Preparation
We can’t stress the importance of having a solid trading plan and a trade checklist enough. If you plan your trades in advance, you are less likely to make impulsive trading decisions or violate your rules.
Purpose
As a trader, nothing should come as a surprise. You plan your trades in advance, you define your risk and the worst-case scenario, you know when to get out, when to take profits and you process all available information. If you find yourself in a situation where you have to deal with the unexpected, something went wrong.
Progress
To overcome negative trading patterns, tracking and analyzing your performance is the only way you can improve as a trader. Most traders make the mistake that they will never look at a trade again after they close their position and, therefore, leave out an important learning effect.
Protection
Protection does not only include having a stop loss in place, but it goes much further. Once in a trade, traders often act like a deer staring into headlights, unable to make rational decisions. Where and when do you lock in profits? Do you move your stop loss order to protect your position? When will you take profits ahead of your target? What are the criteria that will make you close your trade early?
Conclusion
A structured approach and a pre-defined game plan will keep you out of trouble. Trading should be a repetitive profession; each day you follow the same routine, you look for the same setups and just repeat your process over and over again. If you recognize that your behavior and actions deviate from the usual routine, something is going wrong and you have to counteract.
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