8 tips to jet-propel your 2024 trading

If, like me, you’ve been humming the ‘I’ll sort that out in January’ tune over the Christmas break … well, it’s time to face the music.

Here’s what you need to know to ensure 2024’s trading goes stratospheric …

TIP ONE: Keep a journal

A couple of minutes spent recording your trades is worth hours of pouring over charts. A good trading record is the most valuable tool in your arsenal and will help keep you disciplined and on track. Without these kind of records, you can’t see what’s working and what isn’t.

If you’re not already using the Trader’s Bulletin spreadsheet journal, you can download your copy HERE

TIP TWO: Add this indicator to your chart

In the throes of finding and entering trades, it’s very easy to lose track of market direction. Charts get busy, we don’t always want to jump through different timeframes. But adding a simple long-term moving average to your chart, that sits quietly in the background will act as a check.

Whether you’re trend trading or range trading, knowing how the market is trending will enable you to make better decisions. By simply adding in a long-term moving average to your chart, you can have the confidence to push profits out, bring stop levels in, and generally improve your reward to risk.

TIP THREE: Don’t neglect the S&R

Support and resistance levels are glaring clues about what the price could do in the future – they are the closes thing we get to a crystal ball in technical analysis. If you ignore them, you’re missing the most reliable signal of market behaviour there is!

All you need to do is check for major support and resistance levels – quickly note them down on your chart, and you’ll automatically be making better decisions in your trades.

TIP FOUR: Must-know candlesticks

Don’t worry, I’m not going to load you down with a dictionary of patterns. All you really need are dojis and engulfing candlesticks. When these appear on a key level, that’s when we take notice …

TIP FIVE: Compound, compound, compound

You can’t make serious money from the markets without tapping into this nuclear-powered trading tool.

There are different ways to compound. If you compound after every trade, it will have the most powerful effect. However, it’s perfectly valid to compound on a monthly or an annual basis – or you can keep some of your profits aside to tap into if you have a losing run.

Read about the pros (and cons) of compounding here.

TIP SIX: Add to your funds

The downside to compounding is that growth in the early years can feel slow. The trick to powering through that period, without taking unnecessary risk is to make regular additions. These can be just modest sums of spare cash that you can add into your trading fund each month – it really doesn’t need to be much, but will act as an accelerator pedal to your compound growth.

You can find out more about the power of this technique here.

TIP SEVEN: Be patient

Even with compounding, and your foot on the ‘additions’ accelerator, markets still demand patience of us in many ways. Don’t rush into trades; instead wait for them to come to you, and you’ll enjoy a higher success rate. Wait for the pullbacks. And if you miss an opportunity – don’t chase it. Another one will come along.

And be patient with your earnings – don’t expect too much, too fast. If you’re having a good run, that doesn’t mean you should load all your money into it. Just keep compounding your winnings – this is the route to long-term, lasting wealth-building.

TIP EIGHT: Start building

How do you build a wall? You start laying bricks.

Even if you’re demo trading, by getting into a routine, you will build good practises.

Get your trading plan in place. It doesn’t need to be the finished article – trading strategies should adapt and improve as you learn and grow as a trader.

Know your timetable – when will you trade? What’s your routine.

And start taking those steps …

I can’t wait to hear how you get on.