Hi Folks, I hope everyone is finding some good trading opportunities out there in the Forex world.

One of the things I would like to mention in this short news letter revolves around patience. For most new traders this can be a major stumbling point. As one of my students in the live trading room always say "Its the waiting, always the waiting" that can mean success or failure of a trade or a trading career.

Below is one such trade that required a lot of patience. Firstly, as the pattern developed (several days of extended consolidation) then for the trade to develop and trigger its entry. But the killer was waiting for the trade to hit my first target to scale out a portion of the trade 4 hours for a very small first target of +15 pips.

The thing I need to remember is that there is nothing wrong with this trade, it has not voided the pattern in that it has not stopped me out but neither has it started to move. I like to give each trade the opportunity to move and I’m looking for a certain sequence of events to develop before I start move my stop loss location to lock in profits.

Some of the things that new traders can fall in to the trap of doing are;

• Trade tinkering
• Feeling the need to be doing something
• Placing a trade as a result of that need to be doing something
• Adjusting stop loss’s for no reason other than "Its moved 10 pips"
• Closing out a trade because " It ‘aint movin’ "

So what can you do to prevent some of these things which all pretty much revolve around Patience or the lack of it and the need to be doing something.

Firstly, remember that there are 3 trades you can place;

• Long
• Short
• No Action

Not placing a trade or taking no action is a perfectly valid decision to make when trading. You really do not have to be placing a dozen trades per day to be a day trader.

Set out a trading plan - This is a must for any business and yes folks this is a business. All business have a plan of action. Know what your going to do, why your doing it and when you are going to do it.

Follow my 3 simple rules trading plan to help make sure you have not missed anything

• Where is price now?
• What is it doing?
• How can I get involved, if price goes up/down/sideways whats my plan?

If your plan is telling to that there is no trade or no action to do on a trade, then DON’T do it.

There are several things that I used to do and some that I still do to that helped me to overcome some of the above problems whilst I was trading.

I don’t have my trading platform always in view so I cant see my positions, P&L, or be tempted to place a trade. I used to actually close it down and log on only when I had a trade to place or one was setting up. Personally I find it all too distracting and all the information you need is on your charts.

Replace that need to be doing something on your trading and transfer it to something else.  For I time I always had a demo account open and I used to hammer away at any sort of trade I "felt like placing" this proved to me that this compulsion would not be useful in my live trading.

I transferred that compulsion into something useful,  testing idea’s, strategy variation, money management tactics, new markets, etc. To this day this is something I still do as I have turned a negative compulsion into a positive routine, developing idea’s so that when/if market conditions dictate change in my trading plan I have a catalogue of different scenario idea’s to select from.

Changin my plan is actually something that does not happen often but I found myself recently changing my trade management tactic from something that had served me very well over the last 4-5 years as a direct result of what I considered a serious change in the market environment.

I think I’ve rambled on enough now about this subject and I hope it gives you a few idea’s or makes you see somethign that might need to be changed in your own trading and how you can go about changing it.

If you would like to talk some more to me about it please feel free to contact me.

Happy Trading

Phil