The Plan [Start with writing a Trading Business Plan Today]

[immy]

Hi

I take great pleasure in starting this new section. I do realize that I should have started this section years ago but I am still grateful that I am finally doing it. So here we go.We will start by sharing Tim Wilcox's Trading Template PDF. I don't really need to write a new document to serve as a template because that document is just perfect. I have redesigned my own trading plan based on this template.

The next task will be to engage all the members in this important of trading business. This could be the missing link. If you do not have a plan, any goals and objectives are just dreams, just wishful thinking. If you don't have a trading plan any entry or exit you make is a mistake before you even commit to that trade.

YES, So you call yourself a Trader?
Ok then, Where is your trading plan?

You tell me, are you a trader? if yes, where is your trading plan? if you don't have a trading plan, you are not a trader, you are a gambler without an edge.

Having a Trading Plan, a complete and detailed trading plan that covers all aspects of your life, your personality and lifestyle is an absolute must as well as the integration of having a trading journal. A Trading plan is like a personal constitution.

If you are one of the organised people and already have a detail and well documented written plan for your life then it will easy for you to incorporate your trading plan into your plan. The most important part of any plan for life or anything in life is Goals and Objectives. Its gives you purpose. In fact, a big majority of people have never asked this question in life. What is my purpose? What do I want in life? Who am I? What defines me as who I am? And if you don't ask those questions, you wont be able to answer the common interview question. "Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?". If you never planned it, your answer would be meaningless and perhaps a clever interviewer will be able to judge that.

All successful traders have a concrete precise and detailed trading plan that takes care of every aspect of trading. From what time to wake up and go to bed to markets to trade, risk management and trading psychology etc. The following document will help you immensely in creating your trading plan. I suggest you download and print it and give your self 2hrs a day for a week to come up with a comprehensive trading plan. It is indeed the truth that the first eBook of AIMS was actually an adapted version of my personal trading plan.

Special thanks to Steve for sharing this document and of course thanks to the writer Tim Wilcox.

He writes

"In order to succeed as a professional trader, it is often said that the aspirant must treat trading "like a business". As with many of the clichéd phrases that litter the metaphorical trading floor, the importance of this statement is often overlooked, or the meaning misunderstood.

The following article by Tim Wilcox aims to address these problems by examining some of the ways in which a trader might go about achieving this vital goal.

"It is divided into two sections: a general overview of what constitutes a trading plan and why it is prudent to have one, followed by a detailed analysis of the various aspects that should be considered during its creation, for example, the importance of self-awareness, discipline and risk management. Though the article is aimed principally at novices, traders of all standards are likely to find something useful within its pages."

The order of the questions asked in Tim's trading plan format is of great importance. The order might not look very logical for a beginner but the order itself tells you what should be your priorities in trading.

I recently redesigned my trading plan and I'm now following Tim's format. Tim's come up with a simplified way to help any trade formulate a trading plan within a weekend or a week. It took me over 3 weeks but that's just me. You might be just starting and you may want to have a quick draft within a few hours or so. That's totally fine as trading plan is an ongoing document and it will get refined and more personal to you in time. But goal number one is to have a trading plan no matter what form, format or quality. Just have one and it will get refined in due course.

Your trading plan should have the following 10 parts and you should work on them in this order. Most of us, might cut straight into Part 8 and then start to think of part 11 and may never even bother about part 10 (huge mistake) and totally be unaware of part 1 and 2 all together. If you can relate to this, now you know why you have not been consistent in your trading results.

The Correct Order and Parts of a Good Trading Plan according to Tim's Template. I'd like to give a brief summary of the main parts and questions of this document. While I fully recommend downloading this pdf file and printing it, the following is an attempt to summarize the already condense document so that we can have a quick glimpse of the whole if we wanted.

Part 1: Know Yourself, Know Your Purpose.
In this first very important section of your trading plan Tim recommends that you attempt to contemplate on the following questions and find answers. For some, it might require a deep state of meditation and lead to great insight about themselves. So, Who are you? What is your purpose?

He starts this part with the following sentence " Almost any professional trader will tell you that the key to success in the markets lies in understanding your psyche."
Q1. Why do you want to be a trader?
Q2. What sort of trader are you?
Q3. what are your strengths and weaknesses?
Q4. Are you in the right frame of mind to trade?
Q5. What are your income targets?

