Successful at Trading in 10 Easy Ways

Are you curious about how George Soros and many successful traders like him could make millions of bucks in just a short time? Here are the 10 tips on how to follow their steps.

The foreign exchange market is the biggest financial market in the world with approximately 5 trillion USD global trading each day. Such a huge market, needless to say, offers a lot of economic opportunities as well as new horizons to be explored.

For most traders, the ultimate goal, of course, is to be successful and get as much profit as they can get their hands on. But just like any other form of investment, forex trading has its risks too. Although it is essentially a great way to earn extra income, the path is definitely not easy and could make you lose money in a short time.

Many beginners are still unaware of the risks and blindly dive into the market although they don't have any proper education, training, or experience. As a result, most of them ended up losing a lot of money. What they don't understand is that to be successful at trading, one needs to learn and follow the rules first.

This is how traders can climb their way up the ladder and become successful by consistently making profits from their trades. In fact, no accomplished trader will tell you that you can easily reach your goal in trading without hard work, discipline, a proper trading strategy, learning how to control your emotions, and tons of practice.

Remember that every successful trader must start somewhere too as they are no magicians that can make money magically flow into their bank accounts all the time.

There are 10 easy tips that lead most of successful traders in the world right now:

1. Make a proper strategy
2. Analyze the chart
3. Always responsible
4. Fix the mistakes
5. Get a proper rest
6. Be brave
7. Avoid investing beyond your financial means
8. Know your limit
9. Trust your trading plan
10. Follow your trading plan

Let's discuss each point one by one in the article below.

1. Prepare a Proper Strategy

In forex trading, there are many strategies to choose from. Each plan has its own advantages and disadvantages as well as requirements. In this case, you must pick a strategy that suits you best. Determine whether you want to be a day trader, swing trader, scalper, etc.

Once you decide, make sure to follow the rules and stick to the plan. You need to be consistent and keep learning. Jumping between strategies after one or two losses is a common mistake for beginners. So don't give up easily if you have a few failures.

Remember that there is no ultimate holy grail that could work every single time in any circumstances, so if anyone claims that they have the best strategy that never fails, then it's most likely a scam. In order to be successful at trading, you must have the discipline and patience to build your confidence and trading plan.

2. Analyze the Price Chart

Trading is a speculative investment. So the next skill that every trader must have is to be able to read and analyze the price chart. Even if you base your trade on fundamental aspects, you still need to refer to the price chart for timing the trades. Overall, reading the candlestick chart is essential to almost any type of trader.

To make it easier, you can start by using free charting software that can help you learn how to analyze the chart. It is a great way to practice and develop your skill in this matter. Whether you're a beginner or professional, it is helpful to start analyzing the longer-term charts like weekly or monthly. That way, you can find the most significant price movement as well as determining the best entry and exit points of your trade.

3. Take Complete Responsibility

Every trader should fully understand and be responsible for their actions. The best traders won't blame their losses on other traders or something else because the outcome of their trades is purely the consequence of their own decisions. That is why it's important to think before you act and base your actions on logical reasons. It's not wise to just wing it and rely solely on your instincts.

However, even if you already act on logical reasons and follow all the rules, you can still lose your money. In fact, losing and making mistakes are unavoidable, both for beginners and professionals. But remember that what's more important is that you can pick yourself up, be responsible, and start again.

4. Learn from Your Mistakes

More than acknowledging your mistakes, it's also important to be able to learn from them. Now you might be thinking that it is definitely easier said than done because not all traders can even figure out why they're lost in the first place, let alone take lessons from it. So in this case, the first thing you must do is track your actions from start to finish. It's good to stay organized and keep records of all of your trades. It provides a reference point for your future trades.

Having a trading journal would be absolutely helpful for this. By writing it down, you will be able to spot the mistake and thereby advance your skill as a trader. It doesn't have to be very complicated, but it should be clear and easy to come back to. Write the most essential things such as your target, the entry and exit levels for each trade, the time you took an action, what were the support and resistance levels, and why you decide on some things that were not part of the plan.

5. Keep Your Life Balanced

Traders often regard trading as the central part of their lives, which can be true. But that should not be the only thing that matters, because being a successful person means more than just focusing on one thing and neglecting the rest. There are lots of things that must be kept in line such as your physical and mental health, family, love, lifestyle, etc. Every successful trader knows that focusing only on trading does not equal success.

It is definitely not easy, but it is necessary. Sometimes you have to put more attention to other aspects and neglect trading, but eventually, you'll manage it and back on your feet again. That's a part of your life journey. In terms of trading, having a balanced life will help you ease your mind and thus, help you make better trading decisions too.

