Before starting to trade, it is interesting to have some advice to be able to face the markets with certain guarantees.
Trading in any market and with any asset involves risks, so before starting to invest, you need to study and understand the market in which you are going to invest and the asset you are going to use.
Warren Buffet is one of the world’s greatest investors and among the most influential. It does not invest in what it does not know and needs a thorough investigation into what it is and how it behaves in what it is going to invest, regardless of the cost.
Another essential point is not to risk your money irresponsibly. Think and invest only what you can. Never invest the money you will need to live your day to day life, which is to pay bills, pay expenses or settle debts.
There are many types of trading, as well as markets and assets. Regardless of the type of market you will be trading in, many of these tips or advice can help you get started in this exciting world.
Below we have compiled some tips that will help you to have guidelines and guide your profits from trading. Many of them are basic and others we draw from interviews with world-renowned professional traders and influential investors.
- Treat your investments like a business
Trading is not a game. You may be looking for the long-awaited financial freedom that allows you to operate flexibly and only a few hours a day, or you may be looking to generate extra income on top of your paycheck. Whatever it is, treat it like a business.
According to Sergio Vargas, a professional FX and Futures trader with over 15 years of experience, he says: “The success of my trading is in the management. I trade with percentages that allow me emotional peace of mind, I easily accept possible losses and at the same time give me profits as long as they don’t disrupt the trading plan”.
The great Warren Buffet said: “If you make money with an investment, don’t take the profit for yourself, or for your expenses, but rather reinvest”. You are more likely to succeed if you trade like a business rather than a game or hobby.
- Trading is not luck
Trader Giancarlo Prisco has been active on the stock exchange since 2008, in an interview he said that: “Trading is not a game, nor a sports bet, nor is it like playing poker.” And he added: “Dedication, sacrifice and patience will be our allies”.
Strategies and methods are the best formulas to start with relative success in the world of trading. Over time you will see how you can shape and adapt the strategy to your trading.
The best way to protect your money is to take trading seriously. For this you will have to sacrifice a lot of time and dedicate it to learning, studying and practicing. There are no secrets or magic in trading.
- At some point, you will lose money.
Mathew Caruso, a famous professional trader emphasized that “don’t lose a lot of money and admit when you’re wrong” is one of the trading rules. He also emphasized that you need to know when to exit a trade.
Even the best lose money. In fact, it’s part of learning. Accept losses and get out of a bad trade before it becomes irreversible. The best traders lose, all of them. The difference is in learning from those mistakes and getting out of certain trades in time.
- The market moves
Perhaps the most important trader today is George Soros and he comments that: “The markets are really random and nobody knows where, when and how prices will move.The key is to be prepared”.
Living with market uncertainty is one of the prices to pay in negotiation. You must accept that you cannot have everything under control and in this uncertainty, you will have to operate coolly and follow a plan.
Lex Van Dam is a renowned trader who works for Goldman Sachs and points out that to succeed in trading: “I’d say it’s mostly common sense, but in a complex environment it’s easy to get lost along the way. I would say that in the long run, negotiation is win or lose because of the mindset.”
- Test and practice
Thanks to the accelerated technological progress we live in, more powerful and easy-to-use trading platforms and brokers are being developed more and more. Also, many of them have the possibility to create demo accounts. These demos are perfect for you to test your trading strategies risk-free.
Test and practice on the demo account. In addition to gaining experience, you can validate that your strategy is the right one and correct small details. It’s a sure way to gain confidence.
- keep your strategy
It’s kind of hard to stick to a good strategy and not get out of the way. The volatility of some assets or the market will test your strategy and you as a trader. Letting yourself be carried away by impulse or fear is a recurring mistake.
There are strategies that have worked very well for years. Find the one that best suits your trading style and, above all, the market and assets with which you operate. You can modify and adapt little by little as you gain experience.
If you trade binary options and cryptocurrencies, it doesn’t make much sense to use a long-term strategy. Taking into account the high volatility of cryptocurrencies and that binary operations tend to be very short-term, there are certain strategies that fit this type of investment.
- Atualize yourself
Professional trader Giancarlo Prisco said that “making a living from trading does not mean becoming a millionaire in a few years or receiving a monthly salary sitting at home in your pajamas”. Stay on top of what’s happening in the financial world and which elements can affect it.
There are several channels with very interesting valuable content to inform and update. Go from the general to the specific and look for the formats that suit you best, video, online or television news, podcasts, social networks, and specialized sites.
Before doing a good curation, pay attention to the credibility of the sources, especially on social networks. Unfortunately, there are many false gurus who cynically seek to sell you their trading course and line their pockets. However, other platforms and professionals are endorsed by his professional career.