Part 2. Trading Goals
"Setting goals is an essential part of your trading plan".

We used to have a servant as my dad was a civil servant, "officer" back in the days. My mum used to send him for grocery shopping from the local markets but the problem with him was he was completely illiterate. Reading signs and counting was not his thing. Which is why got lost all the time. Perhaps his sense of direction was pretty horrible. He used mark objects on his path to navigate. While it was a clever plan there was one slight problem with it.

If you are going to use a "landmark" make sure its a permanent one. One day he got lost and I had to go and "fetch him" instead. I followed his usual path and found his right in front of the shop still horribly confused. He could not see the shop because they had chopped the tree that stood right in front of the shop. (true story)

rA trading plan is your map.
Driving around, following traffic rules and taking the correct tuns are your tasks and activities.
Arriving on time is your goal.

"When you plan your business’ future, you will generate a list of potential achievements you want it to reach. These are goals. The specific steps you take to get to those achievements are your objectives. The terms objectives and goals are often used interchangeably, but they each have important differentiating attributes. They are used at different stages of the business planning process, and each serves a different purpose."


to be continued.....

Part 2: What are your trading goals and objectives?
Part 3: Markets, Instrument and Time Frames (often people simply address and think this to be a part of part 12)
Part 4: Tools of Trade (



Most of the above has already been addressed by Tim Wilcox in his trading plan template.

I would like everyone to submit a copy of their trading plan. I promise I will have a look at it my self and hope others will also have a read. We can comment and learn from each others great ideas and mistakes.

The 10 Parts of a Trading Plan

Part 1: Know your self , know your purpose
Part 2: Trading Goals and Objectives
Part 3: Markets, Instruments and Time Frames
Part 4: Tools of Trade
Part 5: Before the market opens
Now the Crux of it
Part 6: Risk and Money Management (this would be the longest part)
Part 7: Exit Strategy (this would be predefined and very objectively defined) But short and simple
and finally at the end we talk about entries
Part 8: Trade Strategies, Setups and Entries
and then
Part 9. After the market closes
and number 10

So lets start Planning!

Download Trading Plan Template

Trading_Plan_Template_Tim_Wilcox.pdf

[immy]

How to Reduce Stress and its Negative Effects on your trading .

“Your Brain releases cortisol that raises your heart rate, it modulates adrenaline levels and it clouds your thinking.”

And with all the cortisol in your brain your thinking will be cloudy and you won't even know about it because "your thinking is cloudy".

“It's something that he had gotten from the psychologist Gary Klein, who had written about it a few years before, also called the pre-mortem. Now, you all know what the postmortem is. Whenever there's a disaster, a team of experts come in and they try to figure out what went wrong, right? Well, in the pre-mortem, Danny explained, you look ahead and you try to figure out all the things that could go wrong,and then you try to figure out what you can do to prevent those things from happening, or to minimize the damage.

said Daniel Levitin in his recent Sep 2015 TED talk, “How to stay calm when you know you’ll be stressed?”.

Watch the Talk and read the rest of the article in my blog ... http://www.itradeaims.com/2015/10/how-t ... ll-be.html

[Hill]

great info. thanks Immy.

How to Reduce Stress and its Negative Effects on your trading .

“Your Brain releases cortisol that raises your heart rate, it modulates adrenaline levels and it clouds your thinking.”

And with all the cortisol in your brain your thinking will be cloudy and you won't even know about it because "your thinking is cloudy".

“It's something that he had gotten from the psychologist Gary Klein, who had written about it a few years before, also called the pre-mortem. Now, you all know what the postmortem is. Whenever there's a disaster, a team of experts come in and they try to figure out what went wrong, right? Well, in the pre-mortem, Danny explained, you look ahead and you try to figure out all the things that could go wrong,and then you try to figure out what you can do to prevent those things from happening, or to minimize the damage.

said Daniel Levitin in his recent Sep 2015 TED talk, “How to stay calm when you know you’ll be stressed?”.

Watch the Talk and read the rest of the article in my blog ... http://www.itradeaims.com/2015/10/how-t ... ll-be.html

[immy]

I have written a small but objective trading plan for a trader who trades The Seed and Cherry Strategy. If you'd like to download a copy please visit Skypers Stash.

The trade plan is almost a replica of my personal plan that I have re-written based on the Trading Template pdf above in this topic. I'm sure you'll love it.

