Do your homework. Whether you call it research or post trade analysis, you need to sit down and methodically analyze your winners and losers. Ask yourself why you selected the trade, what rules did you use to enter and exit the trade. Generate a list of reasons why you won or lost. Then track this every day to see what common reasons your winners and losers share. It is a tedious, time consuming process, but nothing aside from my risk management plan has caused me to have more success.
I have several market scanners that automate my research. I subscribe to IBD, but it can be as easy as using Yahoo’s market scanner. I find a lot of trades just by looking through the NASDAQ 100. The point is that you need to do your homework everyday.
I spend 90% of my day doing research and analyzing trades. Very little is spent actually trading. Looking over thousands of charts and doing my post trade analysis has caused me to grow more as a trader than any book or system.
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