To the pros/more experienced traders out there - I’m curious what the most effective ways to spend your time are when the markets are closed, to become a better trader and improve your trading skills/systems.
I understand that in a general sense ‘backtesting’ is probably the most common answer, but beyond that, what specific tests or things do you do that help increase your trading the most - particularly for traders that are new and/or not yet consistently profitable.
Here are a few specific examples that I can think of as potential ways to spend your time, aside from a general ‘backtesting’ answer:
Browse forex forums for trading system ideas
Backtest entry and exit systems on historical price data
Read books about trading mindset & psychology
Run monte carlo simulation on various money management algorithms
Seek out trading mentorship/groups and review your trading progress
Study historical price charts / price action
Look for trades for the upcoming trading session(s)
Learn about economics and find out what global economy/central banks are doing
Another way to put it - what does it mean to ‘put in the work’ to become an expert trader? What are the most important elements in your experience?
That’s a good selection of what traders should be doing. I will update my THE FOREX VORTEX DIARY with all my trades made, results, and the whole process from why I entered trades, and why I exited trades, what happened and could I have improved my selections.
I’ll also watch a selected number of YouTube Vlogs, and read up about pro traders. To be realistic, over the last 8 months, I’ve treated Forex trading as a business, learnt loads and will continue to eliminate my mistakes. It’s a plus that I can recognize mistakes now - most of which are related to fundamentals changing market sentiment.
My motto to become a bulletproof trader - do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.
Just my personal thing, but I like to listen to Forex audio books while jogging or driving, even on flights. I tend to listen to them multiple times. The first time will be just to absorb, the second may be a note-taking session, the third in case I hear it differently after a few beers. In my opinion, it’s always good to digest the thoughts of recognized experts, even if you disagree, or even if they disagree. For example, I’ve noticed quite a bit of difference in opinion among authors on whether “news trading” is wise, etc. It’s still all good to take in.
Monte Carlo is really powerful tool for testing but it heavily relies on coding knowledge. If you are newbie I can just stick to some simple stop loss rules combine them with trailing stop loss to see results. I learned some MM tricks from Hotforex webinars, surprisingly this revealed that broker webinars can be sometimes really helpful.
I tend to read the news on those days where I am not trading, sometimes the news can help you strategize whether to buy or sell instruments.
Also, I tend to write in my journal on what I can improve my trading or how can I try better “backtesting” to find the better profit.