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Trading is just like any other discipline, if you want to be the best, you need to “put in the hours”. I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times.
But what does that mean? How can you actually learn from your mistakes and become a “not losing too much” trader? Because, yes, you won’t make millions overnight.
Sadly, when I look at Twitter, most of the accounts growing a massive following focus on selling dreams, rather than sharing a process.
The goal of this article is to offer you my perspective on how to build a consistent process to get that feedback loop and implement the changes that need to be done to take you to the next level.
What I’m gonna share with you today is very personal, as most of what you’re about to read is the routine I had for a few years now. It might not be the best for you, but I hope that at least it will give you ideas of what it took me to get profitable in my trading.
So, how can you start implementing a new routine today?
As the saying says, the first step is the hardest. But at least, you can only improve going forward. If you start your day by getting out of bed, taking a trade on your phone whilst taking your morning poop, chances are you’re not going to be here for too long.
My trading routine is built around three pillars:
Solid Foundations: a healthy mind and lifestyle
Technical Skills: mastering the market and an arsenal of up-to-date statistics
The Feedback Cycle: A successful reviewing process
Solid Foundations
I’m still far from being perfect, but I’ve improved a lot over the last few years on this aspect of life. You can’t be hangover every weekend, feeling like shit all the time, being miserable in your life, stressed at work, suffering from poor relationships, and succeeding in trading.
I have been lucky enough to have an amazing childhood. My parents educated me about the benefits of being healthy, and that love is the most important thing in life. I have a small group of very close friends and a loving and caring partner who all support me in this journey. It makes a massive difference for me, as it allows me to focus on my life goal: becoming and staying a winning trader.
I try to do my best to maintain all other aspects of my life at a healthy level: food, sleep, sport, and constantly learning new skills.
Touching wood here, but I’m truly happy in my life. And I always was even when things were not working too well in trading too. The most difficult obstacle was to keep doing trading on the side with a very demanding job. But now, gladly, this is out of the equation.
If you have to battle with anxiety, living paycheck to paycheck, fights with your partner, be surrounded by people who don’t believe in you or live with no one to talk to about your trading, it will make things much more difficult.
In my Tweet this morning, I also talked about going to therapy. I had a mental coach for a year during Covid to try to understand the roots of my emotional reactions in the market, which still wouldn’t go away after years of watching the charts.
This tweet from @Bull.Bear resonated a lot with me, and you should take a moment to see what it means to you.
I must have more than 20 notebooks filed with personal notes over the years (not just for trading, but for life in general).
Having said that, you can have the healthiest lifestyle, but if you suck at trading, you’ll still go broke.
Technical Skills
Listen to yourself is my advice here. If you’re reading this, you most likely have been trying a million different setups, tools, and software. Look, the best trader will make money from a naked chart or with very few indicators.
Truth is, go with what you’re comfortable with. The brain takes time to process information, and if you don’t have an automated system, I believe having too many indicators on your charts, and trading short timeframes, will do more harm than good.
If you’ve been following me for quite some time, you know that I use 20 to 40 ticks range chart coupled with a VWAP and previous days’ H/L/C. It goes FAST. But my chart looks clean. I understand it. We’ve been dancing together for a long time now. I feel comfortable through the loss and winnings phases.
The fact that it’s a range chart makes life easier to visually remember the pattern and outcomes. I still have a higher timeframe view on the left to make sure I don’t get lost in my scalping.
KIFSS, or Keep It Fucking Stupid Simple has always been my mantra, in life.
However, the market changes. Buying the dip over the last few years made plenty of money for many people.
But when market condition changes, you’ll be powerless if you don’t have a feedback cycle.
The Feedback Cycle
In all my previous companies, I had quarterly or bi-annual feedback cycles. And you know what? I always enjoyed them! Most of my colleagues were not that excited about that time of the year, but I was always excited to learn what I should change about my work/attitude to become better.
I had this mentality my whole life. Playing chess at a competitive level during my younger years reinforced that '“natural” thing in me.
How did I translate that into trading?
Recording: I record almost every trading session I do (btw, if you do this, make sure you have a backup. My previous laptop died 3 weeks ago and I lost years of data). During the weekend, I watch those recordings and I look for the following things: Did I look focused during my session (no phone, no other human interactions)? Have I entered at the right time (e.g., the time I was supposed to be based on my backtested strategy)? Have I respected my trade management during the life of the trades? Doing this on a consistent basis has been life-changing. On one of my first recordings, I remember I was smoking cigarettes, playing on my phone, streaming youtube… This sounds silly to me now. When I trade, I want to be in my zone. Deep focus, thinking of making the perfect trade, regardless of the outcome.
All of the above is easier for me as my trading session is usually one hour long in the morning, and then I’m done (even though I’m still watching the charts afterward). I’m trying though to increase the length of my trading sessions as I want to learn how to apply my setups at a higher frequency.
Journaling: I note my emotions, and review my trades, on a daily basis. No exceptions. In this exercise, I focus mostly on the technical aspect of my trading.
Backtesting: I backtest my strategy on a regular basis, and see if the performance of the current week is in line with expectations. Are the $ results too far away from the expected returns?
DRC: Daily Report Card. This is a very recent addition that I discovered last week from the SMB Capital guys. I absolutely loved this concept and I started working on my DRC this weekend, looking to implement it live when I’m back from my holidays.
Building this process took me years, and it’s an evolving process (see DRC). Because it’s not only trading related. It’s a life philosophy.
I commit to doing whatever it takes, staying a lifetime student of the markets. I accept that one day, my strategies won’t work anymore. I accept that there is no holy grail. I accept that I am human and will still do stupid mistakes, take impulsive trades, and regret them. I love this discipline, and nothing will stop me.
If this article helped you, I’d appreciate a comment/like/share on Twitter.
Thank you for taking the time to read it, without you, this Substack wouldn’t exist.
Love,
Retail ❤️
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Apex is a community of traders founded by Darrell Martin, a rancher and day trader who has built a thriving community of traders into over 30,000 members in over 150 countries since 2008.
Thank you so much! I keep learning so much from you! I really appreciate it!