How to become a trader

How to Become a Successful Forex Trader

Marcus Reeves is a writer, publisher, and journalist whose business and pop culture writings have appeared in several prominent publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, and the San Francisco Chronicle. He is an adjunct instructor of writing at New York University.

Starting out in the forex market can often result in a life cycle that involves diving in head first, giving up or taking a step back to do more research and open a demo account to practice. From there, new traders might feel more confident to open another live account, experience more success, and break-even or turn a profit. That is why it’s important to build a framework for trading in the forex markets, which we outline below.

Why Should We Focus on Medium-Term Forex Trading?

Why are we focusing on medium-term forex trading rather than long- or short-term strategies? To answer that question, let’s take a look at the following comparison table:

Now, you will notice that both short-term and long-term traders require a large amount of capital – the first type needs it to generate enough leverage, and the other to cover volatility. Although these two types of traders exist in the marketplace, they are comprised of high-net-worth individuals, asset managers or larger institutional investors. For these reasons, retail traders are most likely to succeed using a medium-term strategy.

The Basic Forex Trading Framework

The framework covered in this article will focus on one central concept: trading with the odds. To do this, we will look at a variety of techniques in multiple timeframes to determine whether a given trade is worth taking. Keep in mind, however, that this is not a mechanical/automatic trading system; rather, it is a system by which you will receive technical input and make a decision. The key is finding situations where all (or most) of the technical signals point in the same direction. These high-probability trading situations will, in turn, generally be profitable.

10 Steps to Becoming a Day Trader

Skylar Clarine is a fact-checker and expert in personal finance with a range of experience including veterinary technology and film studies.

In a world where everyone has easy access to online trading, why are there only a few succeeding as day traders? After all, what investor has not dreamed of becoming a day trader—working comfortably at a home computer, being your own boss, watching profits roll in? While many aspire, few actually succeed.

Key Takeaways

What Does a Day Trader Do?

A day trader actively buys and sells securities, often multiple times during the day, but without carrying any open positions to the next day. All buy and sell positions taken during a trading day are squared off on the same day before the market closes. Day traders are different from active traders who may hold a position for multiple days, or from investors who invest for longer periods. Day traders also use leverage to increase their intraday trade exposure.

How To Become A Day Trader

1. Conduct a Self-Assessment

Successful day trading requires a combination of knowledge, skills, and traits as well as a commitment to a lifestyle. Are you adept with mathematical analysis, full of financial knowledge, aware of behavioral psychology (in yourself as well as others), and do you have the stomach for entrepreneurship? Contrary to the perceived notion of an easy life or easy money, day trading actually requires:

The right mindset is the most important (and the very first) requirement in becoming a day trader. Unless you are prepared to devote time, self-learn, and be mentally prepared to take risks and suffer losses, do not try day trading. Books like Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom by Van K. Tharp and The Psychology of Trading by Brett N. Steenbarger are good resources for learning more about day trading and performing a self-assessment.

2. Arrange Sufficient Capital

No one can generate profits consistently. Intermittent and extended losses are part of the day trading game. (For example, a day trader may suffer eight loss-making trades in a row and only recover with profit on the ninth trade.)

3. Understand the Markets

Day traders need a solid foundation of knowledge about how the markets function. From simple details (like exchange trading hours and holidays) to complex details (like the impact of news events, margin requirements, and allowed tradable instruments), a trader needs to have a broad knowledge base.

4. Understand Securities

Stocks, futures, options, ETFs, and mutual funds all trade differently. Without a clear understanding of a security’s characteristics and trading requirements, initiating a trading strategy can lead to failure. For example, traders should know how margin requirements for futures, options, and commodities significantly impact trading capital or how an interim assignment or exercise of an option position can shatter the trading plan completely.

Lack of knowledge about these necessities specific to securities can lead to losses. Aspiring traders should ensure full familiarity with the trading of selected securities.

