Many people who start trading will imagine themselves as a master trader, trading from anywhere in the world with just a laptop and an Internet connection, perhaps with a cocktail in hand. I know... I am one of them. That's indeed the end-state of when one becomes proficient. But how does one get from newbie status to Master Trader? In order to be proficient in something, one needs to invest the time and effort. It is part of the skill building process, and while there can be ways to accelerate the skills building phase, it is a phase that cannot be omitted.
How to Drastically Shorten Your Learning Curve
If you are entirely new to trading, there are a few ways to shorten your learning curve:- Sign up for a reputable trading course -
Loads of information can be gleaned from the Internet, or books if you are able to spend the time to research; and many trading courses can be over-priced for the information they contain. However, a good trading course or workshop will help you to learn the basics faster than if you were to read up on everything on your own. And having someone to answer your questions will also speed up your learning. If you are signing up for an expensive course, do ask if they provide post-course support. No one becomes a successful trader immediately after attending a 3 day course, no matter how good the course is! - Get a Trading Mentor / Coach -
I personally recommend investing in one that can guide you one-on-one and help you identify a trading strategy that is best suited for your trading personality and guide you in building your skills. Most trading coaches would specialize in a specific trading method (you wouldn't want your coach to be teaching you something he isn't using himself would you?). So it would be best to do some basic homework to identify what type of markets you want to trade before identifying which coach to hire. - Review Your Trades Regularly -
Always keep records of your trading in one way or another, and review your trades on a regular basis. This will create a feedback system to tell you where you need to improve so that you can target specific weakness (like entering a trade too early or too late).
The 10,000-Hour Rule
When it comes to trading, many hours are spent in education, and building a trading system that works for you. Trading is very personal, and that means that what works for one person may not work for another. It may not be an issue of the profitability of the system, but rather the suitability of the system and the personality of the trader.Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, mentioned the "10,000-Hour rule" which is based on a study by Anders Ericsson. This rule states that it takes about 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert in any field.
For example, the Beatles performed live in Hamburg, Germany over 1,200 times from 1960 to 1964, amassing more than 10,000 hours of playing time, therefore meeting the 10,000-Hour Rule.
He further explained that meeting the 10,000-Hour Rule is simply a matter of practicing a specific task that can be accomplished with 20 hours of work a week for 10 years.
Translating that to trading, that means you need to spend about 4 hours daily, 5 days a week, for 10 years to become a master trader. It's all a matter of time. But if you are like me.... you want to be a master trader yesterday! And the problem is, most of us do not have the time to practice LIKE a full time trader. This is a VERY important part in preparing to trade full time.
Build Your Trading Skills in Super Speed
You know as well as I do, that the markets have long periods of lull. And a good portion of time is spend waiting for the outcome. While patience is an important skill to have for trading, lull periods make it difficult to practice a trading strategy in all market conditions, especially when you can only commit a specific time period daily.One way that many people use to test a strategy in the markets is to use back-testing. But most systems that allows for backtesting require a automated approach for testing. One example is back testing on an MT4 platform.
What if your trading approach is difficult to code, such as using Elliott Wave Analysis? How do we speed up our practice?
This is something that I had been struggling for awhile. And I had been looking for brokers that provide trading platforms that allow me to display historical data bar-by-bar to build my skills. Why must it be bar-by-bar? Because if I scroll back in time, but still see data that follows, it is easy to do my wave counts in retrospect. After all, hindsight is 20/20.
So if you have a platform that allows display of historical data bar-by-bar, then you have something that allows you to practice on historical data "real-time" to improve your skills in accelerated speed! It's that simple!
I hadn't found any platforms that allow me to do that (if you know of any, please let me know!) But I've found a third party software that allows you do so something pretty darn close - the Simple Forex Tester.
What is the Simple Forex Tester?
The Simple Forex Tester is a software suite that hooks DIRECTLY into the most powerful Forex trading platform on the planet – MetaTrader 4. It utilizes the power of your computer and the data feed from your broker to very accurately re-play the market TICK FOR TICK, allowing you to place trades just like the market was live!
Since the Simple Forex Tester has a very simple and intuitive GUI designed to look and feel just like MetaTrader 4 – there is no learning curve to get started! It looks and feels as if you were using a real account, except you have the ability to control time with pause, rewind, and fast-forward features. You can test any symbol/pair your MT 4 broker supports and trade in history, just like it was live!
The Simple Forex Tester allows you full order placement capability including Buy/Sell orders, and pending orders such as Buy Stop, Sell Stop, Buy Limit, and Sell Limit. You can modify any order placed in real time, and use ANY MT 4 indicator in your practice sessions!
The Simple Forex Tester is the ONLY tool on the market that will allow you to practice your trades with historical data using MetaTrader 4. You will not only be able to practice in history, but the amount of time it will save you is TREMENDOUS.
Here is a Program Demonstration to show you how it works:
If you are interested to turn on the turbo on your practice and build your skills at super-speed, you can Get the Simple Forex Tester Here!
