Understand Forex - - Routine of a Consistent Forex Trader

Why do you want to be a consistent Forex Trader? Is it for the money, the glory, the extra time you could have to yourself or all three plus more? This is a question every aspiring market speculator needs to be asked before they place their first trade and a vital one it is indeed. If you don’t have the answer to this question already, then please, get thinking seriously on this topic right now because it is way more important to any trader’s success than you first think. As I have mentioned many times over in previous articles, if financial gain is your sole driver, then you are likely to be an early victim of greed and fear, the greatest causes of misery and blown accounts for the majority of traders in the world today. Also, if your motivation to succeed is mainly based on a need to make money in the markets, again you are typically faced with a sure-fire recipe for disaster. “Scared Money” never makes money, as the nagging desperation to make gains forces the trader into taking profits too quickly, never allowing profits to run effectively. One or two big losers in the market then leads to a downwards spiral of draw-downs and set backs.

Personally, I started trading to give myself more time to enjoy life and quickly found that Swing Trading techniques were ideal for me. I do like to Intraday Trade too but “Set and Forget” setups allow me to find that time and I always suggest to new students of the markets that this approach is usually the best for them too.

Before any kind of consistency can be achieved though, we need to dispel with the emotions of Greed and Fear and eradicate the “Scared Money.” Thankfully, there are two simple solutions to these major problems and students of Online Trading Academy have found them. The first is to get the right education and support before facing the trials of the Forex Market. By taking a class with Online Trading Academy, novice traders are thrust into a focused learning environment where they are taught live at the market by an experienced Full-Time Trader. They learn the skills necessary to tackle the market on a daily basis, how to build a trading plan, how to understand the power of risk management and real-time strategies with an instructor watching over them at all times. They are even allowed to retake the class as many times as they like free of charge, allowing them to go at a pace which suits them, all the time knowing that they have a life-time of educational support from Online Trading Academy.

The next solution is when these graduates move into the ongoing Extended Learning Track (XLT) Program, where they work side by side with myself or one of my fellow online instructors in a virtual classroom environment for up to four days a week, once again, live at the market. There is a combination of Lesson days and Live Trading and Analysis days, yet most importantly the XLT is also a life-long program which allows students to have access to the knowledge of a full-time trader in the comfort of their own home or for that matter, anywhere in the world with an internet connection. We trade together, we communicate regularly and we evolve with the market each and every day. So why am I telling you about this? As the title of this article states, I am attempting to give you a brief snapshot of what it takes to be a consistently profitable trader and then to show what one such does in his or her trading activities to ensure this success. Currently, I am sitting in Dubai, on a warm pleasant evening writing this article alongside my fellow XLT Instructors Sam Seiden and Brandon Wendell. We are out here presenting an Online Trading Academy All-Star Event for a few days but today we have been on an incredible tour of this amazing city. The food is good, the weather is perfect and the company great. I will be honest: life is good and today has been fun.

Sure I will be working while I am out here but I enjoy every minute of what I do and when I get home early next week, my Christmas holidays pretty much begin. In the meantime however, I have been placing my orders out there in the market, setting and forgetting positions which I pre-analyzed and checked. Some have been filled, others not. One resulted in a small loss, the few others in decent wins but the best bit is that I have not been sitting at my PC while this has all been happening. You see, I do not let my trading rule my life. I choose to trade to allow me to do the things in life which I want to do. I have found that the most effective and unemotional way to achieve trading success comes from having a High Probability, Low Risk strategy which stacks the odds in my favor and allows the market to do its work without my personal interference.

In the XLT program, I share this system with my students and show them how to objectively identify the best opportunities in the market well in advance. They, like me, use a detailed planning system to identify the best trades on offer. Below is a shot of this checklist:

As you can see, the XLT students and I identify our entries and exits well ahead of time and then score check our analysis with a series of “Odds Enhancers” to ascertain the probability of success for the trade. Depending on the outcome of the score, we may pass on the trade, take a confirmation entry or just put a Limit order out there in advance if it looks really good. Emotion has been taken out and detailed planning put in. Set and forget is the name of the game, thus allowing us the time to get on and enjoy life the way it was meant to be enjoyed. Out of respect for the members of the XLT, I cannot show you how we do our score checks but if the life of a consistent Forex trader appeals to you then you know where to find us. There is help…you just need to know where to look for it.