5. Set up a Trading Strategy

Novice traders entering the world of trading can begin by selecting at least two established trade strategies. Both would act as a backup of each other in case of failure or lack of trading opportunities. One can move on to a greater number of strategies (with more complexities) later, as experience builds up.

The trading world is highly dynamic. Trading strategies can consistently make money for long periods but then fail at any time. One needs to keep a close eye on the effectiveness of the selected trading strategy and adapt, customize, dump, or substitute it depending upon the developments.

6. Integrate Strategy and Plan

Selecting the right trading strategies alone is not sufficient to succeed in the market. The following considerations need to complement the strategy to come up with the trading plan:

7. Practice Money Management

Money management helps you address these challenges and estimate your potential profitability. Effective money management can help you win even if there are only four profitable trades out of 10. Practice, plan, and structure the trades according to a designated money management and capital allocation plan.

8. Research Brokerage Charges

Day trading usually involves frequent transactions, which result in high brokerage costs. After thorough research, select the brokerage plan wisely. If one intends to play with one or two trades per day, then a per trade basis brokerage plan would be appropriate. If the daily trading volume is high, go for staggered plans (the higher the volume, the lower the effective cost) or fixed plans (unlimited trades for a fixed high charge).

Apart from trade execution, a broker also offers other trading utilities, which include trading platforms, integrated trading solutions like option combinations, trading software, historical data, research tools, trading alerts, and charting applications with technical indicators and several other features. Some features may be free while some may come at a cost that can eat into your profits.

It is advisable to select the features depending upon your trading needs and avoid subscribing to ones that are not needed. Novices should start with the low-cost basic brokerage package matching their initial trading needs and later opt for upgrades to other modules when needed.

9. Simulate and Backtest

Once the plan is ready, simulate it on a test account with virtual money (most brokers offer such test accounts). Alternatively, one can backtest the strategy on historical data. For a realistic assessment, keep consideration for brokerage costs and the subscription fee for various utilities.

10. Start Small and Then Expand

Even if you have sufficient money and sufficient experience, don’t play big on the first trades of a new strategy. Try out a new strategy with a smaller amount and increase the stakes after tasting success. Remember, markets and trading opportunities will remain forever, but money, once lost, may be difficult to reaccumulate. Start small, test to establish, and then go for the big ones.

The Bottom Line

Aspiring traders should beware of websites and courses that promise foolproof day trading success or endless profits. The limited percentage of day traders who have managed to be successful do so by investing their time and efforts into building trading strategies and following them religiously.

Day traders are on their own in this big trading world. Before giving up your job to become a day trader, be sure that you have the motivation to continuously learn, design your trading strategies, and take accountability for your decisions and actions. If you’re looking to jump into the world of day trading, you can use one of the best stock brokers for day trading.

How to Become a Professional Trader

Take Your Trading to the Next Level

To become a professional trader, you must learn trading basics and advanced basics. Once these are mastered, you can learn proven strategies and gain experience in implementing them.

Also, it’s important to be realistic about this profession. There is no perfect method of trading that consistently produces only winning results. However, if you practice learning to discriminate accurate information from that which is incorrect or misleading, you can spend most of your time focusing on information that will make you a more efficient and profitable trader.

Trading Basics

One of the most efficient methods for learning to trade is learning market and trading basics. A solid understanding of the basics provides the foundation that will support your entire career. This first level of knowledge is required before more advanced trading information can be successfully implemented.

Books on trading found at your local bookstore or reputable trading websites can provide you with all the trading basics you need at a relatively low cost or no cost. The basics include all of the factual information about trading, such as:

The exchanges themselves provide traders with most of the market basics. For example, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ provide educational resources on how the stock market operates through the main menus on their websites. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange does this for futures and the Chicago Board Options Exchange does the same for those wanting to learn about options trading.

Learning the Advanced Basics

Learning trading basics gives new traders an opportunity to learn about the various markets and the one in which they want to trade.

