4 tactics I see winning traders use
My wife, Zena, is notorious for telling me to plan ahead, to organize
my tasks ahead of time so that I can accomplish what I need to do. At
times, I’m resistant to these suggestions. I feel that I should just be
able to “play it by ear†and see what happens, that life shouldn’t have
to be so orchestrated. I feel that I will catch some opportunities
during my day, and miss others-haphazardly. It certainly makes for a
more entertaining day.
Unfortunately, in terms of trading, the
“play it by ear†approach just doesn’t work. Believe me I’ve tried.
There were times when I would just wake up, turn on CNBC, and see some
price action in xyz stock. Then, I would look at the chart, and just
“play it by ear.†I would look at the daily chart, and maybe things
weren’t set up just right. So then, I would turn to the hourly chart.
And I’d think “Ohh yeah!â€, now, I would find something, and if that
chart didn’t look good, perhaps I would take a look at the weekly
chart. My point is, if you start your day with the idea that you want
to trade, but you didn’t plan ahead, you will catch some opportunities,
miss some opportunities, and make mistakes on many other opportunities
because you didn’t lay out your game plan ahead of time. Without taking
the time, to make a list of the stocks that you will POTENTIALLY trade
and PLAN how you will trade those stocks, you run the risk of grasping
at inadequate set-ups in order to get your “trading fix†(and most
likely with a smaller account). The conclusion of this…don’t take
trades unless you have prepared ahead of time–if you couldn’t do the
prep work, just take the day off, or prepare for…(READ
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