When Not To Trade….

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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The 4 Cs..

In previous posts on my Blog I have written about the the 4 Ms and the 5 or 6 Ps.  I thought it about time I added the 4 Cs!  The 4 Cs came about through Swing Trading.  When I am looking for Swing Trades I use Multi-Time Frame Analysis (MTFA) in my trade planning. People have asked me in the past why I ‘laboriously’ look at all the different time frame charts when looking for and planning a trade, rather than stick to a single time frame.  Here is why.. Continue reading

Successful Trading Is Managing Uncertainty

When you are trading the ‘Hard Right Edge’ of the chart on whatever timeframe, you must always try to ‘Manage Uncertainty’.  What do I mean and how do you do you that?

gbpusd 4hr pot bear bat - 10 June 2015 - mwWhen you enter a trade, from that point onwards you do not know for sure what the market will do next and so all you can do is to try and manage that uncertainty by doing the following: Continue reading

The Importance Of Context

When you plan and take your next trade, please ask yourself this question:

‘Do I know the Context of this trade?’

Knowing the Context of a trade is an important part of planning any trade.  Knowing the Context means:

  • Is this a Counter-Trend or Trend Trade and on which Time Frame?
  • Is it a short term or longer term trade?
  • How many reasons are there to take the trade?
  • Is this a Lower Time Frame entry into a Higher Time Frame Setup?
    • If so has the Higher Time Frame setup triggered yet?

Knowing the Context for your trade can give you a Bias and therefore an edge, but how do you do this in practice?

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