My New & Simplified Day Trading Routine

Old Day Trading Routine (originally posted here on 18 Jan 08)

• Scan for swing trading opportunities on H1 chart (2 x10 minutes) - revised
  
• Monitor open positions (ongoing) - revised
  
• Follow live economic news releases at 9.30 am and 1.30 pm (2 x 15 minutes) - revised
  
• Watch live price action during lunch break/evening on M5 chart (more than 30 minutes)
• Review expert advisor trading results (15 minutes)
• Gauge market sentiment of the US dollar on daily trend chart (15 minutes) - revised
  
• Demo aggressive style discretionary trading strategy (started recently)
• Read market news (when free)
• Write blog posts and research new trading ideas (when free) - revised
  

New Day Trading Routine

• Scan for daytrading opportunities on M30, H1 charts (3 x10 minutes)
• Monitor open positions (on hourly basis)
• Follow live economic news releases (throughout the day, 2 -3 minutes per news event)
  
• Gauge the technical sentiment data of the US dollar and Japanese Yen (10 minutes)
• Review daytrading results
  

After a hectic start in January, my forex trading routine was made easy last month. I am currently seeing a great improvement in my daytrading results by following a stringent plan.

Quote (Brett Steenbarger) - Success comes to traders only when they overcome normal human biases.

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My Daily Trading Routine

Balancing full time work and 'part-time' trading (and also blogging) is never easy. Especially when comes to dealing with the Forex market, you are also expecting full-on, non-stop price actions around the clock 24/5.

In fact, I could never manage all trading tasks by myself, and quite often, have to rely on my missus's assistance. Here's my daily trading routine at the moment:

Daily Trading Routine

• Scan for swing trading opportunities on H1 chart (2 x10 minutes)
• Monitor open positions (ongoing)
• Follow live economic news releases at 9.30 am and 1.30 pm (2 x 15 minutes)
• Watch live price action during lunch break/evening on M5 chart (more than 30 minutes)
• Review expert advisor trading results (15 minutes)
• Gauge market sentiment of the US dollar on daily trend chart (15 minutes)
• Demo aggressive style discretionary trading strategy (started recently)
• Read market news (when free)
• Write blog posts and research new trading ideas (when free)

A couple of explanations. As for the swing trading, this day trading method needs very little time for maintenance. I simply monitor and exit open positions at predefined stop and limit levels. And I manage to execute the trading plan with discipline. At present, I also spend most of my time watching other expert advisor systems in action and researching new trade ideas.

My own running ea system has been very active so far and it does help me to predict better the market movement. Although the trading account is not progressing much, but its trade entries and end results are quite useful for identifying important price retracement levels and generating hidden 'secondary-level' signals for my discretionary trades. I wrote more about that here.

As for the discretionary trades, I am getting involved again in the last few days. I wish to sharpen my trading skills continuously and apply what I have learned so far in this new year. I also challenge myself by opening and handling multiple positions at one time.

Overall, this daily routine serves to instill purpose in trading and ensures that I'm moving towards my goals.

What's your daily trading routine?

Forex Killer Autopilot Trading

(For all the latest updates: please visit my daytrading blog)

Due to its popular demand, let's put forex killer trading software on the spot and begin to tap into its trading potentials. The software is a perfect tool for swing trading.

My trading approach will be swing trading the major currencies. As detailed in my previous post, the strategy will involve: finding breakout + folowing trend moves + using H1 chart + with the latest forex killer software addition.

I will do my best to post live trading signals and their results generated by the forex killer signal software on my new forex killer autopilot trading blog. If you are a user of this signal software, you can help me evaluating the software together.






Related posts:
More Thought on Forex Killer Trading Software
Trading the News Via Forex Killer
My First Impression of Forex Killer Automated Trading Software

Commodity guru Jim Rogers's Views on US Dollar

Watch video.

Some of the points being made: FED should raise interest rate, not otherwise. Bailout is wrong. Let people fail. Inflation will be the the problem. Dump US dollar and do not sell China. Shunt oil and gold for now. Own Asian currencies, and etc.

Quote of the Day

Brett Steenbarger, Trading Psychologist

Less successful traders trade the same way across various market conditions. Worse, when their ideas and patterns stop working, they become frustrated and try to force the action. The more successful traders know that markets change: they shift their trending, and they change volatility. When their ideas stop working, they become risk averse. When their themes are paying them out, they're not afraid to put money to work.

(Source: "Such an Important Key To Trading Success", Traderfeed Blogspot)

The Meaning of High Frequency Data

Source: High Frequency Data: Higher and Higher

Some claim analysing high-frequency tick data reveals hidden behaviour trends in the market that can be profitably exploited.

Unlike exchanges, where prices and volumes are available for deals that have been transacted, prices in an over-the-counter market such as forex are far more ambiguous.

One tick might be from a market-maker, the next from a small hedge fund trading algorithmically, the next from a corporate trading infrequently and the next from an institutional trader working on a large order. Only at the tick level are the dynamics of the interaction between these different groups visible. Occasionally, the views of these different classes of traders suddenly coalesce and everyone acts in a similar way for a short period. Most of the time, there is quite a bit of spread across how people see things in the market, then something kicks in and they start thinking similarly.

When options expire in different time zones and in different currencies, there are big spikes in volumes. When lunchtime occurs, the markets know all about it. When there are data releases for a particular currency pair, you get big spikes - as much as four times normal trading in the five minutes before and the five minutes after a data release. The ebb and flow through the day is quite astonishing.

The trend across markets is to move to higher frequencies, and all participants are facing challenges in terms of their analysis and response to prices, events and opportunities. The processing speed race is leading to an increasing requirement for quantitative and technological approach to trading. This has also unlocked a number of new opportunities, as the capability to collect and analyse historical tick and order book data can lead to more accurate identification of significant patterns in the market data that can be exploited. This is where high-frequency data and its analysis are proving very valuable today, when combined with the fastest trading technology, in a wide range of fields including optimal order execution, competitive market-making or statistical arbitrage

Sound interesting? Recently, I have also been exploring the use of tick volume to assess the underlying market trend and to identify turning point. I have quoted some relevant information from the article for future reference.

Losing Trades and How to Cope

It is always hard to deal with trading losses. Here are some simple trading rules that might help to calm nerves, to avoid further upset and so to keep us on path to pursue our goals:

1. It is all about capital preservation. Each trading losses should not exceed 5% of the total capital.
2. Set stop loss level to minimise trading errors.
3. Do not let winners turn into losers.
4. Use stop loss to protect profits.
5. Do not add on losers for cost averaging.
6. Stay sway or cut your losses when you become indecisive.
7. Rather wait and see when the market trend is not clear.
8. Trade when the market is active.
9. Do not enter because you are bored, likewise, do not exit because you are impatient.
10. Do not overtrade.
11. Do not simply alter your trading strategies if not for a sound reason.
12. Always remember that losing is part of the game.