5 Traits of Professional Traders You Should Employ in 2018

  • By Carole Ann Furman

  • March 2, 2018
  • 5:17 am BST

Get Your Trading Foundation Right To Ensure Your Best Trading Year

Whether you love trading the Forex, Index, Commodity or Stock markets, trading as a professional requires a certain foundation of character traits that when applied correctly, can greatly assist you in becoming a more confident trader in 2018. Let’s take a look at the top 5 traits of professional traders so you can begin looking upon 2018 as a year of opportunity and move forward with a calm and focused mind, especially since the markets have made such a bullish start to the year already.

1. Patience

Did your trading system(s) capture the big up move on the Aussie dollar (AUDUSD) from below the 1.0400 mark when the indicators were showing oversold? No problem.

Nearly all trading systems have their ‘time in the sun’ where everything they touch turns to Gold, but unfortunately, most traders don’t have the patience to allow their systems to capture those big moves.

Professional traders understand that the markets go through trending, range bound and volatile style markets and if your trading systems aren’t working right now, it’s not because they are broken, but more likely conditions are not favourable.

In this case, you need to be patient, allocate a small amount of risk and ride the drawdown and be ‘alive’ and ready when your big move happens.

2. Systems

Professional traders understand how vital it is to remove the emotion from their trading and always rely on documenting their trading systems and applying their edge in the market.

Even discretionary traders have well-defined entry, exit and risk management rules but apply discretion to override their signals from time to time.

Are your systems well documented and have they historically proven to give you an edge? In 2018, you’ll want to document your entry, exit and money management rules such that an 8-year-old kid could apply them.

3. Positive goal orientated outlook

The Power of Thinking Big, Psycho-cybernetics, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), Creative Visualisation and S.M.A.R.T goals. They all have one thing in common, and that is they get you to think about the positive outcomes you wish to achieve and document them clearly before they have happened. Fake it to you make it as they say.

Professional traders are this way due to having a professional, goal orientated mindset and you need to ask yourself, what is stopping you from becoming a professional, confident trader.

In-Depth Broker Review Click Here

If you have visualised, written down and can review your goals, then how can you not get excited about the week, month and year ahead?

This then leads to the next point which is…

4. Clarity

Do you think if you had a clear vision for every trading day, clearly knew your risk tolerance and the exact types of trades you are to take, that your results and enthusiasm for each trading day might be different?

Do you think your results would be different if your laser-like focus knew exactly what your targets are, the types of trades and style of profit taking your system would be taking?

Why not set your goal to not enter your trading room or to not place a trade unless you are clear on exactly the expected outcome for each trade. By this I mean those aspects that you have control of, such as when to enter, the risk you take on and where you place your stop and profit targets.

5. Support

Behind every successful person is usually a pretty solid support team and the life of a trader should be no different.

As a trader, you have already experienced how isolating it can be and how critical it is to have a supportive husband, wife, mother, father or significant other.

Also, don’t underestimate the power of having a trading coach who can provide that support when times are good along with when times aren’t so great.

Concluding the top 5 Traits of Professional Traders

In conclusion, we hope that 2018 brings you a year of abundance and personal fulfilment beyond all your previous years. The 5 traits of professional traders are usually a work in progress. This means we have to work on them day by day and month by month.

Stick with it as the rewards far outweigh the time and effort you put in.

If you like the article, then please share it via the links below. Thanks.