When learning the basics, traders determine if they want to trade stocks, futures, options or forex trading. Upon making this choice, they can then delve deeper into the trading basics specific to that market.

For example, a new options trader needs to learn about options Greeks, which help determine the price of an option. Those interested in futures trading need to learn about ticks, points, and the various specifications for each futures contract they may want to trade. Stock traders need to learn how to short sell, how dividends work, and the differences between pre-market trading and trading during normal hours. Forex traders need to learn about pip values and daily rollover rates.

Books on trading and instructional websites can offer information and lessons on these and other more advanced basics topics.

Trading Systems and Techniques

The next step is to learn strategies that will produce a profit in whatever market you want to trade. Such strategies are subjective, which means the source of the information matters. Free resources may provide generic strategies that worked at one time, but no longer work.

Finding viable strategies requires much more research and verification than learning trading basics. When learning strategies, review charts and look for examples of the strategy at work. If it seems it could be profitable on your own small real-world test, then continue investing some time in the method. If not, leave the method alone.

The best method of learning a trading technique is to find a professional trader that will teach you their trading technique. Some professional traders offer websites or books highlighting their methods. They may also provide personal mentoring, which is the most direct approach to learning how to trade.

It is also possible to learn a discretionary trading technique without any form of instruction. Self-learning is fine, but it may take longer to come up with a profitable system when compared to learning a system that is already profitable.

Many professional traders develop their own trading methods by continually studying charts, noticing certain patterns or tendencies, and then developing a system that exploits those tendencies. This may take months or even years of testing before the trader finds a viable method that produces profits consistently.

Gain Some Trading Experience

Practice doesn’t make perfect, but in trading at least, perfect practice makes improvements. You’ll never achieve perfect results because not all trades are won, even by professional traders. And that is okay.

You don’t need to win every trade to produce a good living. What is required, though, is implementing your method nearly perfectly. This is within your control, while results are not. If you do the right thing, favorable results are more likely. Doing the right thing is following the methods you have learned and opted to use.

Use Paper Trading for Training

When first learning a trading method it may seem very easy. However, once you begin to implement it, it may be harder in actuality than you had anticipated. Most traders quit at this stage and seek out another strategy. Unfortunately, these types of people rarely become successful. Even a simple trading strategy often requires at least several months of hands-on experience before the method starts producing profitable results.

Many trading platforms offer a paper trading capability, which is trading with «fake» money instead of your own, real dollars. As you develop trading strategies, you can try them out with paper money and real-time market movements. Some platforms also offer historical market data, and many professionals use this to back-test their trading strategies to test whether the trades would work under various known market conditions.

As a trader progresses and gains more experience, they will likely find ways to improve their strategies or notice other market tendencies that can be exploited if another strategy is formulated. A successful trader may also find that a strategy that once worked is no longer performing well. In this way, a trader is always learning from their experiences and trying to find better ways of performing their job. They are simply adapting to changes in the market that may make current strategies obsolete but provides an opportunity for a new strategy to be deployed.

The Balance does not provide tax, investment, or financial services and advice. The information is being presented without consideration of the investment objectives, risk tolerance or financial circumstances of any specific investor and might not be suitable for all investors. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Investing involves risk including the possible loss of principal.

How To Become A Profitable Trader With A 9 To 5 Job – 12 steps

How To Become A Profitable Trader With A 9 To 5 Job – 12 steps

If you still have a 9 to 5 job, becoming a professional trader in your spare time can be quite a challenge as I know from experience. Pursuing the goal of quitting your day job to become a profitable trader often seems like an unrealistic task for most people but there are certain steps that can help you improve your trading while working 9-5 and finding time for hobbies and your family at the same time.

The problems which keep traders from making the next step are:

My top tips for becoming a professional

Here are our top 13 steps and tips that will help you improve your trading while still working in your regular 9 to 5 job:

1. Find a trading style that suits you

It’s important to have a trading style that fits your personality AND your schedule. The two broad categories and trading styles traders have to choose from are swing-trading and day-trading.

