Futures Traders Practicing For Success

"Practice makes perfect," my mother used to say. It's as true of futures trading as of anything else. Before you put your hard-earned cash on the line, you need to practice trading if you want to succeed as a futures trader.

Making practice trades allows you to:

1. Test and fine-tune your trading system.
2. Learn to successfully pull the trigger.
3. Perfect your charting system.
4. Develop productive trading habits.
5. Practice self-discipline.

See if you have what it takes to be a futures trader.

That last item is very important. You can have the best system in the world but if you don't believe in yourself, if you don't believe in your system, if you don't have the passion to trade, no system in the world will make you a successful futures trader. Like I tell my students, successful futures trading is 90% attitude. Not everyone has the skill, passion, ability or discipline to succeed. Better to find out before you lose your money.

In my Futures Trading Secrets course, I recommend that students practice trading on the e-Mini with Sims Broker until they achieve a certain level of confidence and consistency in their trades. Practicing futures trading on paper is important before you attempt the real thing. Before you start trading with real money, you must develop the discipline to control your emotions and stick to your system. Plunking down cold, hard cash opens the door to greed and fear, which can submarine even the best system if not held in check. Practice will give you the skill, confidence and courage to succeed as a futures trader.

Practice trading should be as detailed and meticulously recorded as the real thing:

1. Log and study your profits and losses.
2. Look for patterns that indicate when you successfully pulled the trigger and when you failed.
3. Work to increase successful strategies and decrease unsuccessful ones.
4. Develop successful daily trading habits and routines.

Remember to practice the discipline to stick to the daily habits and routines even when you don't feel like it or they don't seem to be working. Discipline and routine are essential habits of the successful futures trader. Every trader loses sometimes. You have to have the discipline to follow your routine and have faith in your system even when you're losing, if you are to ultimately succeed.

You'll find this systematic approach true of successful athletes, businessmen, writers, dog trainers and, of course, futures traders. If you look at what makes a person successful, you'll discover that he or she has developed a specific routine and follows it religiously every day.

For instance, Tiger Woods doesn't plop the ball on the ground and flail away. He follows a regimented and very carefully practiced series of steps to give himself the best possibility of success. Following a pattern of behavior time after time has helped to make him the world's most successful golfer.

The routine is easy to see in dog training where each training module educates, reinforces, builds on success and leads to the next step. The trainer has broken into a series of steps the behavior he desires the dog to achieve. Before he can heel successfully, a dog learns to follow a series of necessary preliminary steps: sit, stay, start, stop, heel. With practice he learns to watch your left leg and move with it, starting and stopping as you do. In time, the behavior becomes so ingrained the verbal commands are no longer necessary.

My students say it with me: "One of the most important things you can do to improve your trading is to develop specific patterns of behavior."

Advertising Your Investment Property in a Slow Market

If the market is slow, you can still sell your estate if you make your listings and signs professional and tempting. Make sure that your flyer is intriguing and well put together as well. Even when the housing is market is slow, you can still be selling your investment property quickly, if you follow a few basic steps:

It's astounding how many listings have fuzzy photographs, unattractive pictures, or little or nodepiction. Make sure that your MLS listings are attractive and really chart the benefits and the charms of the house. Make sure that the pictures are crisp and reveal the best possible colors and angles. Use Photoshop on your pictures to delete any thrash from the front of the home, any fallen leaves, or any gray skies that happened to be there when you are taking your photo.

If you're having an open house, use directional signs on a main street. If your investment house is a little out of the way, you'll have to use dozens of signs in order to guide people from the closest main road all the way to the open house. Consider tying balloons to the sign on the road, or use vivid colors or large font to make sure that drivers see your sign.

Every hardware store retail pre-made for sale signs that allow you to merely write in a phone number. Elude using these signs. They look substandard and unprofessional. Instead, have your signs professionally made, and make sure that you get a solid metal framed sign that comes with a flyer holder. This allows you to put a small flyer for the property right in the sign. Even when you're not there having an open house, people can drop by and get out a flyer to take home with them.

Make sure that your flyer is full-color and includes high-resolution photos of the interior of the property. If you want your investment property to sell, make sure that the copy is very interesting and summarize all the benefits of the home. Allow your tenants or potential buyers to really imagine themselves residing in the property. Don't be anxious to use adjectives or to request people to imagine yourself sitting on the deck of this wonderful Victorian home. that is the sort of writing and the sort of description that will get people fascinated. Don't be afraid to let your traits shine through when writing your brochure.

Source: Advertising Your Investment Property in a Slow Market byRobert Thomson