Trading Strategies, Psychology

Should Current Market Volatility Merit a Review of how you are Trading?
March 13, 2020

  Volatility Revisited Volatility is a measure of the range of price movement over a defined period on a specific timeframe on which any calculation is performed. It may increase or decrease dependent on market conditions and aims to provide the trader with an indication as to whether the range price movement in subsequent candles/bar is likel...

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Top 5 Daily Habits of Experienced Traders
February 27, 2020

Success leaves clues, and over the years as an educator and coach, I can confidently say that there are several things that traders who achieve positive trading outcomes appear to do, that less successful traders are not doing. One of these is to have a daily agenda or habits that go alongside direct trading activities with the aims of getting a...

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3 potential reasons why forward testing a new strategy is beneficial when amending trading plan
December 27, 2019

Warning: Turn your sensitivity meter down a little. This is a no sugar-coating, tell-it-how-it-is article (but rest assured it comes from a nurturing place). All over the globe, trading gurus attempt to sell their wares (software, the ‘holy grail’ of trade set ups etc) using retrospective charting examples. Such powerful visual “evidence” ...

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Trend retracement or reversal? – Can volume be a useful “clue”?
December 26, 2019

    Trading Volume: General principles Many experienced traders (even those using a simple system will incorporate volume as part of their entry (common) and/or exit (less common) system. It is essential (as with any indicator) that you understand the role volume can and cannot play with suggestions of what is happening to market senti...

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Trading plan specifics – Articulating your trail stop strategy in your plan
December 23, 2019

  We have discussed many times the importance of unambiguous, and sufficiently specific statements within your trading plan in previous articles and at the weekly “Inner Circle” webinars (for more information see the Inner Circle in the navigation bar). The benefits of this are twofold: 1. Assist in developing consistency in execution wh...

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Video: Matching trading strategy to an economic outlook
December 6, 2019

  At the recent GO Markets Daryl Guppy seminar, we had a presentation from Daryl that covered both an insightful economic outlook as well as some of his technical trading approaches. During the seminar, a question was asked about how to match the two. i.e. if you have an economic idea how can you integrate this into your trading style. We h...

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US share or option trader: Managing currency risk?
November 26, 2019

  Many traders utilise shares or options amongst their investment strategies either for income or capital growth. One key factor that such traders may consider in their choice of specific markets to trade is liquidity, with a higher trading volume impacting positively on the ability to get in and out of trades at a fair price. Others may f...

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The Stochastic as an Alternative to RSI (Relative Strength Index) for Trading Decision Making
November 19, 2019

  Ideally, as traders, our aim is often to identify potential entries at the start of a new trend (so “first in the queue”) and exit at the end of that trend. Of course, we often will identify a price move where a trend may already be established and are therefore faced with the decision as to “join in” mid-trend (we hope) with the ...

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10 Ways to Manage Your Trading Psychology – a Blueprint for Development
November 13, 2019

Experts suggest that 80% of your trading outcomes can be attributed to your behavioural and psychological interactions with the market. It is your mindset that determines how well you comply with good trading, even if you are sufficiently disciplined to adhere to a written trading plan, have the motivation to even write such a plan in the first ...

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6 Practical Steps to Improve Trading Discipline: #3 Create the motivation to consider change
November 6, 2019

  In our previous articles we introduced the SIX steps to improving your trading discipline, offered some guidance on developing “awareness” and explored how to prioritise the trading discipline areas. If you haven’t yet read these articles, perhaps it is worth checking them out before moving onto this one. Step 1 - Awareness Step 2 -...

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The MACD – Useful indicator or just another pretty picture?
November 3, 2019

  The MACD (or the ‘Moving Average Convergence/Divergence oscillator’ to give its full name) is one of the popular extra pieces of information we often see added to charts. The purpose of this article is to clarify what it may be telling you about market sentiment and offer a description as to how traders commonly apply this in their deci...

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Cognitive Trading Biases: #2 – Minimalisation bias
October 29, 2019

  In a previous article we addressed the concept of cognitive trading biases as a barrier to potential successful implementation of a trading plan in the heat of the action you “press the button” on entry or exit action. This article discussed these biases - “loss aversion” which you can read here (click to read). In this article we...

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Trading Time Management (with downloadable audit tool)
October 25, 2019

Trading requires a commitment of time. For each of us the amount of time we must dedicate to trading activities is limited and justifiably so by other life activities (for of course, we want trading to contribute rather than take away from lifestyle). Despite the importance of checking in on how you are using your trading time, commonly traders ...

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Quick Trading Tip #1 – Developing patience in your trading
October 23, 2019

When we first start to trade, or subsequently (as a more experienced trader) when we trade a new symbol or system we are often “excited” as we see a “hope” for better results. We often forget that the development of expertise in other areas we have in life (think about what you do in work now for example), you must invest time, effort, l...

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Avoiding three pitfalls of shorter timeframe online trading
October 14, 2019

The relative ease of online trading today has not only increased the opportunity of access but flexibility to trade different time frames that can better “fit” around other things going on in life. Trading short timeframes is a popular choice for many online trading strategies. Indeed, the shorter time-frame charts e.g. 15 minutes or less, a...

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Creating a trading edge – Is it possible?
October 7, 2019

  A trading edge is a certain approach or special system techniques that, in theory, gives a trader some type of advantage over other market participants, hence making a trader more likely to achieve positive trading results. Many are cynical about the objective of creating a trading edge, despite the plethora of articles and books on variou...

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Six Steps to Improve Trading Discipline – #2 Prioritise and Identify your cause
September 24, 2019

  In a previous article we introduced the SIX steps to improving your trading discipline and offered some guidance on developing “awareness” with a downloadable ‘checklist’ for you to complete. Before we start, If you haven’t seen this article, it is perhaps prudent to go now and complete the checklist as this will inform you for ...

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Getting started with your trading journal – Free Download
September 20, 2019

  Those of you who have attended any of our LIVE Inner Circle education sessions, or participated in our courses, will know that a regular theme covered is the importance and benefits of measuring your trading. One of the key tools we often discuss is the use of a trading journal. For those of you less familiar with this as a concept, a trad...

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Six Steps to Improve Trading Discipline – #1 Awareness
September 18, 2019

  With very rare exceptions every trader must battle with trading discipline at stages in their trading career. Commonly when we explore trading discipline, there is an obvious focus on what we will term “execution discipline”, that is engaging and following through with elements of your trading plan e.g. adhering to a pre-planned exit ...

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3 Game-Changing Questions You Could Ask of Your Trading Journal Data
September 10, 2019

  In previous articles we have discussed in detail the merits of a trading journal in offering evidence for both: a. How well you are following a trading plan? b. How well your trading system is serving you? (assuming you are already following a trading plan) We have also outlined the importance of “closing the circle” and making sure ...

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