Are You Looking To Trade The Markets With More
Confidence And Consistency?
Discover How Our Unique Personal Coaching Program Will Help You To Develop Your Ideal Trading Plan
And Give You The Discipline To Execute Every Trade According To Your Plan!
Every trader has just one goal: to consistently make money trading the markets.
And the formula is pretty simple. All you have to do is: (1) buy when the market is going up and sell when the market is going down; (2) use a profit target that's larger than your stop loss; and (3) use a strategy that only needs to be right 50% of the time. But just because its simple, doesn't mean it's easy. In fact, the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) reported that roughly 70% of traders lose money and another 18% are constantly around break even.
This means that only 12% of traders consistently make money. Why is that? And what do these traders have in common?
In order to better understand this question, I recently asked 35,000 traders what they felt were the biggest reasons for their inability to consistently make money. Over 6,300 traders responded and their comments can be categorized as follows:
- Lack of a trading plan
- Lack of discipline to follow the plan
- Failure to control emotions
- Failure to accept and limit losses
- Lack of commitment
- Over-trading
If you look closely at these six areas, you will notice that it all boils down to two key issues:
- Having a trading plan and
- Having the discipline to follow the plan.
And by addressing these two issues, traders will also have taken significant steps towards controlling their emotions, setting and obeying stop losses, and avoiding over trading.
Once you learn how to create a powerful trading plan and to execute the trades according to this plan, you will have an advantage over many other traders. And let's face it, it's not the bulls versus the bears that are fighting in the markets - it's the few disciplined traders who are trading their plans versus the majority of traders that are just gambling and trading on their emotions.
Why You Must Have A Trading Plan!
Most traders basically know that they need a plan. Without a plan they would be gambling and trading blind. We are not ware of any consistently profitable trader that does not have a a well thought out plan.
A solid trading plan tells you what to do and when. It tells you when to enter a trade, when to exit a trade, and when to stay out of the market. A trading plan outlines the setups you want to trade and when to use the most appropriate strategy. A trading plan also specifies the markets and time frames you will trade, and provides guidance on what your trade, risk, and money management strategies should be. In short, a trading plan is the blueprint for how you may become a confident and consistent trader.
By its nature, trading is a high risk activity. And traders who do not have a trading plan are taking an even greater risk when the enter the markets. These traders typically watch the markets and when they “feel” that there's a trading opportunity, they jump right in. Once in the market, they rely on their emotions (primarily fear and greed) to guide them and in many cases end up leaving a trade upset with themselves and the money they left on the table.
Most these traders are probably getting in and out of the market at the wrong time! They are either entering too late or too early into a market trend and once the trade is starts to move against them, they are not sure what to do. Since they don't want to experience a loss, they stay in the trade too long – hoping that the markets will turn around.
Once in a while these traders get lucky and the market moves in their direction. But then they don't know when to exit and either take profits too early or exit too late and sometimes even watch helplessly as a winning trade turns into a loser.
On the other hand, professional traders all have solid, well-tested trading plans and know exactly when to enter and exit the markets. No wonder they run circles around those traders that are just acting on impulse and emotion.
The True Power Of Trading Discipline
The second crucial key to building confidence and consistency in your trading activities is discipline. The best trading plan is useless if it is not followed. We have seen many traders spend countless hours developing and testing their trading plans, only to abandon them when the start trading with real money and emotions start to dictate their actions.
They sabotage themselves, but think that the trading plan is the culprit, not their lack of discipline. So they go back to the drawing board and start “fine-tuning” their plan. Or worse yet, start over again, spending more hours on the development and testing of a new plan, only to face the same old problem: in the heat of the action they “lose it” and start trading on emotions. This is a vicious cycle and can only be broken once the trader recognizes that the root cause of his problem is lack of discipline when implementing their trading plan.
If you don't have the discipline to trade your plan, you are no better than a trader who doesn't have a plan!
Having the discipline to follow your plan will allow you to take control of your emotions and reduce your stress level. Let's face it, trading can be stressful. After all, there's a lot of money on the line that can be made or lost in a matter of minutes.
And if you get stressed and don't control your emotions, you may “lose it” and blow out your trading account. I am sure you have heard about the “One Big Losing Trade” that stripped away all profits that were previously made and forced a trader to start all over.
If you lose money because you didn't follow your plan, you will get frustrated and mad at yourself. I don't know about you, but when I get mad at myself, I get really grumpy.
And this will also affect those around you. When you are frustrated, stressed and worried, you can't smile and laugh with your friends and loved ones.
On the other hand, once you learn to control and master your emotions, have a solid trading plan, and the discipline to execute the plan, you will feel empowered and in control. You will be calm and relaxed, because even if you experience losses, you know that this is just part of being a trader. You have your plan, and since you have tested it and have confidence in it, you also know that you can recover from any drawdown you might experience. As a result, you will be able to better enjoy your life and take pride in your accomplishments. After all, you will know better than most that trading is a marathon, not a sprint, and you're in it for the long haul.
And best of all, you will no longer be chasing the Holy Grail. You will no longer be distracted by shiny objects and hopping from one strategy to the next, constantly looking for greener pastures. You will also stop spending time, money, and effort on finding or developing “the perfect strategy” since you know it doesn't exist anyway. You are comfortable with your plan, with the results you are achieving, and the progress you are making.
In short, you are at peace with yourself and well on your way to becoming a confident and consistent trader!
