New Live Trader Advice

[hailchaser2 185]

I think it would be great if some of the experienced traders and even some of the newer but still experienced traders made a thread about starting out live. I understand that there are numerous places in the forum for all kinds of tips and tricks on every aspect of trading. I'm talking about a checklist of things for beginners to do that are common mistakes that could have been easily avoided.

I bring this up because I'm new, I absolutely should have had a hard daily limit in place that was out of my hands. CMEG offers this, but I did not have it set up, because "I would be different, I had discipline and patience"...............We all know that's not the case just starting out live. I didn't realize how important protecting your account balance is in the first several weeks. A hard mechanical stop would have saved me.

I'm sure there are some other things you all see as common problems for beginners, having the most common ones in a thread pinned to the top for beginners would be very beneficial for anyone just starting out.

[hailchaser2 185]

1. Put a mechanical daily stop loss in place.

(This would have saved me more than 1,000 (20% of my account)

2. Use "R" instead of dollars when journaling and assessing your day.

(This helped me stop focusing on the money and start focusing on the process)

3. Use the same risk every trade, it makes tracking your progress easier. 

(When I become an experienced trader I might use different risk for better setups, but starting out, I think using different risks for different trades made it very difficult to track my performance)

4. Either join a journaling website, or make your own excel journal.

(Chartlog has made it possible to see my performance in charts, broken up by strategies, time of day, day of week, etc.)

5. Start a journal here in the BBT forums.

(It helps discipline when you know you have to post your trades and thoughts for others to see.)

6. Attend Aiman's trade review sessions.

(This has greatly improved my trading.)

 

I'm just brainstorming here, add anything else you wish you would have done before day one going live.