Usually, swing-trading is better suited for traders who have limited time and restricted access to charts throughout the day. As a swing-trader, you do your chart analyses during the weekends and before/after work and you manage and execute your trades when you get back from work. Swing traders also don’t need to observe the markets all day long which can free up even more time.

If you are a Forex trader, you could also fit in a few hours of day-trading in the evenings since you’ll usually always find some active currency markets at any given time – but make sure that you can remain focused after your 8 hours work day.

ForexFactory offers a great tool that helps you understand which markets are active during different times and it also shows how liquidity changes during the day so that you can find the best currency pairs based on your schedule:

Tip 1: Decide whether you want to be a swing trader or a day trader. Audit your weekly schedule and your personality to see which style suits you best. Then, choose the markets and instruments accordingly.

In our premium course, you get access to both a swing trading and a day trading system at the same time.

2. Don’t ride the learning curve

This is the cardinal sin of trading; “system-hopping” refers to traders who frequently change their trading method every few weeks or months – or sometimes even days. Those traders usually never see any real improvements in their trading and profitable trading is impossible if you don’t fully commit to making one thing work.

If you always change your approach and don’t follow any rules consistently, all your trades will look different and you cannot analyze and make sense of your data. The only thing that will become obvious is that you lose consistently but you won’t find out what your greatest struggles are (except for a general lack of structure), what you should work on and what already works well.

You need to get a consistent approach and even though your results won’t look great in the beginning, at least you can start making sense of your trade review and slowly work on becoming better.

Tip 2: For the next 12 months, pick one system and make a contract with yourself that you will not change your method again. No matter what.

3. The money is made by waiting – trade your plan

Your weekend should be your most important day of the week. I personally do 80% of all my trading work on the weekends and then I do very little throughout the week. I mostly just follow my trading plans and do a quick trading plan update every 2 days.

As Jesse Livermore nicely put it:

“After spending many years in Wall Street and after making and losing millions of dollars I want to tell you this: It never was my thinking that made the big money for me. It always was my sitting. Got that? My sitting tight!”

Most traders easily over-trade because they don’t have a plan and they don’t fully know what to look for in a chart or a good trade. Become clear about your rules, then you can create trading plans and then it’s just a matter of waiting for the price to come to you. No more chasing and impulsive trade execution!

Tip 3: Price alerts are the ultimate time-saver and the most overlooked trading tool. Use them after you have done your weekend analysis. This means you have to do your weekend preparation as well 😉

4. Active improvement as a trader

I mentioned that you should avoid system-hopping at all costs, but the question that then naturally comes up is: “how do I turn my current (losing) trading method into a winning one?” Here are 2 tips and things you should focus on to improve as a trader:

#1 Identify your biggest problems and take responsibility

Traders often mistakenly believe that their lack of trading success is caused by their trading method which then usually leads to system-hopping. However, failure typically comes down to undisciplined trading, a lack of professionalism and a pure gambling mentality.

Unless you trade 100% automated, YOU are the weakest link in your trading routine.

Thus, the first step for you should be to identify your greatest problems and your most commonly made mistakes. Traders who always try to blame their system avoid taking responsibility and look for excuses instead of doing the work that is necessary.

Tip 4: Over the next weekend, review your past 30/40 trades and see what caused your losses. Then come up with a top 3 list with your most commonly made mistakes.

#2 Process-oriented thinking

Most people act from a goal-oriented mindset where they automatically connect winning trades with good trades and see losses as failures. Such a way of thinking shows an amateur mindset.

The professionals, on the other hand, act from a process-oriented mindset where they look at how well they have executed their trades and how disciplined they perform. Thus, for a process-oriented trader, a loss does not necessarily equal a bad trade if they have done everything they could.

