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Know thy self ... and if you don't, record and learn who you are by watching yourself.

- John Novak

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May 16, 2008

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Today's Featured Article
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Self Help For The Discouraged Trader
By John Novak

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About the Author

Successfully trading the markets is a beautiful dream to many, and a scary nightmare to others. Those who learn to trade successfully; a lifetime of making money and creating wealth is right around the corner.

So, what is the fundamental difference between traders that are successful and those that still have difficulty in achieving consistency? There are about as many theories that float around, as there are authors. I believe the main difference is, traders who are unsuccessful, regularly slip into a habitual pattern of trading against his or her rules. Most do not even realize they have fallen into the pattern until it is too late.

I will try to explain. Have you ever heard your own voice on tape? For most of us, it does not sound like ourselves at all. We hardly even recognize the voice. We begin to wonder if others hear us differently than we hear ourselves. Now, take this same theory and apply it to trading the markets. Have you ever heard and seen yourself trading the market? The answer, 99% of the time, is no. Once you do, more than likely, you will find that you are not really as consistent and precise as you thought you where. Recording yourself, while trading a clearly defined strategy, can offer you a proven training method. This can shorten your curve to consistency and success.

At Nexgen Software Services, when working with thousands of traders, we have found that there are many basic concepts that you must have in order to win.

  1. You must be adequately capitalized
  2. You must have a method that gives you an edge over the market
  3. You must have a money management strategy in place
  4. Most importantly, you must be able to follow this edge, with precision and consistency, in order to achieve the desired results.
It is the fourth item above that we are going to be discussing. I will give you some examples of what we discovered works with traders learning to trade the Nexgen Software Services' T-3 Fibs ProTrader.

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We have found two ways that traders can excel in the quest for consistency when it comes to our training philosophy. The first way is, marking all of your thoughts and reasons behind taking a trade on a chart. After that, you need to share that chart with an educator. This provides you with an open and honest critique of the analysis. It will also help to pinpoint any flaws in your interpretation of the software.

Our findings have been, traders that take the time to write on AND post charts to educators, for honest feedback, have a dramatic decrease in the time it takes to learn how to accurately read the T-3 Fibs ProTrader. These traders will achieve a level of understanding for the software faster and more thorough, than those that do not take the time to annotate their charts.

Here is a typical example of what our clients would type on a chart when reading the software:

Example Chart
If you cannot view the example chart, go here.

While this chart does a fantastic job of capturing the "basics" this author used to make his decisions, it fails to give the full picture of what they where thinking and feeling at the time.

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Now, there is a second way to get the full picture of what a trader is doing. This would be watching and listening to them live as they are placing trades. You can learn a lot from listening to someone else trade, as well as listening to yourself. What will you learn, you ask? The answer is simple, you will learn how YOU deal with the method, the rules and if you are truly showing consistency.

Let's face it, anyone can look at a chart and say what they should have done, could have done and would have done. The difference between a successful and an unsuccessful traders is, those who succeed, have the ability to execute the trade in real time, exactly how they would have done in hindsight. How is this possible? They have generated a set of conditions, or rules, for themselves that they will follow. Regardless of their opinions of the market, they follow their rules, and can do it with seemingly flawless consistency.

The only difference between success and failure is, this ability to act consistently in accordance with your rules. Too often we assign blame to others and fail to look at ourselves in an honest light.

This is where recording yourself comes in handy. When watching a past trade, that you have recorded live, you will understand the reason as to why you entered, exited, and all the management of the trade in between. If watching a video of your trade, you can begin to recognize when you have broken your own rules. This will help in seeing those violations of the rules. Use them as lessons to yourself when you see the same thing happening again live. If you review the recordings and find yourself making money consistently, then you will know you have achieved the goal of following your plan with consistency.

So, take out the old microphone and video. Spend time critiquing yourself as you are trading the markets. If you find yourself in a situation where your able to see the market perfectly in hindsight, you know you have a firm understanding of the rules, BUT still struggle with your trading, this can be an invaluable tool. Remember, before entering a trade, or as your entering a trade, make sure you discuss your reasons and rules that are in your favor. Talk about what your stops and targets will be prior to entering the trade. Then, as the trade progresses, talk about anything that you are thinking. This is so you can evaluate your performance, honestly, once you are no longer in the heat of battle.

About the Author
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John Novak is President of Nexgen Software Services Inc. John is the developer of the T-3 Fibs ProTrader indicator package. He has been involved in the marketing and distribution of Technical analysis software for the last 9 years. He has devoted the last 6 years to the automation of a popular discretionary methodology that he taught in seminars for over 2 years to many successful traders that was centered on Fibonacci analysis of both time and price. With the help of his software programmers they have automated this entire Fibonacci process into a fully automatic program. He spends his day's educational work on analysis in predictive indicators for traders.

Special Message from Our Author
----------

Get a demo that will change your trading forever.

A.B.C. Indicators pinpoint entries and exits on any market and timeframe with unbelievable accuracy. A- Short Potential, B- Long Potential, and C- Counter short. This system is 100% automated and easy to learn in one day. To get your complimentary demo today, go here.

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Disclaimer: The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has asked us to also advise you that trading futures is not without risk. While there is opportunity for incredible wealth building, there is also the risk of losing even more than you invested. Of course, that's not unlike most other businesses. But informed traders are the best traders! Opinions expressed by Fast Break authors are not those of FutureSource.