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Do you have a routine that you follow every day? When you wake up do you always shower, have breakfast, clean your teeth then leave for work? Do you have an evening routine such as watching the news while you prepare dinner before sitting down to eat followed by washing up the dishes? Do you like a cup of tea or coffee at a certain time each day?
After spending the past two weeks at our Interactive Trading Workshops it was evident to me that perhaps students would like a reminder that one of the keys to success is to include trading in your daily routine. OK, but what does this mean? Of course at the beginning of your trading journey you will probably be doing more learning than trading, so you need to manage this extra challenge, but a daily scan of the trades available is essential.
Everyone will have different time constraints and preferences for when they prefer to look at the markets and analyse their trades but I can’t emphasise enough the importance of doing it every day. I find the best time to look at setups on Australian equities is after dinner once the kids are in bed, but for you it might be at 6 o’clock in the morning before you begin the morning rush. If you are looking at overseas markets then perhaps mid-morning would work better.
Next you need to decide what is going to be in your routine. We take you through this in detail in the Advanced Trader Coaching, but for a start you need to get an overview of the markets by looking at market indices such as the SPI, the S&P 500, the Dow Jones, the Nasdaq, etc. Then you need to look at the available trades for the day, applying the analysis tools that you have studied so far to each trade, thereby eliminating the poorer setups from the better ones. If you have the Smarter Starter Pack and the No 1 Trading Plan this would include using the Advanced ABC Checklist from page 101. If you have attended an Interactive Trading Workshop we give you an even more comprehensive checklist that you would work through.
For every trade you select you should also be filling out a Trading Plan and preparing your orders to place with your broker or even to paper trade.
To our more advanced students who are also specializing in one or a couple of markets, you will find your routine will be slightly different because it will need to incorporate updating your hand charts and flicking through your saved charts in ProfitSource each day.
Trading success is not about being lucky, but about repeated application of your trading plan to your market. It is about tenacity and commitment. It’s about routine. Whatever level of trader you are, to be successful the time is now to make trading part of your routine.
It’s the Journey
Lauren Jones
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