There are times when we just feel like we have gone as far as we can for the level that we are at, so now it is time to take out trading to the next level in order to start achieving more. Of course, the first thing that you are going to need to do is to work out exactly what level you are currently at. Think about it, are you a new trader? Are you playing with millions or simple hundreds of dollars? You need to know what level you are on in order to work out what it is that you are going to be doing next.
The best way to do this would be to analyze our current trading performance. This can be done by using your trading journal which we really hope you have been keeping. Take a look at your past trades and results, review the performance that you have had over the past few months. Are they consistent? These results will tell you a lot about the level that you are at as well as your style of trading.
This journal and analysis of it will enable you to look at what your most profitable assets are, the times of these trades, the sizes, the risks involved, and more. It will also tell you how well you do in actually sticking with your strategy, something that is paramount if you wish to move up another level. You need to be able to gather and understand your strengths and weaknesses before you try and move up to the next level, as not having an understanding of them could put you in a potentially dangerous situation for your account.
We have now come up with a number of different ideas that you could use to try and raise your trading game, you may well already be doing some of these things which is fantastic and this will put you in a good position for moving up, some you may not want to d, but at least trying some will help put you in a great position for stepping up our trading game.
Use a trading journal: We aren’t going to say too much on this as you are probably tired of hearing it, but ensure that you have a trading journal setup and that you are using it. It will tell you all sorts of things about your trading and will give you fantastic insights into your strengths and weaknesses. This is something that you will require if you want to improve. So set one up and ensure that you are constantly and actively filling it in. Getting this knowledge is the main step to improvement and you will find it hard to properly scale up your trading operations if you do not have a good understanding of your own strategies and your own trading habits. It is also a great way to help you stamp out any bad trading habits that you may have.
Improve your ratios: When many people think of scaling up their operations they often just think about placing bigger trad sizes. While this is a valid strategy and certainly can help youtube make more money, this does increase the risk that you are putting on your account. So instead, let’s look at improving some of the ratios that we have. The first is your win/loss ratio and the second is the risk to reward ratio. The problem comes from the fact that while they are separate, they can also have a direct effect on each other.
It may seem like a good idea to improve your reward to risk ratio, by narrowing down the stop loss to make it a little tighter, this would mean that you won’t need to win as many trades to be profitable, but it will potentially make your win and loss ratio look horrible, so it may not be worth making a change. You will need to work out a balance between the ratios so that any changes that you make do not damage the other too much. It is the same if you wanted to increase your win rate, you should not sacrifice the risk to reward ratio as this will decrease your overall profits. It is a difficult thing to do, but if you are able to improve these ratios, either one without affecting the other or even both of them, then it will help you jump to the next level of trading.
Keep doing the good things you do: This may seem obvious but there are a lot of people out there that aren’t doing this, as soon as they make changes they seem to forget about all the things that they were doing right before. Do not forget them, they are the reason why you are here so you should continue to do them for as long as you possibly can. Even if you are changing up other aspects of your trading, try and remember the good parts and keep them going along with what you are changing, this way you will only be bringing the good parts and changing the potential bad parts.
Expand your skillset: One of the best things that you can do as a trader is to continue learning, you can never know everything and so there will always be something new for you to learn. By doing this you are better equipping yourself for when the markets decide to change and your current strategy just doesn’t cut it anymore. This can be in the form of different strategies or simply learning to trade a new currency pair. Whatever it is, you should always be on the lookout for new skills and new knowledge to learn. It is simply adding a new weapon to your arsenal, allowing you to trade in situations that you may not have been able to do so before, thus increasing the potential of your success and profitability.
Trading and forex is a huge thing, you will never learn it all and you will never actually master it, there will always be things to trip you up, no matter what level of trading you are currently at, you will always be able to take it higher, whether through your trading or your learning. So neve target complacent, keep an eye on the level that you are at and always work on getting to the next level where possible.
