Introduction
I'm a big advocate that always trading with the same stop-loss and take profits regardless of the chart configuration is a losing strategy.
Let's cover 3 easy steps that you can use TODAY to increase drastically your gains and more importantly, reduce your losses.
1. Trade more than 1 asset per asset class
What will you do if your trade get stopped-out?
Imagine you're trading Bitcoin only but your trade is stopped-out too soon before the move begins.
The stubborn trader limits his reward by only trading 1 asset per class.
I guarantee you that taking the high-reward setups across a few assets does not increase your risk - assuming your entry/exit strategy is robust.
It's a known way to increase your potential reward while decreasing your risk - which is what you are looking for as a trader
In a scenario where you get a LONG on Bitcoin and a LONG on Ethereum, you wait for a pullback on a moving average or a specific price level
More often than you know, one only hits your entry, while the other comes close enough but you don't get fill.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who experienced this :)
Trading a few assets with your most rewarding setups has great odds of profit.
It's like investing in companies or stocks long-term.
We never know which ones will lose and which one(s) brings the X100.
Same with trading, being invested with several high reward trades
2. Learn when to set a tight stop-loss
Imagine now you set a tight stop-loss even for your high-reward trades.
9 times out of 10, it gets hit too soon.
Your high-reward trades needs less attention and monitoring than your counter-trend trades - do you agree?
A BEST trader like you shall learn to identify the high-reward trades versus the rest.
But what is the "rest" Dave?
The "rest" includes trades with 1 or more support(s) or resistance(s) near your entry, also trades against their bigger timeframe.
This last one means you enter a long on a 5 minutes chart whereas the trend is bearish on you 15-minutes chart and above
I like to edge those riskier setup with a few tools:
- 1. a pullback near a moving average
- 2. being more aggressive with my stop-loss to breakeven and take profit strategy
The pullback improves my entry such as if stopped-out, I'll lose a smaller amount.
Having a tight stop-loss and being more reactive with my SL/TP strategy allows me to not losing on those setups.
Those trades are still worth taking because we could start a move against the bigger trend or facing a support/resistance zone and then moon
That's being said, those trades obviously need more monitoring and are less likely to bring you huge profits than your high-reward setups
Turn off the news (please)
Why would you listen to:
- financial news fact checking nothing and feeding you the informations from the top 1% rich expecting you to buy their bags?
- uneducated influenceurs claiming they are professional traders but you can't find anything about them online when you backgroundcheck them?
- your family and friends: if you make more money than them, don't listen to them. You should be the one advising them instead
- your financial advisor and broker: Those guys are paid on commission and 99% of them underperform the market average
Someone told me once: "Brokers are called "brokers" because they're broke"
You don't have to trust me on this but... my trading performance made a X10 when I stop listening to unreliable sources.
It's up to you to decide of course if you should listen to my free advices and I count on you to test, backtest, forwardtest everything that I'm saying before testing those ideas on your LIVE account (please).
Turning off social media and the news when trading reduces the useless noise.
I still check every morning the major events of the day (FED/ECB speech, inflation numbers, jobless claims) and I avoid trading around those announcements.
That's the only thing I do from a fundamental/macro perspective.
For all the rest, my charts and technical analysis is my only source of information and TRUTH
Conclusion
To made a X10 on your account, do the following:
1. Trade more than 1 asset per asset class
2. Know when to set your stop-loss to breakeven and take profits according to the current chart configuration
3. Turn off the news
A quick note
Each screenshot below is clickable and can be enlarged for better visibility