Tip 5: Avoid monetary goals and for the next 2 months, stop looking at your P/L. This will be tough but the impact will be huge.

5. What do you really want out of life?

There is an interesting survey I came across and it shows how people structure their day. The average employed American spends 7:45 hours at work on a regular workday. At the same time, the average American watches 2 hours and 9 minutes TV each day and only invest 25 minutes per day in education.

Also, the average sleep time is at 8 hours and 48 minutes which exceeds the recommended 8 hours per day by almost 1 hour.

When you are working towards becoming a profitable trader, you have to be clear about your priorities and make sure that your actions align with your goals. Are you willing to wake up one hour ahead of schedule every day, stop binge-watching random TV series, skip a night out with friends every now and then and re-invest that time back into your trading? You can easily find 2 hours right there.

Granted, those are tough calls to make and you might say that “you still need to live a little”, but putting in the work now to reap the benefits in a few years will take your life to new heights.

Tip 6: Audit your week and identify time wasters. Then, just eliminate 1 such time-waster and use it to work on your trading.

“The ability to discipline yourself to delay gratification in the short term in order to enjoy greater rewards in the long term is the indispensable prerequisite for success.”

― Brian Tracy

6. Don’t focus on the when and the how much

I often get the question of how much you can make and how big your trading account needs to be to live off your trading profits. When I then counter with the question how much those people are currently making, it becomes obvious very fast that they are focusing on the wrong things at the right time and they are not even profitable yet.

Don’t try to run before you can walk!

Especially at the beginning of your trading journey, you should not worry about how big your annual return can be and how much capital you need to save to quit your day job and travel the world.

Focusing on those things will get you off track and keep you from making progress – it can also demotivate you when you see how much work is ahead of you and how far away you are from reaching your goals.

Instead, focus on your current problems and struggles. Then you can start making baby steps and slowly (but surely!) become a better trader without all the distractions.

Tip 7: Focus on the immediate task ahead and work on your current problems. Small improvements over time add up.

7. The dangers of demo trading

There is a place for demo trading, but most people stay on demo too long.

What I have seen in my own trading and from the traders that I helped is that demo trading often lets people adopt negative behavioral patterns that are then very hard to unlearn. When your actions don’t have any real consequences, you are more likely to repeat mistakes and engage in the bad trading behavior. I typically suggest staying on demo for the first 6 – 12 months (max!) until you have a good understanding of the nuts and bolts and then take make the next step towards live trading.

When there are no consequences of your bad behavior, you won’t learn any lessons and, in the worst case, you won’t be able to unlearn your negative patterns later in your live trading.

Tip 9: The pecking order is: Demo > small live account > decent live account > an account where your winners are impactful

And make sure that you learn your lessons from the first trading account(s) you lose!

8. 4 tips for growing a (small) trading account

If you are like most traders, you probably don’t have the capital to start with a trading account that allows you to generate a decent income right away and that’s totally fine. But you have to make sure that you follow the right path.

Here are our top 4 tips that will help you grow your account and enjoy the process:

#1 Patience and expectations

Let’s start with the most important point: having unrealistic expectations very quickly lead to frustration when those expectations aren’t met. Always keep in mind that what you are doing is creating a new life and a new career for you. You have to get away from the get rich quick mentality and accept that this is a long-term play.

Traders want “to trade for a living” but then act like they need to retire next month. Stay patient, learn the basics, manage risk & enjoy.

Tip 10: Adopt realistic expectations and avoid monetary goals.

#2 Recognize your true edge as a part-time trader

This is often your greatest advantage over full-time traders. When trading is not your only source of income, you can eliminate a lot of the pressure that often causes traders to make mistakes. Also, when you are not glued to your screen all day long, you are less likely to make bad trading decisions just because you are bored or haven’t taken a trade in a while. Maybe you don’t even have to become a profitable trader and just trade a few hours every day and grow your savings or up your lifestyle?