- Analyze the errors
David Ryan is a noted trader who was the youngest vice president at William O’Neil & Co. He is also the author of the book How and When to Sell Stocks. And he tells in an interview that when he lost a lot of money: “I set out to study all the mistakes I made” and added: “The most important advice I can give someone is: learn from your mistakes, that’s the only way to become a successful trader”.
What Ryan said in his interview is complemented by what Giancarlo Prisco commented in a speech: “If a person wants to be a real trader, he must accept countless failures and live in eternal uncertainty”.
It can be difficult, but mistakes teach more than victories. They are part of the trader’s experience. You learn more by analyzing the motives and the context. Over time, you will make others, but you will minimize them with experience.
- Evolve with the markets
Markets change, it’s their nature and that’s why you will never be able to understand the market one hundred percent, as it is always evolving. The best position on this is flexibility to adapt.
According to Sergio Vargas, an experienced trading professional: “Each person is different and your trading must be adjusted to what each one is”. That is why it is interesting to constantly adjust the strategy and its way of operating.
We can add what Giancarlo Prisco said in an interview, “There is no absolute truth, but the ability of each trader to develop their skills to the maximum with the technique they prefer.”
- expect the worst
Professional trader Lex Van Dam expressed in an interview that the key is: “Avoid losses… and expect losses!”. Being pessimistic is not a negative in trading. It’s the best way not to be surprised by a sudden change or a decision error.
George Soros has a quote you can record. remember that you are wrong and the market is what is right. Therefore, within your trading plan, including a risk plan to contain potential losses. Just thinking like this will make them as less harmful as possible.
Within the loss, the contingency plan is the following advice to take into account, set limits.
- Set limits
You must be aware of the risks involved in trading. You have to think about how much can you lose in a trade. If you are going to trade daily, intraday and with little capital, the daily loss limit will be low.
Having a limit will help you to close losing trades and somehow prevent early mistakes. Without this element, it is easier to fall into a downward spiral that is difficult to resolve. A stop-loss order is essential.
You must also set a win limit. Depending on market volatility, a winning trade can turn around and generate losses or much less profit for not knowing how to close it in time.
It is about having a positive balance over time. Getting rich in seconds is like playing the lottery. Warren Buffet has a very good quote that says, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to lose it.” The same can happen to your capital if you don’t set limits.
- Be disciplined
Young and successful trader Matthew Caruso argues that: “Being disciplined is the most important part of success as a trader”. Along the same lines, negotiation expert David Ryen advises: “The more disciplined you are, the better you will do in the market.”
Discipline, applying the strategy and sticking to the plan are just a few tips that both professional traders and great investment leaders repeat like a mantra over and over again.
- Be patient
Being patient is one of the keys to financial success. Warren Buffett advises, “Don’t take annual results seriously, take 4-5 year averages seriously.” If one of the most influential investors in the world says so, it will have to be taken into account.
Max Pamies, on the other hand, is a professional trader who invests in cryptocurrencies and states that: “patience pays and even more so if you fully trust the projects you invest in”. Cryptocurrency volatility could have played a trick on them after the adjustment they are going through, but that didn’t happen thanks to patience.
If the strategy is good, it is sustainable over time. In the end, it’s about winning more and losing less. May the global balance serve so that you can make a living from trading and enjoy enviable freedom.
- Emotional control
Jorge Soros said: “Personal emotions have no place in investment”, and we may add another great phrase of his. “The simple objective of investing is to make money, not to be right all the time.” From this, you can deduce that self-control is crucial if you want to invest successfully.
Lex Van Dam, professor and trader at Goldman Sachs, noted in an interview that: “As much as knowledge and skills play a crucial role in trading and investing, you also need to develop mental toughness, which only comes with experience.”
We can also underline what Warren Buffet said. In this life, we only have one body and one mind. And only living by realizing this reality is that we can take care of ourselves outside and inside, reaching our goals without forgetting ourselves along the way.
- Study a lot
As a last tip and perhaps the most important, study. David Ryan agrees and explained the key to his commercial success: “After I learned it, I dedicated myself to studying and studying”.
For his part, professional trader Giancarlo Prisco emphasized that: “Study, study and study. We have to be active players when it comes to our savings, what it cost us sweat and effort to win”.
So you will need to read a lot and keep learning. Billionaire and philanthropist Warren Buffett spends about 6 hours a day reading. Nothing went wrong.
At the Traders Training Center, we have an action-based learning system, you can learn while trading. Our professors will guide you and provide the material for you to learn while investing. You can also ask any questions.
Do you dare? Take the leap into professional trading with the help of the Trader Training Center.