trading plan – Smart Forex Learning

My 6 Step Trade Entry Process Explained

11/01/201916/11/2021 sfl 1 Comment

10 min read

Last week, I tweeted what I see as my trade entry process. This was the tweet:

For every trade, I structure my process from 1 to 6. Each step isn’t possible without the previous one. Anytime, certain price action can invalidate the entire setup and make me abandon it.
1. Analysis
2. Directional bias
3. Trade plan
4. Entry filters
5. Entry criteria
6. Trade

— (@smartfxlearning) January 4, 2019

Since then, I got so many questions that I wanted to take a moment to write in more detail how I use this process to make better trading decisions.

Why you need a trader development plan

22/05/201722/03/2018 sfl Leave a comment

12 min read

I’ve learned everything there is to know about trading.

Says no professional trader, ever.

This is something I teach to my trade advisor students every day: not improving is deadly in this business. Seeing your P/L go south kind of deadly.

Every trader who has made it has done so because of continuous learning. A desire to get better at the trading game. Every single one of those traders has a trader development plan. But what exactly is that?

The pin and drive reversal entry trigger

19/03/201719/03/2017 sfl 2 Comments

8 min read

As you might know, I’m mainly a reversal trader. I use other strategies as well, but my bread and butter setups revolve around swing trading reversals.

This article is about an entry trigger I often use for my reversal trades. I describe it in my trading plan as pin and drive, which basically means that if I see a pin bar followed by a drive in the opposite direction (a momentum candle, if you wish) AND some additional conditions are fulfilled, I have found that it is often a good trigger to enter a reversal.

But first, let’s make it clear what I mean with a chart:

5 critical reasons why most traders lose money

18/08/201618/08/2016 sfl 1 Comment

6 min read

“Why do I keep losing money?”

This question used to keep me up at night.

Have you ever wondered this too? I have, over and over again.

When I was still struggling to become a profitable forex trader, I was desperate for the answer. Not only that, I wanted to identify the various pain points that made forex traders lose money. Find a structured way to tackle them. I wasn’t going to be a losing trader forever, no way. So I started researching.

Why do traders lose out?

The short answer is of course because it’s really hard to be consistently profitable.

But why? There are enough traders with a proven track record, so it must be possible. During my search, I’ve identified 5 of the most important reasons why traders lose out. I’m pretty sure that at one point or another, I’ve been through them all. But once I started working on them, I noticed a real turnaround in my trading performance! I couldn’t believe this, it really worked.

The ultimate forex trading plan guide

10/07/201613/08/2016 sfl 2 Comments

9 min read

Building your trading plan will be by far the most important part of your forex trading success. Too many forex traders are currently entering trades without a clear vision or goal in mind. They have a fear of missing out. They have a “feeling” that their trade is going to be the winning one, raking in loads of pips! When it turns out that the charts didn’t go their way, the first reaction is to quickly try again and forget the losing trade. Keep in mind that the fading affect bias is a powerful cognitive bias! This approach eventually leads to losses, pushing profitability even further away.

These traders lack a trading plan, a well-defined description of the “what” and “how” of their trading business (notice how I said business. You should treat it as such if you want to take forex trading seriously!). In this post, I will guide you through the steps needed to make such a trading plan, and give you a template of how a trading plan could look like.