Category Archives: Trading Psychology

Unconscious Trading Bias?

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Do You Have an Unconscious Trading Bias?  

Have you ever given any thought to how you behave and react when in front of your Trading Platform screen?

Perhaps you are hesitant to commit to trades - to actually be able to pull the trigger at the right time.  Or perhaps you are trigger happy and a bit impetuous, when it comes to taking trades, seeing opportunities everywhere and having multiple trades open at the same time.  How big are your position sizes, how many positions per trade and what % of your trading account do you risk on each trade and what % do you risk in open trades, which are not yet at Break Even or better?

Most traders are either driven by Fear or Greed, which camp do you feel you fall into?  

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Passing a Prop Firm’s Evaluation – Some Suggestions

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Following on from my previous Blog Post: ‘Typical Stages of Trader Development’,  the next natural topic would be ‘How do you actually pass a Prop Firm Evaluation?’  Here are some trading tips which might be of some use.

Firstly you have to find a Prop Firm that matches your style of trading.  Are you a Position Trader, a Swing Trader or an Intraday Trader?  

Do you need to have the ability to keep your trades open over weekends and for several weeks or even months?  Some firms will accommodate this and others won’t.  

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Typical Stages of Trader Development

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Typical Stages of Trader Development - For some time now I have been acutely aware of the unrealistic expectations of people who come into trading, thinking that they are going to be able to pick it up quickly and make a rapid fortune!  The reality is vastly different.  Here are my thoughts on what that reality is.  

The typical starting points are:

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Christmas Wishes 2021

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Firstly, our very best wishes to you and your families at this Christmas time and thank you for reading our Blog posts throughout yet another difficult Covid Pandemic year.  As the trading year draws to a close, it is a good time to take stock and analyse how you have done in 2021, what you have achieved and what could be improved upon in the coming year.  If you can spend some time reflecting on your trading year, you should be able to:

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Tell Me Why I Don’t Like Mondays?

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The lyrics for ‘Tell Me Why I Don’t Like Mondays!’ by the Boomtown Rats used to epitomise how I often felt as a Forex Trader trying to take new trades on Mondays. Often I would be seduced into trades by false signals, one way and then the other, leading to extreme frustration.  This was the case until I realised that Mondays are days when the markets will most often churn and consolidate and where unsuspecting traders can be preyed upon by the big players and Market Makers seeking liquidity. The market would move in one direction and then reverse and then end up pretty much where it had started.  As the week progressed, I noticed that the quality of potential trades improved until Friday, when things tailed off. 

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When Not To Trade….

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Whatever type of Trader you are, there are some periods or points in your life when it probably isn’t in your best interest to trade and I’m not referring to unpredictable economic events such as FOMC and NFP etc or non-favoured days of the week or month.

Profitable trading nearly always relies on thorough market analysis and timing and being in the right mind set, rested, fit and alert to all the possibilities and prepared to have the courage of your own conviction to take the trades that you see.

Over the years I have learnt that there are definitely times in your life when it isn’t in your own interest to be trading and that isn’t just the likely unprofitable outcome but also in terms of one’s relationships and mind set.

Such events are:

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Christmas Wishes – 2020

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Firstly our very best wishes to you and your families at this Christmas time and thank you for reading our Blog posts throughout this difficult year.  As the trading year draws to a close, it is a good time to take stock and analyse how you have done in 2020, what you have achieved and what could be improved upon in the coming year.  If you can spend some time reflecting on your trading year you should be able to:


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Let’s Talk About Money!

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At the recent Smart Traders’ Online Bootcamp, organised by Round The Clock Traders, I gave a talk about ‘How To Build Your House of Trading’ and during the subsequent Q&A the topic of Money came up.  The usual questions of ‘How much money do I need to start trading?’ and ‘How much money in percentage terms of my trading capital can I make?’ etc, came up. These are fair questions to ask, but in broader terms, Money can have a funny effect on us and our Trading Mindset.

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How Sharp Is Your Edge?

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When learning how to trade the financial markets, you need to learn a strategy or two to get started, most will find something off the internet or pay for one. The issue then is how good is that strategy and probably more importantly could you actually employ that strategy to profitable effect. Reading and knowing the rules is one thing but actually implementing them in a live market is another thing entirely. So it would make sense to be able to learn the strategy and how to implement it in an environment that is less testing in the first instance. Once you have learnt the strategy and how to use it then wouldn’t it be a good idea to find out how effective it is in different market conditions. In other words try and ascertain if you actually have what is termed as an Edge. An edge is knowing that over an X number of trades you will be profitable. You only need to be profitable 51% of the time to be profitable if you control your risk. Once you have a proven edge, wouldn’t it be good to be able to improve it. If you could improve your edge to around 60:40 win loss ratio then you would would have a significant edge on the market. This can also be done off line by back testing.

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London Traders Forum Q4 – 2019 Summary & Take Aways

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I thought I would highlight some of the Take Aways from the London Traders Forum which met on Saturday.  The feedback was very positive and all the presentations were well received with great interaction and debate with the attendees, in a packed room, plus a great social afterwards.

Refreshments and light breakfast on arrival available to all. Teas/coffees/snacks etc available throughout the day.

Firstly we had a market roundup and strategic view from Kevin Barry (Traders & Investors Club|), where we learnt where to go to find excellent economic indicators and how to read them and what leading indicators highlight if an economy is going into recession or not and how to act on that in trading terms.  We were given his strategic view of the markets and current correlations and where the money is flowing and the impact of that in Trading terms.

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