Plan your Trades

We want to help our clients to develop winning trading strategies. In this section you will find resources on the timeless wisdom practised by all top traders. This section goes hand in hand with our exclusive online trading diary, which analyses your trading behaviour and returns invaluable feedback, setting you on track to become a successful trader.

Plan your Trades and Trade your Plan

A good trader runs his book in the same way he would run a business, and in business, planning is everything. This is in strong contrast to the conventional associations of 'trading' with 'speculation', or even 'gambling'. Traders who tend to trade on 'gut feel' may sometimes be profitable, but they can rarely claim consistency, which is the key to long term successful trading.

So, you've opened a spread betting account and deposited funds into it. Before rushing into that first trade, why not spend 30 minutes pencilling down your trading plan? A good trading plan should at least consist of these essential parts:

• Expected monthly / annual return;
• Risk capital per trade.

Many good traders also meticulously keep trading journals, either in a spreadsheet format or hard copy that can be carried around. A good trading journal lists details of planned trades, and in particular, entry & exit points, as well as position size.

At the end of each week, run a quick review on your trading activities in the past week. Did you execute the planned trades flawlessly? Were there any mistakes that you can learn from? After all, good trading is all about repeating successful trades and avoiding making the same mistakes.

The above comments do not constitute investment advice and FXLRmarkets accepts no responsibility for any use that may be made of them.