Bonjour!

During some down time in Paris I met with an FX trader and later a broker who wanted to be a trader. Both spoke English but admittedly not as well as they would have liked. At times it was difficult to communicate. When we got really stuck I just wrote down my major points in English and let them read them. That either helped or they were being polite (which would be rare for too many in Paris unfortunately). I have written on this blog that I try and fill up my days when I travel because I learn. This makes me more valuable to my firm and future readers. Often the questions I am asked for advice help me greatly with my teaching.

I was asked by the French FX trader what advice I had for him to progress from a struggling FX trader into a pro trader. I have been asked this question by new traders on my desk. My answer is always the same. Develop a practice schedule that you will complete each day along with your trading. You pick that list of things to do that will help you improve each day. And then do these things everyday until you get it. Your improvement will compound day by day like money used to in a savings account. Improvement may come in spurts. Excellent progress and then periods of plateau and then another spurt. Your job is to keep doing the daily work and trust your improvement will come.

Some ideas for a daily improvement schedule are:

1) a detailed daily trading review (a trading journal)

2) archive a playbook trade (see my next book The PlayBook)

3) talk trading with another trader (he/she will see stuff you didn’t)

4) watch tape of your trading (do anything to increase your screen time)

5) read trading blogs (smart people read, underperformers talk about others)

6) keep a psychology journal

7) do visualization exercises to improve your mental game

8) talk with your trading mentor (almost all great performers have coaches)

9) review trades in a group

10) read trading books (I hear that One Good Trade is pretty good)

11) teach another what you know about trading  (teach to learn) (I hope the next saying about teaching moves from those who can’t do teach to those who want to learn more teach)

12) reach out to those better than you in the trading world and learn how they attack the markets (argue up and never down)

For those who read our blog, I’m curious. What ideas would you recommend?

You can be better tomorrow than you are today!

Mike Bellafiore

One Good Trade

The PlayBook

no relevant positions