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Seek favorable conditions for trade entry, or stay out of the market until they appear. Bad execution ruins a perfect setup.
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Watch the tape before you trade. Look for evidence to confirm your opinion. Time, crowd and trend must support the reversal, breakout or fade you’re expecting to happen.
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Choose to execute or to stand aside. Staying out of the market is an aggressive way to trade. All opportunities carry risk, and even perfect setups lead to very bad positions.
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Filter the trade through your personal plan. Ditch it if it doesn’t meet your risk tolerance.
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Stay on the sidelines and wait for the opportunity to develop. There’s a perfect moment you’re trying to trade.
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Decide how long you want to be in the market before you execute. Don’t daytrade an investment or invest in a swing trade.
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Take positions with the market flow, not against it. It’s more fun to surf the waves than to get eaten by the sharks.
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Avoid the open. They see you coming, sucker.
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Stand apart from the crowd. Its emotions often signal opportunity in the opposite direction. Profit rarely follows the herd.
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Maintain an open mind and let the market show its hand before you trade it.
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Keep your hands off the keyboard until you’re ready to act. Don’t trust your fingers until they move faster than your brain, but still hit the right notes.
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Stand aside when confusion reigns and the crowd lacks direction.
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Take overnight positions before trading the intraday markets. Longer holding periods reduce the risk of a bad execution.
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Lower your position size until you show a track record. Work methodically through each analysis, and never be in a hurry.
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Trade a swing strategy in range-bound markets and a momentum strategy in trending markets.
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An excellent entry on a mediocre position makes more money than a bad entry on a good position.
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Step in front of the crowd on pullbacks and stand behind them on breakouts. Be ready to move against them when conditions favor a reversal.
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Find the breaking point where the crowd will lose control, give up or show exuberance. Then execute the trade just before they do.
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Use market orders to get in fast when you can watch the market. Place limit orders when you have a life outside of the markets.
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Focus on execution, not technology. Fast terminals make a good trader better, but they won’t help a loser.
Really excellent points and affirmations. Always a nice reminder to take the position of wisdom than desperation. Thanks for posting!!
I like this post, and would like to challenge some of your points please 
Crowd? May I please ask where you’re obtaining crowd confirmation? If your strategy which you’ve proven profitable is saying go long, but your “crowd” analysis is reading short, are you abandoning the trade?
In my opinion, this is a dangerous line of thought. Trading is not about perfection. Trading is about probabilities and mathematically maintaining an edge. Do professional poker players only play pocket Aces? Or, are they able to make money off weaker strength hands? Many newer traders get so hooked on waiting for “A+” setups (Personally, I dislike this term very much) that they miss all the B-, C+ and B trades which could have added some equity to their account.
Market conditions can change violently- I’ve had many trades where I thought I’d be scalping, only to see the position turn into a runner for a 7+ days. If you were able to secure a good price, and the analysis supports a longer timeframe hold due to shifting market conditions,why would you book profit early?
To me, trend identification is subjective (for the most part). The majority of my trades are what would be classified as “counter-trend”. To me, reversals are easier to spot than continuations - just my personal style though :).
Strategies can be built around gap trading solely. I once saw a statistic that read something along the lines of 70% of all gaps being filled…I’d have to dig to find it. I’ll trade any second of any minute of any day if my strategy gives me a signal…100% of the time.
This conflicts w/ point 2 - doesn’t it? 
I’d argue the vast majority of professionals do just the opposite of this (if you’re talking about confirmation). Professionals are not awaiting signals, they are getting in @ levels - in most cases 20, 30, 50, 60 pips before a candlestick signal or MA crossover ever forms.
If you’re claiming that you need to be patient- then yes I agree. Can’t force a trade!
Agreed- never should anyone trade if they are feeling the slightest bit of confusion about a position. Again, with the “crowd” thing conflicting lol…
Conflicts w/ point 5.
Looking forward to responses,
Jake
you have elaborated it too long and made it all confusing, yes trading should be perfectly executed not too early not too late so as to reap maximum benifits, but that all come with experience.
“20. Focus on execution, not technology. Fast terminals make a good trader better, but they won’t help a loser.”
Only point that i agree.
I’d like to bump this post. Good pointers in the start post.
Actually i have been observing the markets for some time now and i can say for sure that many times even the best trader will make a mistake and this is also a reason why we cannot avoid getting the losses.
Whatever trading strategy we may be using and whether or not it is giving us any income is all-together different
Read all the points listed in this thread and all are written with experience. Traders should print these statements and stick to their workstation, as we human beings are over ruled by emotions this certainly helps a lot. Thank you for the helpful post @ wsovibes
If we are able to have a good control over the emotions then our trading will become positive and that will also lead us into getting more profits from our trading…