Overview
Nick's Trading Plan
When it comes to trading, you need an edge. To develop an edge, you need a plan that you have diligently put time and effort into in order to find what works in your backtesting, forward testing, and most importantly, with your psychology.
In my opinion there is no universal “easy” approach to trading and investing that yields tremendous returns, outside of the strategy that you develop through hard work and years of experience. This strategy is not intended to be a “strategy for all”, but rather a strategy I have poured many hours of work into developing, and have found comfortable and successful in my years of trading.
With that said, please do not take anything here as investment advice. Remember that all trading involves a substantial risk of loss, and is not suitable for all investors.
With that said, here is my trading strategy in full. Below I have broken down my trading plan by category.
1. The Idea
2. Risk Management
3. Psychology
4. Entries
5. Exits
6. The Truth
The Idea
I believe in technical analysis, as well as fundamental analysis. That being said, there is nothing easy about trading, and no indicator, pattern, or news data will be perfect at predicting market moves. The idea that there is a perfect entry point is something I dropped long ago, during my years of backtesting and programming trading systems.
What I found, with the help of my college degree in software developing, is that markets are not so predictable. Market direction is not easily identifiable, and predicting is a tough game to play. That being said, I believe it is possible to make predictions with a slight e dge. And that’s all I need.
I believe that price action is the most effective method for my trading, as it is a direct reflection of market participants placing buys or sells in the market. By watching the way price moves, finding supply & demand zones, and playing trends, I think there is room for the retail trader at the bank table.
After my time studying, I realized that all the hype on social media was entirely nonsense. Those people claiming to be market gods were not, they were just showing their best moments. Accepting losses and treating this as a business was the only way forward.
My trading is not fun, it’s not shiny, it’s not life changing gains every week. It’s slow, sometimes boring, and most importantly; steady.
If you’ve joined my companies’ VIP community looking for easy signals that would make you rich quick, you’ve come to the wrong place! That’s not what we are about, and I believe blindly copying signals is a waste of time, and I’d rather just put my money in a long term bond or ETF. We are about sharing ideas, discussing with the rest of our trading family, and putting in the work together to be successful in our passion for markets.
I’m wrong about the markets at times, and other times I am spot on. As long as I can be slightly more right than wrong, I can make money. If a new trader does not understand this, and does not put in the work to learn for themselves, I do not believe they will be profitable.
Risk Management
Risk management is the “holy grail” in trading, in my opinion. This involves no longer asking yourself “how much can I make” but rather, “what will I do to avoid losing money”. Priority #1? Protect capital.
There is an endless debate about stop losses. Some people argue you should never trade without one, while others say the banks use them to steal your money before reversing the market. Regardless of your opinion on stop losses, I’ll ask you to consider this:
Remember when I said at the beginning that each trader must find what works for them? Well I meant EVERY component of trading, especially risk management. I know traders who have been very successful WITH and WITHOUT stop losses on their trades. The reason I believe this subject is so controversial is because it is not a necessity one way or the other, but a subjective preference!
If you want to hear more on this subject, watch my full video on it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCv3BHzz28o&t=256s
In my own trading, I use a collection of different strategies across my overall portfolio; each of which I have spent many many hours working on. In some strategies I use a stop loss, but in this particular swing trading strategy, I do not use one. **gasp**
So if I don’t have a stop loss on my trades, how do I manage risk? A pretty astute question, indeed.
Risk management is not solely using a stop loss, in my opinion. That being said, whenever I send a trade alert in the VIP group our company offers, I share an optional stop loss idea, in case someone insists on using one and would like to hear my thoughts. (again, nothing wrong with stop losses in my opinion!)
There are multiple ways to manage risk outside of a stop loss, and I’ll share a few.
- Small positions
- Max equity drawdown stop outs
- Mental stops + reading price action
Small positions are everything, in my experience. This is the holy grail of trading for me, the ultimate difference between success and failure. It isn’t magical, or a money printing machine, but maybe instead a money saving machine! Risk management is as much of a technical skill as a discipline, as many traders struggle with putting on big positions out of greed, which can blow up accounts fast.
So what is a small position? In my opinion it depends what you are doing. Are you trading short term, where market moves will be significantly smaller? Or are you trading longer term charts and looking for bigger moves? As a general rule of thumb, for small moves I would consider 0.01-0.10 per $1000 in an account to be small. For bigger moves, I would consider 0.01-0.05 per $1000 in an account to be small.
So for example, if I had $5000 in an account and I am swing trading, the following situation would be OK by my rules:
- 3 x 0.02 lot size positions open
- OR 5 x 0.01 lot size positions open
- OR 2 x 0.04 lot size positions open
Just as some theoretical examples.
Max equity drawdown stop outs are a simple concept, that mentally keeps things under control when they go bad. At what percent drawdown will you cut a loser, if it goes bad? Well in my own case, a 40% drawdown would cause me to close out all positions, and to reevaluate things. Fortunately, with small positions this would take a catastrophic situation to reach, and is very rare and unlikely. That being said, it is always important to plan for any situation, as these are the markets after all.