Your comments and suggestions are always welcome and much appreciated. All the best

The following link will take you too Google doc the plan is based on out original three month challenge we completed from Jan to Mar 2016. It focuses on simplicity. But you, the beginner, at Stage 1 should incorporate the original setup 1 into this trading plan template.

Link
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kJ7 ... =drive_web

[Hill]

Thanks Immy.
If not for this well thought doc, I would not have written the trading plan for me.
The only modification I did was, to the American English. Ex: Analyse to Analyze

I don't know if I am asking lot, could you please post the same for trading multiple pairs with Daily TimeFrame in Skypers Stash.

With Respects
Hill

[immy]

Thanks Immy.
If not for this well thought doc, I would not have written the trading plan for me.
The only modification I did was, to the American English. Ex: Analyse to Analyze

I don't know if I am asking lot, could you please post the same for trading multiple pairs with Daily TimeFrame in Skypers Stash.

With Respects
Hill

Hill

Thank you for the kind words. all praise goes to Time Wilcox for writing the template and Steve for sharing this document. I just went on re-modified my trading plan using this template and then I reproduced a sample copy for a beginner trader. If you'd like to produce one for multiple pairs you have to ask the questions in the trading template document and you will get their on your own. That is the best and recommended way of doing it. However if you adopt this copy as it is, it will do you good I am sure

I can assure you of one thing. I did not write the above document in an hour or two. I can seriously swear to you that I started working on in early September and I went through many dimensions and perspectives before I finalised this sample. Why did I take such a long time? I meditated over each question so many hours under "The Tree" of meditation in great depth. and many many cups of coffee and visits to costa's (not Starbucks) were involved writing it hehe

cheers

[immy]

BTW: if you read the sample trading plan, hopefully you will fully understand how to trade The Seeds and Cherries!

[immy]

OMG! I Just made my trading plan, and there you go, we have a new strategy? Does that mean I have to redo my trading plan?

Let me put your mind at ease. If you read your trading plan, if its based on the template we shared. You will notice that the fundamental structure of the trading plan is so amazing that you will have to tweak only part 9 for the upcoming changes. Such is the elegance design of this trading plan. Only one part of this trading plan is focused on Entry Methods.

Part 1. You know yourself who you are, that does not change with strategy change. does it?
Part 2. Your trading goals and objectives still remain the same. You want to achieve those goals and we are giving you a better way to achieve those goals. So no change there my dear
Part 3. We are still trading the same markets and time frames. no change here nope
Part 4. Tools of the trade, well no change there either.
Part 5. What do you do before the market opens? no change here, we will continue to do the same stuff
Part 6. Risk and Money management will remain the same, the strategy for this has not changed.
Part 7. Exit Strategy? yes, same exit strategy no change there either

By this point you must be wondering, What has been changed? oh well not much... but if you have not made your trading plan, then you probably don't know that entry setup holds only 5% proportion of your trading plan. or lets call it 10%. That's all. But without a trading plan, traders presume that perhaps 90% of trading is about getting your entries right. (well within the 10% you have to do the 10% at least 80% correctly otherwise there is no chance of getting anything done correctly.

So next

Part 8. Setups and Entries...
Surely, there must be change here... well not really ... the entry setup is the same, Yes, its Question 1 and the 2 exit rules?

So what has been changed? If i wanted to fool you, i could have done so easily, by writing a new ebook and giving it a new name (oh, there is a new name though hehe). And perhaps marketed it around and charged more money. But that's not how we do things. We want to make our lives and your lives easier and simpler.

The change is just to do with HOW we Create The Chart. Its a NEW Template. A New Template supported by new Indicators, so some more coding work, thanks to the sublime collaboration of the two gents, and great minds, Steve and Grant. Its been a process of coding our logic in to algorithm and in the process eliminating some visual cues that were rendered uselss as a result. Its as if IT guys got rid of some more employees doing manual work. Oh boy...

The rest you will know when Grant presents the Webinar on thursday. I hope I will be able to make the indicators/template available before that.

The above needs are second read and amendment but I don't have time right now so, I will do so later, and please accept my apologies if some of it does not makes sense.

cheers

ps: yes part 9 and 10 remain the same haha

[Seabreeze]

Fantastic Immy looking forward to evolving to the next stage of our trading and taking part in THE HUNT for more pips

[Grant]

EH!!!!!

Grant was told it was Q & A...