#TradingMistakes101 Trading without a plan

Trading plans should act as a blueprint during your time on the markets. They should contain a strategy, time commitments and the amount of capital that you are willing to invest.

After a bad day on the markets, traders could be tempted to scrap their plan. This is a mistake, because a trading plan should be the foundation for any new position. A bad trading day doesn’t mean that a plan is flawed, it simply means that the markets weren’t moving in the anticipated direction during that particular time period.

One way to keep a record of what worked and didn’t work for you is to have a trading diary. This would contain your successful and unsuccessful trades and the reasons why they were so. This can help you learn from your mistakes and make more informed decisions in the future.