When you are thinking of starting a trading career, you should know that it is a lot more than just relying on generalized rules like keeping losses at a minimum or learning about the market. Trading can be very profitable when done right and can actually wipe out your investment if you make a mistake. If you are truly interested in starting a trading career, then you should what rules to follow in order to make it happen. You don’t want to be one of those people who trade for a couple of months and then step out because they couldn’t get the hang of it.
Some of the top rules that you should follow when starting your trading career are:
- Always relying on a trading plan
What exactly is a trading plan? It is a written set of rules that dictates a trader’s entry and exit points as well as their criteria for money management. Even though it will take time, coming up with a trading plan can be immensely helpful in setting up your career. You can devise a plan by doing proper research and it can be applied to historical data to check its viability. If it shows good results, you should ensure that you stick to the trading plan. Taking trades out of your plan, even if it goes your way, is regarded as poor trading and may not give you the same results consistently.
- Consider trading as a business
If you want to have a successful trading career, you need to consider it as a part-time or full-time business. It shouldn’t be regarded as a job or a hobby. If you think of it as the former, it can be immensely frustrating because you don’t get a regular paycheck. In the latter, it can turn out to be very expensive because you are not really making a commitment. When you consider it as a business, you will accept that it incurs taxes, expenses, losses, risk, stress and uncertainty. You are like a small business owner when you trade, which means you have to come up with proper strategies for maximizing your business potential.
- Take advantage of technology
Trading is very competitive and you need to take advantage of technology in order to generate profits. There are a variety of trading tools that can come in handy for viewing and analyzing the markets. This includes charting tools or using smartphones for getting updates and monitoring trades anywhere you go. In trading, using technology to your advantage can be fun and rewarding.
- Protect your capital
It takes a long time for many traders to save enough money to fund their trading account. It can be even more difficult to do it over and over again. Therefore, you need to take appropriate measures to ensure your trading capital is safe. Bear in mind that this doesn’t mean that you cannot have any losing trades. All traders will lose a trade every now and then; it is part of the trading world. Protecting your capital means not taking unnecessary risks and using a secure and reliable broker like Coin2FX to preserve your trading career.
- Study the markets
Consider this like continuing education; the trading world is constantly changing and you have to be focused on learning in order to make progress. Understanding the different financial markets, along with their intricacies, is an ongoing process. You can learn facts with the help of hard research whereas observation and focus can come in handy for gaining instinct and knowing the nuances. You need to know that whether it is events, economies, world politics or even weather, everything can have an impact on the trading market. You need to understand the past as well as the current markets in order to be able to face the future.
- Invest only what you can afford to lose
Before you start using your money for conducting trades, it is imperative that you only use money that’s expendable for you. If it is not something you can afford to lose, then you shouldn’t use it for trading. For instance, the money you put into a trading account shouldn’t be money that you have allocated for paying the mortgage or for your kids’ college tuition. This is not ‘borrowing’ money because there is a good possibility that you could lose the money in a trade. It is already traumatic to lose money and can get worse when you know that it is capital that shouldn’t have been risked in the first place.
- Use facts to come up with a trading methodology
It is worth it to take out some time to come up with a reliable trading methodology. There are tons of trading scams on the internet and it is so easy to believe in them. But, rather than letting your emotions like hope take the lead, you should rely more on facts for developing a trading plan. When you are not in a hurry, you will find it easy to sift through all the available information. Trading is just like any other career; you should study at least a year or two in order to consider yourself qualified.
- Know when to stop trading
There are two reasons why anyone should think about stopping trading. They could either be an ineffective trader or they simply don’t have the right plan. The former happens because you are unable to stick to your trading plan as you become influenced by stress or just have too much on your plate to manage it. As for problems with the trading plan, it could be ineffective when it starts leading to substantial losses. This could be due to several reasons like change in the market, greater volatility of your trading instrument or it may just not be doing as well as you thought.
These are some of the important and powerful rules you have to bear in mind in order to start and maintain a trading career in the long run.