Plan Everything Beforehand To Become A Successful Trader

If you want to be successful as a trader in the stock market, try to write down everything you are planning to do before, during and after the trade. This will help you in having a cool state of mind that is required in order to be a prosperous trader. If you constantly make quick and unplanned decisions, you might experience some loses before you really take off. Planning everything beforehand will greatly help you.

When I say that you should plan everything beforehand, I mean everything! Not only what is the setup or what indicator you will be looking for to start a position, but also what kind of criteria must be met before you even think of looking for a trade opportunity. This might seem small but it can involve way more than you expect. Questions like “How am I feeling today?” might sound strange to have in a business setup, but they are essential. That is the kind of question that you should be asking every day before taking any trade.

How many times you woke up not feeling in the best of your days and tried to trade as you were? Many things could have caused this, late night, late movie, etc., but it doesn’t really matter what have caused it. What it does matter, is taking into account how you are feeling today before facing the market. Trading every day at the market regardless of how well physically and mentally you are, is like trying to kill a lion a day: you might kill one or two in a row, but if just one gets you, that is the end of the road my friend.

I recommend you reading Joe Ross’s “Trading is a business”. It is a great book and will definitely make you see your trading career in a different way. Although the title might sound a bit strange, believe me, it is a good book and is written from someone that has been trading in the markets for a long time. Not just him, also, Ross mentions in his book how his family has been active on the market for a long time. So, there is a lot of passed-on experience that he tried to summarize in this book. It is a great read and I’m sure it will help you with your trades.