts with a 5% loss. It's not magic; it's just math. And it only takes one small loss that turns into a big one to make a big dent in a portfolio. Losing is no fun, but it's part of trading. Being disciplined about managing stop orders may help you come back and trade another day.
3️⃣Mistake 3: Trading without a plan
Trading plans should act as a blueprint during your time on the markets. They should contain a strategy, time commitments and the amount of capital that you are willing to invest.
After a bad day on the markets, traders could be tempted to scrap their plan. This is a mistake, because a trading plan should be the foundation for any new position. A bad trading day doesn’t mean that a plan is flawed, it simply means that the markets weren’t moving in the anticipated direction during that particular time period.
Every trader makes mistakes, and the examples covered in this article don’t need to be the end of your trading. However, they should be taken as opportunities to learn what works and what doesn’t work for you. The main points to remember are that you should make a trading plan based on your own analysis, and stick to it to prevent emotions from clouding your decision-making.
Hey traders, let me know what subject do you want to dive in in the next post?
Top 5 Tips to Increase Your Profits in Trading 📈
In this educational article, I will share with you very useful tips how to improve your profitability in trading the financial markets.
1. Decrease the number of financial instruments in your watch list. ⬇️
Remember that each individual instrument in your watch list requires attention. The more of them you monitor on a daily basics, the harder it is to keep focus on them.
In order to not miss early confirmation signals and triggers, it is highly recommendable to reduce the size of your watch list and pay closer attention to the remaining instruments.
2. Avoid taking too many positions. ❌
For some reason, newbie traders are convinced that they should constantly trade and keep many trading positions.
Firstly, I want to remind you that the management of an active position is a quite tedious process that requires time and attention.
Therefore, more positions are opened, more time and effort is required.
Secondly, if the newbies can not spot a good setup, they assume that they are obliged to open some positions and they start forcing the setups.
Remember, that in trading, the quality of the trading setup beats the quantity. I advise taking less trades, but the better ones.
3. Let winners run if the market is going in the desired direction. 📈
Once you caught a good trade and the market is moving where you predicted, do not let your emotions close the trade preliminary.
Try to get maximum from your trade, closing that only after the desired level is reached.
4. Open a trade after multiple confirmations.✅
Analyzing a certain setup remember, that more confirmations you spot, higher is the accuracy of the trade that you take. In order to increase your win rate, it is recommendable to wait for at least 2 confirmations.
5. Don't trade on your cellphone. 📱
A good trade always requires a sophisticated analysis that is impossible to execute on the small screen of the cellphone.
A lot of elements and nuances simply will not be noticed. For that reason, trade only from a computer with a wide screen.
Relying on these tips, you will substantially increase your profits.
Take them into the consideration and good luck to you in your trading journey.
❤️Please, support my work with like, thank you!❤️
Unleashing the Power of Sentiment Indicators in TradingChapter 1: Introduction to Sentiment Indicators
In the world of trading and investment, understanding market sentiment is essential for making informed decisions. Market sentiment refers to the overall attitude, emotions, and opinions of market participants towards a particular financial instrument, sector, or the market as a whole. It is a key factor that influences price movements and can provide valuable insights for traders.
The role of emotions in trading is also crucial. Emotions such as fear, greed, optimism, and pessimism can significantly impact trading decisions and market behavior. Understanding and analyzing these emotions can help traders gauge market sentiment and identify potential trading opportunities.
Sentiment analysis is the approach used to measure and quantify market sentiment. It involves extracting subjective information from various sources such as social media, news articles, and options markets to determine the prevailing sentiment. The goal is to understand and interpret the collective emotions of market participants.
Sentiment indicators play a vital role in sentiment analysis. These indicators are tools and metrics that provide quantifiable measures of market sentiment. By incorporating sentiment indicators into their analysis, traders can gain a deeper understanding of market psychology and make more informed trading decisions.
In the following chapters, we will explore different types of sentiment indicators and their applications in trading. We will delve into social media sentiment analysis, news sentiment analysis, options market sentiment, and more. Through real-life case studies and examples, we will demonstrate how traders can effectively leverage sentiment indicators to enhance their trading strategies and navigate the markets with greater confidence.
So let's dive into the exciting world of sentiment indicators and discover how they can empower traders to make smarter trading decisions in various market conditions.
