Consistent Market

The work you invest into the Market must be consistent, day in day out. Each time you allow yourself a day off or a week of half-hearted effort, you are making a big step back. Until the state of consistency is firmly established in a trader’s mind, he is not a trader.

Being a trader means willingly, gladly, gratefully investing personal time into studying the Market. All the required work must become effortless, if one is to be called a trader.

To trade with conviction you have to first establish a conviction in your daily trading habits. You cannot afford losing momentum even for a day. You cannot afford failing to appreciate the valuable lessons the Market offers each and every day.

To profit consistently, you must work consistently. The Market is consistent – consistently uncertain, complex, yet open for everyone to learn. The Market is an open book – trading profitably is simply a matter of learning the language in which it’s written.

The Market is Your Friend

Market is my psychological, emotional mirror. It will reflect back all the frustration I feel towards it. At the same time it will just as readily reflect all the curiosity, confidence, acceptance and fascination that I experience towards it.

I am already consistently profitable. I already have all it takes to be the trader I aspire to be. I can already follow the Market, never losing its flow.

Every single day I have but watch, listen, learn and follow. There is no struggle. Good trading cannot require any effort. When I am in the flow, the trade ideas are coming to me automatically.

I attract profitable trades. I attract the understanding of the Market flow. I attract consistency. I attract confidence.

The Market is my friend, my partner in this business. Always willing to offer me a hand, always providing valuable guidance. Always showing me exactly what it is doing and where it is going. The Market hides nothing from me – it is an open book indeed! And I know its language really well – it is in my bones. I intuitively feel each and every little hint the Market is ever so subtly telling me.

Thinking ahead of the crowd

 

When reading Price Action, one of the important concepts is to trade according to your bias before it is already obvious to everyone. You need to look for such price setups where you can already see some hints that the price is likely to move in the direction of your bias. At the same time, there is still no obvious entry setup. At this point we ask ourselves how other traders are likely to interpret the current situation.

How do you know that these early signs of reversal are not obvious to everyone else? Simple – the Market is not reacting to that setup just yet – the price is not breaking through support or resistance levels with enough conviction to show that the majority of market participants are trading in this direction.

If these signs are not obvious to everyone else, how do you know that these are correct signs? You don’t. That’s the main trick in trading – to act under uncertain circumstances. You want other traders to push the price in your direction, BUT after you are already in the market. We are seeking such a situation where not only there are enough traders who will see similar opportunity and start trading with us, but also there are enough traders who are holding the opposite position at this moment and who are ready to take a loss if the price goes against them.

If expecting a bearish move, start trading on a correction, on a bullish failure, on double top, on a bounce, etc. If you wait for the price to break a significant level, you are already too late.

The problem with waiting for too many confirmations is that we really can never be sure enough. Looking for confirmations only strengthens your desire to be right, to find a perfect opportunity. There is no perfect opportunity on the market, there is no situation when you can take a trade with absolute confidence that it is going to be a winner. But, there can be confidence that the Market is already providing a great selling/buying price and refusing it is foolish.

You see, there is nothing we can do on the market without our fellow traders. On the one hand, you need them to create liquidity and take the other side of your bias. On the other, you need them to move the price to your target after the entry – you want enough volume that will agree with your analysis as well. Whether this volume is generated through new entries aiming for profit, or taking old losses, is irrelevant.

 

“I do not understand the Market”

I do not understand the Market.

How do you feel when you believe this about yourself? Examine the following statements and see which ones cause the biggest emotional reaction – these are the ones you want to work on.

  1. Powerless
  2. Hopeless
  3. Stupid
  4. Like I am wasting time
  5. Frustrated
  6. Tired
  7. Angry
  8. Afraid of losing the money
  9. Afraid of looking stupid when I open a “wrong” trade
  10. Hesitated

Whatever you believe about yourself is what you are. So how do you think you would be feeling if this believe did not exist for you, if it would have completely disappeared?

  1. Free
  2. liberated
  3. Empowered
  4. Willing to pull the trigger on my trades
  5. Willing to explore the Market without resistance

Is it possible to understand the Market at all? Once again, the main question here is what do you believe “understanding” to be. Depending on how you define “understanding” it might be possible to understand the Market or it might be not.

What is understanding?

  1. Knowing where the Market will go
  2. Knowing why the price moves on the Market
    OR
  3. Knowing what the possible outcome of my trades could be

Consider which one is easier to understand about the Market. When you need to know where the Market will go, you are bound to be frustrated most of the time in your trading. If you simply need to know what could the outcome of your trades be, you will bring clarity to your trading.

If you really want to understand the Market in terms of knowing where it will go, why is that?

  1. Do you want to avoid losses?
  2. Do you want to prove that you are right?
  3. Do you want your trades to be ideal, absolutely perfect?
  4. Do you want to have confidence in your actions?

Remember, that each of the above questions must be broken down into aspects. Your belief system is extremely complicated and the answers are not likely to be found by scratching the surface.