Setting and Forgetting Your Trades to Avoid Stress

Statistically, traders who trade in wider time frames such as the 4 hour, daily and weekly charts, hold their trades longer and make more money than traders who work on smaller intra-day charts do. This happens because there is the ability to set trades and walk away from them as opposed to sitting watching the screen and trying to micro-manage a market that is impossible to manage at all. The less time you spend trying to analyze the charts the more money you will make and make it faster. Attempting to work the perfect system is not possible and so it makes sense to find indicators that you understand or price action that looks promising. Set your trade, stop and limits order and then leave.

The only things you need to actually make money trading Forex is a written trading plan, including your money management rules and a chart set up that has been proven to make money. You then only have to spend less than an hour a day checking the market for possible trading opportunities. When one appears you place a trade, set your stop and conditional buy/sell order and go enjoy the day. Let the market do what it is going to do and enjoy life. Trading opportunities appear all the time, so missing one is not going to cause a significant loss. Looking for too many opportunities to trade is the fastest ways to lose your money.

Eventually all traders, who make a living trading, will avoid day trading and find this less stressful way of trading in order to continue enjoying what they do. By realizing that you cannot control the market, no matter how hard you try, you will find that longer time frame trading becomes easier and sets you up for positive trades and improved ability to read price action. The system you use to trade is the least important part of your trading strategy. As long as the setup gives you an edge then it all comes down to managing your money correctly.

The reason that "set it and forget it" trading is the best method is that you make your trades based on the logic of your trading edge and then remove yourself from the action. In this manner the emotion is removed. You know from your trading experience what your win/loss ration should be and you know what your profit on each trade is before you get started. So there are only two options, a win with a certain profit or a loss with a predetermined risk that you accept.

In conclusion, defining a setup pattern is important but not as important as having a consistent trading plan and allowing for that plan to work. Attempting to guide each and every trade encourages your emotions to take over and leads to mistakes and losses. Trading Forex is a skill that is best done with the patience of a saint, rather than a teenage boy on prom night. Learn to set and forget your trades, enjoy your life and make lots of money.

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