Chapter 2: Social Media Sentiment Analysis
Social media has become a powerful platform for expressing opinions and sharing information, making it an invaluable source for understanding market sentiment. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit provide real-time insights into the thoughts and emotions of a wide range of market participants.
Traders can harness the power of social media by analyzing sentiment expressed in posts, comments, and discussions related to financial instruments or markets. This can be done through the use of sentiment analysis tools and platforms. These tools employ natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to analyze and quantify sentiment.
When analyzing social media sentiment, it is crucial to identify the influential platforms for each specific market. Different financial instruments and markets have unique social media platforms where participants share their views and opinions. For example, Twitter might be the primary platform for discussions related to cryptocurrencies, while LinkedIn could be more relevant for the stock market. By focusing on the platforms that hold more influence, traders can gain more accurate insights into market sentiment.
Real-time sentiment analysis of social media involves monitoring conversations, identifying relevant keywords, and applying sentiment analysis algorithms. This process enables traders to gauge the sentiment as positive, negative, or neutral. By tracking sentiment shifts in real-time, traders can make timely trading decisions and take advantage of emerging trends or sentiment-driven price movements.
To illustrate the effectiveness of social media sentiment analysis, let's explore some case studies. In one example, a trader monitors sentiment on Twitter for a particular cryptocurrency. By analyzing the sentiment expressed in tweets, the trader identifies a surge in positive sentiment accompanied by an increase in trading volume. This information serves as a signal to enter a long position, anticipating a price increase driven by bullish sentiment. The trader successfully profits from the sentiment-driven rally.
In another case, a trader uses sentiment analysis of social media discussions to identify a sudden increase in negative sentiment towards a stock. Recognizing this shift in sentiment, the trader decides to exit their position or tighten their stop-loss level to protect their profits, anticipating a potential price decline. This proactive risk management based on sentiment analysis helps the trader avoid potential losses.
By incorporating social media sentiment analysis into their trading strategies, traders can gain a deeper understanding of market sentiment and improve their decision-making process. However, it is important to remember that social media sentiment analysis should be used as one piece of the puzzle alongside other forms of analysis to build a comprehensive trading strategy.
Chapter 3: News Sentiment Analysis
News plays a significant role in shaping market sentiment. Positive news such as strong earnings reports, positive economic indicators, or favorable regulatory developments can create a bullish sentiment, leading to increased buying interest. Conversely, negative news such as poor economic data, geopolitical tensions, or negative corporate announcements can generate a bearish sentiment, resulting in selling pressure.
News sentiment analysis involves analyzing the sentiment expressed in news articles, press releases, and other sources of financial news. The goal is to extract the overall sentiment conveyed by the news and understand its potential impact on market sentiment and price movements.
There are various tools and techniques available for news sentiment analysis. These tools employ natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to analyze the sentiment of individual news pieces. They assign sentiment scores, such as positive, negative, or neutral, to quantify the sentiment expressed in the news.
Financial news headlines are particularly important as they often convey the key sentiment of an article. Traders can focus on analyzing sentiment in news headlines to quickly gauge the overall sentiment without delving into the complete article. This allows for efficient scanning of multiple news sources and provides traders with timely insights into market sentiment.
Incorporating news sentiment analysis into trading strategies can be done in several ways. Traders can use sentiment-triggered trade entries, where they initiate trades based on significant shifts in news sentiment. For example, a trader might enter a long position in response to overwhelmingly positive news sentiment regarding a particular stock, anticipating a price increase. Alternatively, news sentiment can serve as a confirming factor for technical analysis. If technical indicators suggest a bullish trend, positive news sentiment can provide additional confidence in the trade.
Let's examine a case study to further illustrate the application of news sentiment analysis. Suppose a trader is analyzing the sentiment surrounding a company's earnings announcement. Through news sentiment analysis, the trader identifies a strong positive sentiment across various financial news sources. This positive sentiment indicates high market expectations for the company's earnings results. Based on this analysis, the trader decides to enter a long position before the earnings release, anticipating a favorable outcome. When the company exceeds expectations and reports stellar earnings, the positive sentiment is reinforced, resulting in a significant price increase. The trader profits from the sentiment-driven rally by making a well-timed trade based on news sentiment analysis.
