Making a trading plan is no joke. It takes a whole lot of effort and research to come up with a trading plan that is perfect for you. But the problem is, sometimes, when that ticker or number goes up and up or down and down, we aren’t control ourselves and jump the gun on selling whether for profit or loss.

The problem with that attitude is, once you break away from your trading plan, nothing can stop you from doing it again. Rationalizing your violation of the plan by any profit you’ve earned is just a step away for you. That’s pretty much where it begins and it’s all downhill from there. Pretty soon, you’ll be ignoreing that trading plan you made and just go with the flow of the market. Oh, yes, you’ll have a few successes and then you’ll be broke, having thrown away your money (more…)

A trading plan is a definite requirement for becoming a successful stock trader. It can help you over the usual pitfalls that a trader may encounter in his career. But let’s be clear here: perusing a few books about stock trading and drawing up a few simple rules on a note pad does not a trading plan make. That’s pretty much a picture-perfect example of a bankruptcy waiting to happen. Trading plans require a lot of work and they need to be more detailed than having saying “buy low and sell high”.

To set it all up, first you have to sit down and take stock of what you have. This is more than in the monetary sense. You should know what you’re knowledgeable about and what you’re capable of handling. Your trading plan should match you and shaped by your quirks. If you don’t take into account your (more…)