Good Trading routine
http://digitalexpats.io/daytrading-how-to-master-the-beast-of-its-own/
http://digitalexpats.io/daytrading-how-to-master-the-beast-of-its-own/
- I prepare myself with a yoga session and an HIIT bodyweight workout in order to decrease tension and increase patience. No workout, no trading. I tracked the different performances after working out and after not working out in my journal – the differences are astonishing, to say the least.
- I look at 10 of the past setups I took in order to remind myself of what I am looking for.
- I have a stop loss of 2R for the day. That means, if my first two trades are losers, I will shut down my laptop and walk away.
- No one can tell me that they can focus longer than 4 hours and pay all their attention to the markets, absolute bogus. You have to take breaks.
- 8 hours on the M5 timeframe with 6 currencies means I have to make 8x12x6 = 576 decisions per day whether to enter the market or not. Plenty to choose from. Knowing this will keep your overtrading in check.
- I listen to music or podcasts while trading, but I never fiddle with it while trading. The playlist has to be set-up before the session.
- Every time before entering a setup I wait for a second and ask myself is this the best possible play I can make, is this the AAA setup I am looking for? Saved me many times.
- When I feel on tilt, become bored, unfocused, whatever, I get up and walk around the room for a minute, take a look out of the window. If that doesn’t help, I will abort the session and do something else.
- Every time I take a trade I remind myself of my win rate and that there WILL be losers. 4 out of 10 trades will be losers. Deal with it. It’s part of the business. Reminding yourself of this fact can deal with tilt effectively. It’s the cost of doing business.
- I never do a session review right after the session. I will do a workout or eat something after trading and let my mind calm down to reach an objective state of evaluation. Then I enter my trades into the journal and review my decisions.
- I have lots of sticky notes all around my screen which I read all the time when trading, reminding me of my biggest flaws and urging me to ship around them.
- I NEVER look at my P&L during the day. I look at it after the day. Looking at your P&L will make you trade your P&L, and that is by far the worst any trader can do.