Trading in forex can be exciting, challenging and most of all; rewarding! But trading is really a long-term investment in your time. Meaning, success doesn’t happen overnight. While traders might experience some episodes of beginners luck, that luck is not something you can depend on for the long haul. Get the best results you can with each step you take, and continue looking for ways to improve your bottom line.
Don’t Stop Learning: Before you ever entered into your first trade, you probably read zillions of online articles, followed the most successful bloggers and signed up for a course or two. That’s great, but don’t stop there! Forex is a constantly changing and moving market. It’s not enough to pop in each day to make your trades and then pop back out, assuming that your choices will be successful. Due diligence is required if you want to improve your results. Keep learning and continue looking for tips to improve your overall score. Watch what your forex peers are doing and if it works for them, try it out yourself!
Updating Your Strategies: Like all forex traders, you studied the charts and chose the strategies that work for you. It’s important to stick with your strategies as you have them written. At least, during a trade. Even if you see your trade going south, that’s not the time for a knee jerk reaction that will cause you to change your plan mid-stream. Tough it out until the deal is done. But then, after the exit, go over what happened. Hopefully you’re keeping a journal of all your trades. If not, then begin to do it. If you’re not tracking your trades then it will be difficult to improve your results. Do a post-mortem at the close of your trades to see what happened, why and what you could have done differently to improve results. When you see flaws in your strategies, revise them and then test them. If your revisions are accurate, you should see more profitable trades.
Sticking to a Routine: Most people tend to perform the best when they are conforming to a well-laid plan. For instance, making new year’s resolutions is what people think of when starting a new year. Making a plan. Getting their ducks in a row. The same goes with trading. For the most success, establish a routine for your daily and weekly trading. Besides having your strategies all in order, having a set time and order to trade helps you focus on what you’re doing and what steps you’ll take. Routines will insure that you’re following a predetermined process for trading, rather than entering a trade on emotions or on a “gut feeling.” This is especially important if the market is being shaken up by a startling news announcement. Know ahead of time how much you are willing to risk on each trade, how many trades to have open at the same time and which pairs you are interested in. Then when the stars line up according to your plan, go for it!