Tip 11: Understand your motives and become self-aware about how you perform best while achieving your life goals.

#3 Honesty with yourself

The cold, harsh truth is that, in the end, no one cares if you make it as a trader. That’s why it so important to be honest with yourself and with your current situation. Analyze your approach to trading realistically, your level of professionalism and whether you are serious enough about it. The failure rate in trading is somewhere around 99%, but it’s not necessarily that high because trading is so damn hard, but because most don’t give it their full attention and just see it as a quick way out.

Tip 12: Are you serious enough about trading? Be honest with yourself and evaluate your current approach to trading.

Below is a message from David who is one of our pro members. After joining our course, he is optimistic again about reaching his goals and becoming a full-time trader.

Disclaimer: The experience reports and comments shown constitute the personal experiences of our users. These are individual results that do not permit conclusions to be drawn about future developments. In particular, we make no claim that these are typical results that can be achieved by our users on a regular basis. Tradeciety can neither predict nor guarantee the occurrence of certain developments or the achievement of profits nor will it do so.

How To Become a Professional Trader (With Salary and Job Outlook)

By Indeed Editorial Team

Published May 11, 2021

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Some people may engage in stock trading as a hobby, while other people view the practice as a full-time career. There are a variety of training methods that can produce consistent and profitable results and can turn an amateur trader into a professional. Determining what techniques are most successful in the market may help you become an expert in the field. In this article, we discuss what a professional trader is, how to become one and the salary and job outlook for the position.

What is a professional trader?

A professional trader is a person who works in finance and engaged in investing as a business or in a full-time role rather than occasionally or as a hobby. They may work for themselves, at a trading company, at a wealth management firm or as a freelance trader for individual clients. The typical job duties in each of these environments can be similar, but the education and experience requirements to get them varies. Professional traders can have other titles, including:

Day trader: A professional trader who opens and closes their positions at the start and end of trading each day.

Swing trader: A professional trader who works positions over multiple days, hoping to turn a profit from long-term market fluctuations.

What does a professional trader do?

A professional trader buys and sells investment products with the goal of making a profit. For example, a trader may purchase a particular stock for two dollars per share and sell it when it’s worth five dollars per share to make a profit. Working in this business may involve duties such as analyzing markets, developing strategies, logging and reviewing individual trades and building relationships with other professionals in the industry.

How to become a professional trader

Use these steps to learn how to become a professional trader:

1. Learn the trading basics

Understanding the basics of trading can help you gain entry-level knowledge in the field that you can refer to throughout your entire career. The basics of trading are factual, data-driven and processed-based pieces of information, but they may vary slightly depending on the source. This doesn’t mean only one source is correct. Rather, multiple sources can help give you a range for understanding what’s currently successful in the field. Trading basics may include:

The amount of capital required to trade effectively

The best markets in which to trade

Best practices for monitoring trade performance

Information about bidding and asking prices

Order types and how to place them

Risk management practices

Consider reading books about trading, looking at reputable trading websites or talking to a successful trader for advice. You can also access training materials and educational resources from the stock exchanges themselves on their websites. Learning these basics can help you decide in which investment products you’d like to trade.

2. Learn the advanced basics

Decide in which products you want to trade. Some options include:

Futures: Financial contracts that require a trader to buy or sell an asset for a specific price at a future date.

Options: Investment contracts that give the trader the right to buy or sell the asset for a specific price by a certain date.

Stocks: Investment that represents an ownership share in a company.

Once you know in which area you’ll be working, you can understand the advanced basics of that specialty. This information is more specific than general trading information and may allow you to become an expert in that particular area over time. Similarly to learning the trading basics, you can use books, internet sources and mentors to learn the niche markets of your choice.

3. Develop trading systems and techniques

Working to develop trading techniques and systems may help you discover the most logical and effective ways to make a profit in your market. Unlike the basics, trading strategies may be subjective, so it’s important to find a trustworthy source of information. Look for sources that provide charts and examples of how their strategies work over months or years. Note the ones that seem like they could be profitable in your real-world situation.