6. Stay Confident and Have Courage

Trading is often said to be the "high risk, high reward" investment. For this reason, a successful trader must have the courage to start and execute their trading plan. Being cautious is good, but don't be afraid of trading. Be confident and always follow your trading plan, no matter what other people say or how tempting the situation is to make an impromptu action. Also, make sure only to invest money that you can afford to lose.

7. Don't Dig Yourself a Hole

As we have briefly mentioned before, never invest more than you can afford. Before opening a position, always determine the maximum loss for the trade. If you don't, you would hold onto losing positions for too long, hoping for it to reverse at one point. And if that doesn't happen, you'll end up in a much bigger loss.

While making mistakes is normal in trading, avoid making big ones in the early days of your journey because it's not fun to save yourself from clumsy decisions, especially as a beginner. So, just start slow and use a demo account while simultaneously build an effective risk management system so you won't dig a hole that you can't escape from in the future.

8. If You Think You are Wrong, Get Out

This is another challenging, yet important thing to do in trading. Remember that you can't be right about the market all the time. In volatile markets, things can change very quickly and without any warning. So once you realize you're on the wrong side of the game, get out immediately. There's no use in holding on to something that is clearly wrong, hoping that things would get better on their own in the end. You can make mistakes and you must accept them.

One of the easiest warning signs to notice is when your trade drops down until it reaches the stop loss level. When that happens, get out. After that, look to open a new trade in a setup with a higher probability than your losing position.

9. Trust Your Trading Plan

You may have heard that a successful trader won't "jump the gun". That means you shouldn't close the trade if your setup hasn't played out yet. So for example, don't close profits early if the trade hasn't reached your profit target just yet. Traders who jump the gun are more likely to lose a lot of money because they bail out early. Be patient and wait for your trade setups to play out.

10. Follow Your Trading Plan

Last but not least, be consistent with your trading plan. Successful traders never let their emotions or any other distraction take control of their trades because they know it will damage their performance in the long run. That is why sticking to the plan is a must.

If you make spontaneous decisions along the way, then you will never know if the plan actually works or not. But if you stay consistent and always follow your plan, you will know what works and what doesn't.

Keep in mind that the best trader in the world always prepares their trades. They always calculate their moves and again, stick to the well-prepared plan. They also know when to trade and when to stop. Just because the market is always open doesn't mean you should be trading the whole time too.

From the 10 tips that we've provided above, we can see that there are many things that one should keep in mind in order to be an expert trader. Every trader, both newbie and professional, need to learn the basics of forex trading and practice a lot to the point where their gains outweigh their losses. But even so, a professional trader still loses money here and there, which is totally normal and inevitable. 

Top 10 Most Successful Traders All Over the World

By implementing the 10 tips above, you will be closer to the path of success. If you want to learn from experienced traders, here are some stories to boost your inspiration:

• Jesse Livermore: Known for both colossal gains and losses. He made millions USD in 1929 and lost all of it in 1934. His story confirmed the notion that stock trading is extremely risky.
• George Soros: One of the most successful stock and forex traders in existence. Many people call him "the man who broke the Bank of England" after earning $1 billion profit from selling $10 billion worth of points.
• Richard Dennis: A successful commodity trader based in Chicago. He made approximately $200 million in the last decade from market speculating.
• Paul Tudor Jones: Became famous after making a shocking $100 million from shorting stocks right after the market crash in 1987.
• William Delbert Gann: Known for developing technical indicators like Gann Angles and the Squares of 9. He liked to use market forecasting methods such as mathematics, astrology, and geometry.
• Bill Lipschutz: Successfully turned $12,000 investment in the stock market to $25,000 in only a few months but eventually lost all of it a while later. He then moved to forex trading and made over $300 million profit.
• John R. Taylor Jr: Started off as a political analyst for a chemical bank before becoming a forex analyst. He is currently the owner of FX Concepts, a currency managing firm.
• Stanley Druckenmiller: A successful trader who started as an oil analyst at the Pittsburgh National Bank.
• Andrew Krieger: One of the legendary traders because he sold Kiwi (New Zealand currency) and got $300 million from the trade.
• Michael Marcus: Trained by Ed Seykota, he held positions of almost $300 million in German marks during the presidency of Ronald Reagan.

The path to success is not easy and may take a while, but it is clearly worth it once you get the hang of it. Understanding each of the aspects mentioned above will hopefully lead you to make better decisions in the future and make consistent returns with your trade.