Quote for the day

"Successful investing professionals are disciplined and consistent and they think a great deal about what they do and how they do it." - Benjamin Graham

10 Signs You're an Average Trader

If you scored 10/10 then you've definitely got room for improvement! Here’s an explanation for this top 10 list:

1. You have no trading plan – you need to treat your trading like a business and plan how you’re going to trade. If you don’t have a trading plan, then Google for it, there are loads of free resources out there to get you started.
2. You have no money management rules – You can start with the 1% rule and work from there. Calculate your risk for each trade and ensure it’s 1% or less of your trading capital.
3. You’re prone to emotional swings – If you feel tremendous excitement when you win a trade, then something’s wrong. Sure at first it’s exciting, but after a while your trading just becomes a process and the emotional aspects should start to fade.
4. You’re nervous when in a trade – This is usually a result of trading too big for your account size. See point 2.
5. You try to predict rather than react – Leave the predictions for the economists. For every trade have a thesis for how you’re going to respond for different scenarios. Think in terms of “if x then y” type statements instead.
6. You revenge trade – The market doesn't give a shit if you win or lose. Who are you having revenge on? This is more likely a result of you’re own unconscious desire to blow up your account and to go back to doing whatever it was before you played around in the markets.
7. You don’t cut your losses fast enough – Don’t just wait for your trade to “bounce back”, man up and take the loss. You can always re-enter if you see a good set-up.
8. You watch every tick – Watching price action and reading the tape are important, but you should be able to multi task and not just stare at level 2 all day. Only watch the tape when you’re about to place a trade or exit, or at other levels you've set alerts for. Let your platform to watch every tick for you.
9. You never review your trades – If you’re an emotional trader, then this part of the process is the most boring for you. But if you've been trading for a while and want to get the most out of your system/strategy, then this is where you can make some good improvements. Just finding one tweak to either your entries/exists or position sizing or indicator set-up can really pay and boost your P&L.
10. You’re losing MONEY – Sure, we all have losing trades (except some uber gurus), it's part of the game. But if you’re losing money consistently, then chances are you've got to fix something from the list above.

This isn't an exhaustive list and even if you ticked a few boxes, then all is not lost. There are as many ways to successfully trade the markets as their are market participants. As with most things, you need experiment with different approaches, keep what works and change what doesn't.

Source: http://www.tradingmemes.com/