Live Trading Checklist

[chump]

Given the thread title "First Steps". Would readers care to give those new to trading , or those simply researching the area some concrete/objective benchmark as to when they should consider themselves ready for live trading and please if possible give your reasons why to support your opinion.

The object is to give people a form of checklist to stop them 'jumping' in too early.

Cheers

 

[TheBramble]

1. You have a consistent win ratio.

2. (1) is more than 50%.

3. You have a Risk strategy of no more than 1% (cash) per trade.

4. You always have an entry and two exit criteria (stop and either target or trailing stop factor).

5. You know when YOU need to take a break from trading in relation to wins and losses.

6. You adhered to ALL your stops in the last 100 trades and you haven't switched timeframes.

7. You absolutely and instinctively know the correct answer to:- "Would you rather definitely lose £3000 or have a 95% chance of losing £3500?".

8. You have a part/full-time job and you're ready to trade as an add-on, not an immediate replacement for that job.

9. You know which is more important - letting profits run or cutting losses short.

10. You can afford to lose ALL your trading capital and not worry about it impacting any other aspect of your life.

 

[chump]

One of mine would be you should be able to verbalise ,or write a comprehensive trade plan encompassing all conditions / criteria that lead you to enter , manage and exit a trade.

If you can do that then I suspect you have already spent time developing your system and performing some form of testing on it be that back testing or paper trading.

Cheers