At the recent, very well attended and organised, Round-The-Clock-Trader – Live event in London on the 5th November I was asked by the Broker – ActivTrades, an event sponsor, to give a presentation to a large group of aspiring and actual traders. The title of the talk was ‘Learn High Probability Trading Techniques’. I had thought long and hard about what exactly I wanted to say. I know from my own experience that most aspiring traders are very focussed on acquiring a successful strategy or strategies, which I now know to be only a small part of the ‘successful trader’ equation. Indeed some would say that the method or strategy is only about 20% of the whole, with Risk & Money Management coming in at around 50% and Trading Psychology and Well Being making up the remaining 30%. So instead of focussing on teaching a strategy I thought it would be better and more in the interest of the audience to talk about Strategy Generic Trading Essentials in order to provide a better trading education foundation, from which they could move forward, and topics which would hold them in good stead over time. The points I chose to talk about were as follows:
- How to establish a Fundamentals Overview of Currency Pairs and why.
- The importance of Planning to Succeed and having a Trading Plan, its’ composition & difference to a Trade Plan and what that is.
- How crucial it is to use robust Risk and Money Management and how to do that.
- How to identify and use Supply & Demand & why a trader should always be Looking Left.
- What is Price Action and how to read and use it, in conjunction with relevant Candlesticks.
- Why I use Multi-Time Frame Analysis to establish the Context of any trade and how to find Confluences in the market.
- Lastly the importance of, and how to implement, Patience, Discipline and Timing on one’s trading.
I only mentioned the strategies that I use in my introduction and nothing about indicators and explained why I thought the above points ought to be an essential part of every trader’s toolbox.
The next event I shall be speaking at will be at the ActivTrades Financial Trading Summit on the 19th November 2016 in central London and my chosen topic is: ‘The Forex Traders’ Survival Guide’. Hope to see you there and if you do attend then come and say hello.
