Plan the Trade, Trade the Plan

This is where all the thinking in trading comes into play, while writing your trading plan. Once you have created your rules to trade by, you become more systematic and logical in your thought process for executing successful trades. Your personal trading plan will include every step of the trade from identifying to exiting your trade. By having your setup written down in your plan, you will have a better chance of using patience and discipline to wait for your entry. Otherwise, you will use emotions to enter trades and we all know where that will get you. After entering your trade, you will have more confidence because you have back-tested your strategy and know that it has a successful track record and will give you that extra edge over your competition. Identifying your entry strategy will help you execute your strategy in an efficient manner with no hesitation. There will be no guessing or wondering what to do once your setup is identified, you just click and go. Your risk management is also pre-defined so your initial protective stop is set on entry and you know when you will be moving your protective stop to breakeven after the market moves in your direction by a certain amount. Of course, our price target is also known in advance and how we will exit the market at this target. Will we have a set price target, a trailing stop, a time stop, etc.?