One trader at the firm underperformed this month.  In his own words, he is in a nasty losing trading streak.

He is a developing trader and working to be consistent.  He actually was an SMB Training student who impressed us so much, he was hired to trade on our desk.

During a one-on-one mentoring session with this trader, he quickly found connections for his poor trading.  He lacked proper sleep one session.  He ate poorly the night before another session.  In a tailspin of 8/9 poor trading sessions, he felt they all could have been avoided.

For the record, even with this poor trading he still finished positive for the month.  So there is good in his trading and an ability to trade with edge.

The key for this trader is to trade his A+ PlayBook trades.  The tailspin is a result of this trader not taking enough of his A+ trades.

So should this trader work on his poor trading?  Or should the trader double down on an optimal personal routine that ensures he will take his A+ trades?

Think of how differently this month’s goals would be.  On one hand, trader tries to trade his A+ trades better.  With another approach, trader focuses his energy on completing his routine that leads to taking A+ trades.  The first approach imbibes trader with pressure and stress.  The later with an emphasis on process and the little things that measurably breed better trade choices.

The trader can trade with edge in A+ trades.  The focus ought to be on how he takes more of them.  The solution is doubling down on the routine that leads to A+ trades and eliminating the destructive behavior that manifests banging into lesser trades.

In walking through this solution with this developing trader, I mentioned as primary source evidence another trader on the desk for whom this approach is paramount.  This other trader went 30k plus, 30k plus, negative, 30k plus the past four months.  Getting this other trader back on track was an issue of a focus on his routine of best practices.

Both of these traders have edge, so you need that first for this focus to work.  But often it is not the poor trading that ought to be our focus, but rather the poor adoption of our routines.

In winding down our conversation, the developing trader predicted, “this month is gonna be great.”

*no relevant trading