Munich, Germany
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Sierra Chart
Broker: Interactive Brokers
Trading: liquid products
Posts: 570 since Jul 2016
Thanks Given: 1,166
Thanks Received: 1,917
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Overtrading is a very common issue. We all seek to maximize our productivity, get the most out of our screen time, and milk a strategy for every penny that we can get out of it. But then we often find that trading less frequently leads to real improvements in overall performance. For certain styles of trading, this can mean that we must watch the markets vigilantly for days waiting for a setup to appear, and then still decide not to take the trade when it does.
One thing that has helped me to improve is to study my failed setups and see if I can find any common characteristics among them. The things that I've learned from doing so have helped me not only to filter out weaker setups, but also to better understand the surrounding price action and the importance of context.
Let's say, for example, that your strategy is to buy the market every time it prints a hammer doji. Spend some time marking these up on your chart and examine the surrounding price action. You may find, for example, that the hammers with low volume, or a smaller range relative to the preceding candles have a lower success rate than large, high volume candles. Or that dojis that print during the lunchtime lull are more likely to fail than those that print during the first two hours of the session. What happens when the candle is inside the range of the prior fifty versus when it makes a new low? What happens when the close is above or below a certain moving average, or when the slope of that moving average is flattish versus trending lower?
As you study these contextual hints you might develop effective filters that improve your overall results. You might even find new setups to complement your existing system. And, it will give you something to do while you're waiting for that really good setup.
Finally, remember that market behavior continually changes, and the number of good trades per day, week, or year can vary dramatically based on your strategy. Don't seek to arbitrarily limit the number of trades you take just to prevent overtrading, because when the setups are legitimately good you need to take what the market gives you. Avoiding a good trade simply because you already had three winners this morning is no way to improve your performance. We can't control the weather, but must learn to make hay when the sun is shining.
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