Alright, the 11 steps below are a brief outline for what needs to be incorporated into your overall “Trading Business Plan.” Each piece is essential:
- You must have a Mission Statement. What’s the real motivation behind your trading?
- You must spell out your trading/investing Goals and Objectives. You cannot get from A to B very easily unless you truly know where B is.
- You must spell out your Trading/Investing Beliefs and Market Beliefs. Please remember this important statement, “You cannot trade the market. You can only trade your beliefs about the market.” Therefore, it’s a very good idea to identify your beliefs about the market first.
- Spell out your exact Trading Strategies. How do you go about analyzing the market, and what are the key things you look at in your market analysis? What trade setups do you use before entry? What are your timing signals for market entry? What is your catastrophe stop loss? Where and when will you take profits? Will you use a trailing stop? Will you scale into the market? What exactly is your trade management system once you’re into the trade?
- What are your Position Sizing Strategies? This is part of money management, and is very important for reaching your trading goals and objectives in terms of profitability.
- What are your typical Psychological Problems when following your trading plan? What is your plan for psychological management when dealing with these problems?
- What are your Daily Trading Procedures? What should you be doing on a daily basis, not only to become organized, but also to become methodical in everything you do as a trader on a day-to-day basis.
- Do you have an Education Plan to help improve yourself on a continuing basis? If not, you should. Like anything else in life, you need to be continually working on yourself to become better and better.
- What is your Disaster Plan? What can go wrong? How will you deal with each item?
- What is your Planned Income and Budget for Trading Expenses? This is pretty simple and straightforward: write down everything you can think of and try to be as realistic as possible.
- How do you prevent trading mistakes and avoid repeating them if they occur?
Really sit back and think about it. Write down any and all mistakes that you might make during your trading. Once you do that, come up with a solution for each potential mistake - so you don’t allow them to happen, or know what to do if they do happen.
Having a “Trading Business Plan” of this nature is so very important, I rank it among the top requirements for all traders and investors to complete. If you don’t already have something similar, I highly suggest you start developing such a plan. I can guarantee that you will become a much better (and more prepared) trader.
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