Chapter 4: Options Market Sentiment
Options trading provides valuable insights into market sentiment as it reflects investors' expectations and sentiment towards the underlying asset. By analyzing options market sentiment, traders can gain a deeper understanding of market sentiment and potential price movements.
One commonly used sentiment indicator in options trading is the put/call ratio. The put/call ratio compares the volume of put options, which give traders the right to sell an asset, to the volume of call options, which give traders the right to buy an asset. A high put/call ratio suggests bearish sentiment, indicating that more traders are betting on a price decline. Conversely, a low put/call ratio indicates bullish sentiment, with more traders anticipating a price increase.
Another important indicator is implied volatility. Implied volatility is derived from options prices and reflects the market's expectation of future price volatility. Higher implied volatility suggests increased market uncertainty and potentially heightened bearish sentiment, while lower implied volatility indicates lower expected volatility and potential bullish sentiment.
Traders can also analyze options-related metrics such as open interest, the skew index, and the volatility skew to gauge market sentiment. Open interest represents the total number of outstanding options contracts, providing insights into trader positioning and sentiment. The skew index measures the perceived risk of extreme price moves, while the volatility skew indicates the difference in implied volatility between options with different strike prices.
To illustrate the application of options market sentiment, let's consider a case study. Suppose a trader observes a high put/call ratio in a particular stock, indicating bearish sentiment. This signals a potential price decline. The trader combines this information with other technical indicators pointing towards a bearish trend and decides to enter a short position. As the market sentiment unfolds, the stock experiences a significant price drop, validating the initial bearish sentiment and resulting in a profitable trade for the trader.
Chapter 5: Fear and Greed Index
The Fear and Greed Index is a sentiment indicator that measures market sentiment on a scale of extreme fear to extreme greed. It combines various factors, such as stock price momentum, market volatility, junk bond demand, and safe-haven flows, to gauge overall market sentiment.
The components and calculation of the Fear and Greed Index can vary, but the index generally assigns a numerical value or category to represent the prevailing sentiment. Extreme fear levels suggest a highly pessimistic sentiment, often associated with market downturns or significant price declines. On the other hand, extreme greed levels indicate excessive optimism and potentially overbought conditions, signaling a potential market correction.
Traders can incorporate the Fear and Greed Index into their trading strategies in several ways. It can serve as a confirming factor for technical analysis, where extreme fear or greed levels align with other indicators pointing towards a potential trend reversal. Additionally, contrarian traders may use extreme sentiment levels as a signal to consider taking opposite positions, capitalizing on potential market reversals.
Let's explore a case study to demonstrate the practical application of the Fear and Greed Index. Suppose the Fear and Greed Index reaches an extreme greed level, indicating excessive optimism and potentially overbought conditions in the market. A trader who closely monitors the index recognizes this as a warning sign and starts analyzing other technical indicators. They observe overextended price levels, declining trading volume, and bearish divergence on oscillators. Taking all these factors into consideration, the trader decides to exit their long positions or initiate short positions, anticipating a potential market correction. As the market sentiment shifts from extreme greed to fear, the market experiences a significant decline, validating the trader's decision and resulting in profitable trades.
Chapter 6: Conclusion and Future Outlook
In conclusion, sentiment indicators provide valuable insights into market psychology and can significantly enhance trading decisions. By understanding market sentiment through sentiment analysis tools, traders can gain an edge in their strategies. Social media sentiment analysis allows traders to tap into the real-time opinions and emotions of market participants, while news sentiment analysis helps traders assess the impact of news events on market sentiment. Options market sentiment and sentiment indicators such as the Fear and Greed Index provide additional perspectives on investor expectations and sentiment towards the market.
As technology and data analysis techniques continue to advance, sentiment analysis is expected to evolve further. Integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms can enhance sentiment predictions and improve the accuracy of sentiment analysis tools. This will empower traders with even more robust insights into market sentiment.
To harness the power of sentiment indicators effectively, it is essential to integrate them with other forms of analysis, such as technical analysis and fundamental analysis. By combining multiple perspectives, traders can make well-informed trading decisions and increase their chances of success.
In the ever-changing landscape of financial markets, sentiment indicators will continue to play a crucial role in understanding market dynamics. By staying abreast of emerging trends and advancements in sentiment analysis, traders can adapt their strategies and stay ahead of the curve. Ultimately, by leveraging sentiment indicators, traders can enhance their trading success and capitalize on market opportunities.