Mental stops are a tricky topic, as it requires discipline. I definitely do not necessarily recommend this for everyone, as it can be tough for traders to mentally stay focused when under a bad position. For me, this often involves reading into the price action of a trade gone bad, and adjusting my position or closing it if necessary, based on price action technical analysis I do on a daily basis.
So in my own trading, this is generally what I stick to. There is a little bit of wiggle room and my rules are not necessarily law, but as a general practice I keep to these position sizes. The downside to small positions is that it drastically reduces your upside potential, if you are looking for fast gains. But it keeps things mostly under control, and over time scaling small gains is one of the most powerful things in trading.
The final category of my risk management approach is a bit different than what one might expect. I have a plan for DEPOSITING into my trading account over time, rather than withdrawing constantly. The power of trading is not short term, but long term. With a winning strategy, compounding your gains can exponentially increase your account.
Personally, I do not share exactly how much I have for trading capital. This is not a super important detail to share with the world in my opinion, as it can make you a potential target to jealous people, or come across as arrogant. I will say however, that I try to keep approximately 20-40% of my net worth in my trading accounts, while dispersing the rest in other places/investments. Like many people, I personally have other sources of income (my business, youtube channel, software services, etc), I make an effort to make deposits into m y trading/investing accounts every month or so.
Psychology
Trading psychology is the most overlooked component of trading success, yet one of the most important pieces to trading success. If you are a person that struggles with arrogance/ego, jealousy, laziness, etc, it will show up in your bottom line as a trader. I interact with thousands of traders around the world, and it’s
usually the people with character and kindness that end up successful. NOT the people who give up easy, want it handed to them on a silver platter, or are impatient. I don’t mean for this to come across harsh, but this is the reality of why 90% or more of traders fail in the end.
The forex market is displayed as an easy way to make big money from home. It is not the case! It is a business, full of suit and tie workers all over the world in major institutions. To be a professional, you need to act professional. For me, there are some steps to take to improve in this area that I’ll share from my own failures and growth.
- Take walks: If I feel frustrated or impatient, I have to move away from my charts. Otherwise, bad things happen!
- Stop trading for the day if you take a few losses. For me, if I take 3 losses in a day, I’m done. This causes my psychology to get out of focus. I’ll go play video games or something :)
- If you can’t sleep, your position size is too big or you don’t trust your plan.
- Plan your trade, and trade your plan. (If you don’t have a plan, you don’t have anything!)
Entries
If you skipped the rest of this trading plan to just read the entries, then you just missed so many more important things above. Please read them first!
That being said, entries are overhyped in my opinion. Getting the “perfect entry strategy” is something that I obsessed about for way too long as a new trader. Regardless, entries are still important in my opinion, but not the only thing that matters.
My trades are not all the exact same. Generally speaking, I am looking for levels of oversold or overbought conditions where I think there is more potential reward than risk. My favorite setups are often pullbacks in favor of a trend, or reversals in a range bound market. Here is my general approach to finding an entry to my trades:
Technical confluence: I like to combine things like support & resistance, fibonacci levels, moving averages, candlestick patterns, technical patterns or other major technical reasons for entering a position. Check the example below, which combined a support level + fib retracement to the 50%:
Technical confluence: I like to combine things like support & resistance, fibonacci levels, moving averages, candlestick patterns, technical patterns or other major technical reasons for entering a position. Check the example below, which combined a support level + fib retracement to the 50%:
Fundamental bias: I will usually keep in mind a fundamental bais. For example, I was predominantly short on EURUSD through 2019 based on the fed strengthening the dollar.
Long term trends: I love following the long term direction of a chart. On most trades, I stick to the direction of the 200 day simple moving average. This allows me to follow along with where major money is biased, and ride some of the bigger moves in the currency market.
Additionally at times, I will enter my trades in pieces. What that means is that perhaps I identify two or three levels of interest where I’d like to get short on a market. If price hits the first level, and heads up to my second entry, I may be interested in picking up a secondary position. This is another perk of keeping positions small, as it allows me to adjust my trade if I decide to do so. When I add to a trade, I do so very conservatively, as this can be dangerous if done without caution.
Exits
So once I’m in a trade, how do I get out? Well for me, it’s usually the same reason as my entries! Looking for price action or technicals to get me out of the trade, whether I’m right or wrong. If I am right, price will usually head to a target area such as a major structural support or resistance level, or a return to a significant moving average. If I am wrong, I will work with a position and close it using one of the risk management methods mentioned in the risk management section. I will recap them below, for convenience:
- Small positions
- Max equity drawdown stop outs
- Mental stops + reading price action
The Truth
Nothing about trading is easy. Every person’s trading journey is unique, and sadly most will not make it to profitability before quitting. I believe it is possible to make it in the markets, as I have spent a significant portion of my life getting to that point in my own journey. The ones who are most likely to make it will take the time to write a plan like this for themselves, and take bits of information from their mentors, but not look for easy answers. I hope that the one thing you get from my trading plan is the importance of being dedicated to your craft as a trader, and putting in the hard work required. The markets are a dangerous, exciting, and sometimes even profitable place to the ones who really go the full distance and do what it takes. Thank you for reading, and I wish you the best of luck in your trading journey!
