Trading Plan - How to Create One?
Feb 14, 2017
By Ryan Carruthers in Blog
Let me kick this blog post off by stating that if you read my post on fear of missing out great this post has come off the back of that post and many years of speaking and trying to help newbie traders or even existing ones who have spotted that their mindset is their biggest weakness.
At this point the BTC members are perhaps sick of me banging on about mindset, but I feel so passionately about it being critical to trading, I bet if you are honest you know it too. This blog post is for all of you, over the post I will be detailing what a trading plan is and why you need one, so that you can create a trading plan to become better more relaxed traders.
Guess what? It will also make you more profitable!
I use a trading plan and I have a morning routine, without these two things I wouldn’t be as profitable as I am, thats how powerful this is. The benefits of these in place create a relaxed almost robotic version of myself who trades in a stress free zone.
Ryan you keep saying I need a trading plan but what is a trading plan?
It is a road map for your trading day, you will be mapping out potential trades. Creating a scenario in your mind for entry and exit points on certain events if certain triggers are met.
One of the main benefits I have noticed is that it optimises my trading time, every morning I plan out my trades for that day, I then note this down on my plan for the day and have all the relevant information right at hand - yes this takes some time but then I know exactly what trades I am doing and when so I can fit other things in around that. I don’t have to spend all day staring at the markets!
What does that give me?
Well you guessed it! Stress free trading, because of the way I set my day up I am forced to focus in the morning and plan the trades, I am planning way ahead of the event so I don’t have to hurry because the event is in play, I am not trying to quickly jump on something because its just gone in play and then I need to information NOW and then I might miss a goal or a trigger!
This I believe gives me more consistency over my trading, I have a consistent pattern to my trading and I eliminate everything else - when I say everything else I mean trades that are just popping up, chasing losses, trading because somebody else is on that particular trade, ones that don’t match the way I trade etc… I could go on and on with that list!
Because I have my plan it forces me to focus on my own trading, it becomes harder for me to jump on other trades because I have my own trades researched and ready to go, I can’t try and talk myself into another trade because I know my planned trades bring a performance level I am comfortable with and also I have managed the risk element of the trade way before hand.
'Consistent actions bring about consistent results. Keep jumping on trades late or that don’t fit your rules, you’ll consistently lose.'
That statement there is one to think about guys! When you have the plan you can also review the performance, so you can take that statement and then use it, analyse what works and keep that and eliminate what doesn’t.
What does the plan need to look like?
Right guys this is really simple!!
All I do everyday is have a text edit document open on my laptop and I note down the games that fit my criteria (I use the BTC filters to save time and give me a list of qualifiers everyday) I then dig deeper on these games find out who is in the team, is the top scorer playing isn’t he? Etc…
I then put them under their correct heading so if I am backing under 2.5 goals I will put that game under that heading with some notes on things like the AVG goal time, % chance of the score being over 1.5 at HT who is missing from the teams who might be a threat and the time of the game.
I now have built up very quickly a picture of that game and I have the stats to help me analyse I will also add on there what time I need to enter, exit and a stop loss on that trade - which changes per game and per trade.
I then go on to rate these trades as which one I think looks the best in each chosen way of trading so I have a top to bottom view of how confident I am on those events from my research which allows me to plan my day and get the best trades with the least stress and the most profit!
