I’m often asked what a traders day should look like. This is a fair enough comment although I expect many new traders will be disappointed by the response. Far from being a bed of fast paced excitement the daily schedule of a top trader is actually quite formulaic and boring.
You see there is no magic formula or secret sauce when it comes to trading. The daily strategy that the best traders follow is executed in accordance with strict discipline and a set of rules. These help to form a framework from which you can execute a successful trading strategy. Importantly it also provides a consistent environment for trading.
Creating a daily schedule for your binary options trading will help to improve your trading in a number of ways. It will help to provide some structure around your trading. This should form a framework around your trading strategy so that you know exactly how you are going to plan your approach to the markets.
Many traders when asked, “what and how do you trade?” will struggle to come up with a coherent answer. Typical responses are “I trade when I can” or ”I just take a look at my charts now and then and see what’s on”. Trading in such a random and cavalier approach hardly displays the skills you need to succeed with binary options. With such a lack of structure this invariably leads to a lack of discipline.
What is important if you want to become a top trader is that you have a razor like focus of your objectives and the discipline to see them through. You should know exactly what you are trading, how you are trading it, what you are risking on the outcome and when you are entering. Setting out and writing down your binary options daily schedule will help you to keep your focus. It will also enable you to bring discipline your trading.
Let’s take look at how your daily trading schedule for binary options might look-
- 08:00 Coffee! Switch on computer. Take a look at news from the overnight markets to build up a general picture of what has been happening in the financial world.
- 08:10 Open up economic calendar and charts. List any key scheduled news events and they time they are going to be released. Load up charts.
- 08:15 Trading open! This is the time I check my strategies and see if any trades have triggered.
- 10:00 Break from screen. Go and do something else.
- 12:00 Check back before US session open. Check to see how any open positions are performing, look for any new signals.
- 13:00 Go do something else.
- 15:00 Check back again in the afternoon.
- 21:00 Update results on trade sheet and note any profit, loss. Update trading notes.
Ultimately of course your binary options trading schedule could look much different. The point is that whereas most new traders think that you have to be trading 24 hours per day. The reality is that most top traders only trade around scheduled times. They don’t go hunting down trades. Instead they wait for the best opportunities to come to them. If nothing occurs in their allotted trading session, they walk away and go and do something else.
Even if you trade part time, say after work, you can still set out a plan for your trading day. The good thing with binary options is that you don’t have to monitor your positions once you have placed your contract. You can therefore simply set your position and walk way.
Try setting up a schedule for your trading and sticking to it for a week. I am sure you will be surprised at how you can reduce your time spent trading and improve your performance as a result.