Finding a professional trader who teaches their strategies to others may be helpful. Some have their own books and websites or host webinars or conferences. Others may offer personal mentoring services you can customize to your individual needs. It’s also possible to teach yourself trading methods, but it may take longer than working with already available resources. Consider making an outline for your plan as a visual representation and to take notes about what works well in practice or where you can develop your technique.

4. Gain trading experience

Making trades within a real market may help you make improvements to your theoretical techniques. The goal when putting a new system into practice isn’t to win every trade or be perfect, but to be profitable and consistent. By using your strategies to make your first trades, you can test and revise your theories to work as expected over time.

5. Consider paper trading

May trading platforms offer a capability called paper trading. This feature allows you to practice your trade strategy in a true-to-life market environment using pretend money to simulate your gains and losses. Though you won’t make a real profit from engaging in paper trading, you can determine which components of your strategy are solid enough to use to make real money trades.

6. Choose a reliable broker

You may attribute some of your trading success to choosing the right broker to facilitate your investments. A brokerage firm is an organization that connects traders to sellers and creates an environment for the deal to take place. Some brokerage firms charge fees or commissions for use of their services. Picking a broker that deals in or even specializes in working with sellers in your niche may help you find and secure better deals.

7. Learn to focus

Professional traders may can focus deeply on the task at hand when buying and selling investments. They may block out distractions in their environment or set up their workstations to be streamlined and allow only the most important information to enter the area. Train yourself how to focus on your tasks by practicing meditation or other focus techniques, taking actions to minimize distractions in your environment or using additional tools like focus apps for your phone or computer.

8. Understand risk management

Risk management is a process of understanding potential threats to an organization, business or situation and creating strategies and contingency plans to avoid them. For professional traders, understanding and using risk management procedures can help determine which markets and moves are best, when to buy and sell and how to predict market trends to stay profitable in the future.

One of the primary risks in trading is how much money you’re willing to lose on a single trade. You can determine this through several factors, such as how much an individual account is worth. Understanding what risks you’re comfortable taking with your trades may help you feel more confident in your processes and allow you to make smarter decisions with your money.

9. Understand your potential

Similar to risk management understanding the amount of money you can trade and make realistically can be helpful in creating your strategy. The exact figure or projected percentage may be different for each trader and depend on factors such as your markets, the time frame and the amount of your investments.

10. Consider keeping a trading journal

Keeping track of your trades may help you make logical business decisions or adjustments to your strategy. Consider starting a trading journal where you record the metrics of each trade, either digitally or in a paper log. Some of the metrics to use may include:

Date: The date on which you entered the trade

Time: The time frame of the trade

Setup: The factors that triggered your entry into the trade

Market: Information about the market in which you’re trading

Lot size: The number of items you purchase within the transaction

Long or short: Whether you expect the item to increase or decrease in value

Tick value: The minimum movement of the price of the investment

Price in: The price you paid per share to enter the trade

Price out: The price sold per share to exit the trade

Stop loss: The price where you’ll exit the trade if necessary

Profit and loss: The dollar amount of the profit or loss made from the trade

Initial risk: The dollar amount of the money you’re willing to lose on the trade

11. Review your trades

Periodically review your trades to identify patterns of success in your strategy. Look for areas where you’re doing well and understand why they’re working. See if you can apply those strategies or methods to areas in need of improvement across your portfolio.

12. Consider earning a degree

Though you don’t need a college degree to become a professional trader with your own finances, if you choose to become one for a company or if you provide freelance services to clients for commission, consider earning one to increase your credentials. A bachelor’s degree in areas such as finance, accounting, business administration or economics may help you learn valuable trading skills like math, logic and problem solving. Most bachelor’s degree programs take a minimum of four years to complete.

Salary for a professional trader