Currency Trading Information

Writing A Trading Plan


All professional traders have a trading plan. Trading futures is a zero sum game and those with a plan (and the discipline to apply it) will succeed over those that have no plan. A plan details the particular market anomaly that you intend to exploit - your edge. Human emotion creates anomalies - essentially, the fear and the greed of those that have no trading plan.

Creating a trading plan and rigidly applying that plan allows the professional trader to eliminate emotional responses from his trading.

Let's look at what your written trading plan should cover:

Trading concept - What anomaly is your trading strategy intending to exploit?

Timeframe - The shorter the timeframe the more trades that can be made. However short term trading leads to lower reward:risk ratio's and higher commission costs.

Instrument - There are many different ways to trade essentially the same idea - options, futures, exchange traded funds etc. Which offers the most reward for your trading concept?

Entry - How will you open your trade?

Exit - How will you close your trade - A stop loss should be placed at a point where the trading concept become invalid, this could be a specific price or a certain length of time. A profit exit must also be established - again either a certain target price or a timed exit.

Money Management - How much capital is required to trade the strategy and how much should be risked on each trade to maximise returns whilst minimising the risk of blowing the account?

End of Day Routine - At the end of each day every trade should be compared to the trading plan and any variances should be addressed. Remember the plan is their for a reason and you must trade it exactly. If a change is required then it should be properly tested before being added to the plan. No decisions should be made whilst a trade is live.

Brokers - Which broker will you use and how will you trade? Automating a trading plan through the broker's API will help to eliminate any emotional responses.

Your plan will require constant revision as the market dynamics change. If you have noticed a market anomaly then it's very like that many of your competitors have as well.

"If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there." Lewis Carroll

Tim Wreford runs Online Futures Trading, a website that provides information and resources for traders. Tim also provides a free day trading system, the results of which are updated daily on the site.

  


MORE RESOURCES:

RTT News

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Washington Post, United States - Jan 7, 2009
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The Money Times

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Daily FX, NY - Jan 5, 2009
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Bloomberg - 4 hours ago
... dollar this month, said Omer Esiner, a senior market foreign-exchange analyst in Washington at Ruesch International Inc., a currency trading company. ...


Alcoa Cost Cuts Weigh Futures
Wall Street Journal - Jan 7, 2009
In currency trading, the euro recovered some of Tuesday's losses, with the shared currency hovering around $1.36. Oil futures, meanwhile, cooled a bit after ...


Telegraph.co.uk

Pound Posts Record Weekly Gain Against Euro as BOE Cuts Rates
Bloomberg - 3 hours ago
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Teen prefers currency trading over Myspace and is making money ...
WHAS 11.com (subscription), KY - Jan 6, 2009
But her favorite website isn't facebook or MySpace, its online currency trading. She discovered the Forex website after her father suggested she look into ...


Henderson plans quantitative currency hedge fund
Reuters - Jan 8, 2009
... overlay strategy -- effectively a currency hedge -- but does not yet have a fund specifically designed to generate alpha returns from currency trading. ...
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RTE.ie

Euro Falls to Three-Week Low on Speculation ECB Will Cut Rates
Bloomberg - Jan 6, 2009
“I am very bullish on the dollar throughout 2009,” said Matt Esteve, foreign-exchange trader at currency-trading firm Tempus Consulting Inc. in Washington, ...
Euro weakens on rate cut evidence BBC News
Relief for exporters as euro suffers largest two-day drop Irish Independent
Euro Falls to Three-Week Low on Speculation ECB Will Cut Rates Bloomberg
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currency trading - Google News

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