Lessons of 2009

2009 was a great year and a lot of lessons were learnt, both from mistakes and from experience. Let me list my top 10 lessons which may help you newer traders. I have incorporated all the below into my own trading plan. What was once a 2 page document is now become more of a trading book :-)

1. You have to adapt a system to fit your own personality. I had been given a system which I could not make profitable but once I tweaked it to my style it is now something I live and die by.
2. You must stick to your own rules and never deviate from them. Many times you will feel like breaking the rules, this is when you will lose and more importantly this is when you cross the line to the gambling world.
3. Your first objective should be to move a trade to breakeven as soon as possible.
4. Stop worrying about the money and put your energy into entries and exits, the money will come. If you constantly worry about money you consistently make bad decisions.
5. You must remember that each trade is one of the thousands you will place over you trading career. Over the long run your edge will take care of itself.
6. You need to keep 1/4 of your position open on every trade to try to catch a +100pip runner. You will get this at least 5-10 a month and this will turn your 10% return a month into a 15%-20% month.
7. You must keep losses small. Do not get married to your trade and you do not need to let it run to your 1% stop loss. A re-entry is only a spread away.
8. You must switch off Skype, Twitter and any other Social Media website. They are all distractions and you should use your brain power on your own trading decisions especially timing entries and exits to your own rules.
9. Patience is something that cannot be taught and only comes with experience. So keep on trading and get that vital experience of being patient. Once you have mastered this you are well on your way to becoming the trader you want to be.
10. You should only trade with the trend. It is far easier to go in the direction of the trend than against it. I am a trend trader and using this rule as my core foundation I manged to make over 10% a month for the last 3 months.

Happy Trading. I hope 2010 is as exciting as 2009. I start trading again on the 4th Jan 2010 and I will start posting my trades for you all.

www.tradefxlive.co.uk/blog

are you crazy?? If 2010 is anything like 2009(well at least the first few months of it), then I'm giving up trading all together and joining the postal fleet. lol I need about 10 boring years of predictably trendy markets to make up for the chaos and insanity of the last 2 years.

Well I was not trading in the first 6months of 2009, but the last 5 months of 2009 treated me kindly :-)

1. trade small
2. concentrate on accuracy
3. wait and watch
4. keep eye on different time frames
5. keep weekly,monthly targets
6. time of entering market

risk no more than 3% per trade
stop using time frames all together
pay attn to price the most
use 2 indicators at the most

that's my own personal list

I dont think I could handle a 3% loss to my account, especially if I lose 3-4 in a row.....ouch

www.tradefxlive.co.uk/blog

Nice post. Nice list is it absolutely necessary to have a game plan. Otherwise we would all run around circles.

if you have a trade plan that wins 80% of the time that has least 3:1 risk you'll be fine otherwise, I'd look to improve on what may be broken. and that's what i did until i got what I wanted and did a visual check on the past yrs of price action

you can't be afraid of the market because it's certainly not afraid of you!

P.S. the SL is just an emergency stop. technically with the trade plan i use, i could never hit it unless the broker did something funny. it's more like half of the most of the time.

I agree with you on this. If you have a system thats gives you more wins than losses than of course 2% risk per trade is fine. I think im juts more comfortable by risking 1% of my account