It is no coincidence that the most successful floor traders are in general those with the most experience. This is because I believe that trading is essential a skill based activity which requires both practice and experience. There are many similarities between very competitive skill based sports, like golf or tennis, and trading. Here are 7 of the key skills that you must develop as a trader.
1. Technical analysis can be used for futures as well as the more standard stocks, options and bonds that most people trade. This can give you a large edge over other traders who have not taken the time to study the charts support and resistence areas, trendline and patterns. learning technical analysis is really a must do if you want to trade futures successfully.
2. This is a very basic point but is very important, always have your trading plan prepared before you enter a trade, never try and create it on the fly, you will be musch too emotional. make sure that you have both an entry and exit point in your plan.
3. Keep your losses small!, this is the one thing that every trader must do if they want to stay in the game for a long time. By doing this you will preserve your capital allowing you to trade another day. Your small wins will compensate your small losses allowing your big wins to give you an overall profit
4. Over trading is a big mistake that a lot of amateurs make. Professionals tend to be more patient and wait for the better opportunities to come along, this is called cherry picking and takes both patience and discipline. These are essential skills that you must develop.
5. To become a successful trader it is simply a case of eliminating your mistakes, then you are left with mainly good trades and a few small losses. To do this it is very important to keep a daily log, and also a weekly one as well, this will help you to see the trend. The trend that you see should be that over time you are making fewer and fewer mistakes.
6. Trading is a tiring activity, even if you are sitting down all day!. Don’t trade unless you are feeling both physically and mentally well, and are well prepared for the trading day ahead. Prepare for each day by 1st getting a good nights sleep, reviewing your trading plan, rules and charts before the market opens. It is also very important to be in the correct frame of mind, yiu must be confident in yourself and your plan if you are going to trade, otherwise don’t trade that day.
7. Before using your hard earned cash in real trades make sure that you have done sufficient paper trades to give you confidence in your trading system. Paper trade until it becomes boringly successful, then you know that you are ready to use real money.
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