Ten Great New Year’s Resolutions for Traders

Each year as trader’s we have the opportunity to close out a year, log or annual return, and begin again.  Let’s put 2011 behind us regardless of how well or bad we did and begin again with the lessons the markets taught us in 2011 and previous years.

Here are ten ideas for New Year’s  resolutions we can all make to help our performance in 2012. Some of these are refreshers for veteran traders and some will help new traders get one step closer to being a rich trader.

In 2012 I will:

  1. Always trade with a complete trading plan in place and follow all your preset rules.
  2. Never risk more than 1% of your total capital per trade by proper position sizing based on volatility and stop losses.
  3. Never expose more than 6% of your account capital to risk at any one time.
  4. Only trade high probability set ups.
  5. Continue to learn and grow in your trading every day.
  6. Always have a trailing stop plan in place for your winners to lock in profits.
  7. Pick ONE system, style, or method and trade it through the whole year.
  8. Do not make predictions, listen to what the market is saying and follow it.
  9. Always trade in the overall direction of the trend.
  10. Never give up on trading.

Will you?

“New Year’s Day is every man’s birthday.” Charles Lamb

“Successful traders don’t need luck, since they consistently play the probabilities and manage risk. That’s how casinos win” -Patrick Ratchford