What You Need To Know About Trading Plans and Trading Discipline
As you now know, a solid trading plan is the cornerstone of your trading business. Unfortunately many traders think that all they need is a trading strategy. This is not the case! Let me explain the difference between a trading strategy and a trading plan:
A trading strategy tells you when to enter and when to exit trades. A trading plan is more comprehensive than a trading strategy. A trading plan covers at least seven elements:
- The market(s) you want to trade
- The time frames you want to trade (e.g. 5 min, 10 min, tick charts, or range bars)
- A brief description of the strategies you want to trade and when to use each strategy
- The entry rules for each strategy
- The exit rules for each strategy
- Other important rules (e.g. when to trade and when not to trade)
- The money management approach you will use
We recommend that traders approach the markets with multiple trading strategies. Every professional trader uses more than one trading strategy for a very simple reason, trading strategies are either trend-following or trend-fading. Trend-following strategies work well in trending markets, but they do not perform well in sideways markets. Trend-fading strategies work best on sideways moving markets, but can be risky to use on trending markets. Bottom line, you can't trade one strategy all the time! When the markets are trending, you need to use a trend-following strategy, and when they are going sideways, you need to use a trend-fading strategy.
For example, here's the decision making process our CEO, Markus Heitkoetter goes through when determining what strategy to use:
- Whenever he can, Markus uses the Simple Strategy, which is a trend-following strategy. When the markets are trending, this is his trading strategy of choice, since he can use a larger profit target than stop loss. Typically, trend-following strategies are more rewarding than trend-fading or scalping strategies, and that's why this strategy is his first choice.
- When the markets are moving sideways, he likes using the Ping Pong Strategy, since this strategy is perfect for range bound markets that are not trending.
- If Markus missed an early entry into a trending market, he will use the Boomerang Strategy to catch the tail-end of a trend. Typically, you will see that when a market starts to trend, it will retrace and after a short pause, continue to move in the direction of the trend. The Boomerang Strategy takes advantage of these situations.
- In the beginning of the trading day and during "transitions" Markus likes to use the Seahawk Strategy. This strategy is a scalping strategy and as such, the average profit per trade is rather low, but he loves trading this strategy when he can't use any of his other strategies. For example, the markets often try to find a direction in the first 5-10 minutes of the trading day. During this time it is hard to tell if the markets will trend or go sideways, so Markus uses the Seahawk Strategy to try to get a couple of quick trades while the markets are trying to make up their mind.
When we conducted our Day Trading Workshop last July, Markus explained in detail, when he uses each strategy. The traders that attended could see how he changed from Seahawk to Simple Strategy, back to Seahawk and then took Ping Pong trades. Our Head Coach, Mark Hodge, shared how he uses the Bollinger Bands and "2-bar retracements" to determine which strategy to trade. Our Trading Room moderator, Brian Larson, demonstrated how he uses trend lines and Fibonacci levels to determine when to take Ping Pong trades.
You see, every trader is different. Even here at Rockwell Trading, where we all use the same strategies, we each have our set of rules on when we like to use each strategy. And that's the main purpose of a trading plan: define which trading strategies you will trade and when. Take a look at my trading plan to get some ideas. And then start writing your own trading plan. A trading plan is something very personal. It's something that should fit your trading personality and style. Something that you must be comfortable with, since you will be trading it every day!
What Exactly Is Trading Discipline?
Trading discipline as the “ability to follow your trading plan as closely as possible.”
What does this mean?
Let me give you an example. To build a house, you first start with a blueprint. While building th e house you follow the blueprint as closely as possible to get a house that looks like the one that you designed. But as you know, reality is different than theory. In the blueprint a room is planned to be exactly 20 feet long and 15 feet wide, but in reality it's 20 feet and 2 inches long and 14 feet and 11 inches wide. When this happens, nobody would tear the house down because of these small variances.
The same applies to trading. If your plan tells you not to trade 5 minutes before and after a report, but you see that prices are still crazy 6 minutes after the report has been released, you just wait another minute or two for things to calm down.
Think about it this way. If somebody looked at your trading plan and the trades you executed, what would they say? Would they say, “yes, these trades are according to the plan?” Or would they say “I have no idea what is being traded here.”
And what would you say? When looking back at your trades at the end of the day, would you say that you followed your plan? And don't make this more complicated than it needs to be. The answer should be a simple “yes” or “no.” If you say “sort of”, it's a no. Most traders know exactly when they are following their plan or when they are not, so this should be an easy question to answer.
Disciplined Traders Are Better Traders
Having a plan and following it can make you a better trader, and here's why:
- When you have a plan you know what to do. You know what markets to trade, what timeframes to use, when to enter, when to exit, how much to risk and when to stay out of the markets. So this takes the guess work out of trading. You won't bounce all over the place any more, since you know what to focus on. You won't chase markets and trading opportunities, instead you are laser-focused on the markets and strategies you have defined.
- It reduces stress and here's how. Stress is caused by the decisions you make. People worry about the consequences of their decisions, and therefore often delay a decision. Which in turn causes more stress, because they know that they have to make a decision. And the clock is ticking. Same in trading. Especially day trading where you need to make a split second decision on whether to enter into a trade or not. And if you worry about this decision too much, it may become too late to enter and you just watch as another winning trade passes you by. This will cause even more stress and will make your next decision that more difficult. Having a plan and following it reduces this stress, since you will know exactly what to do while trading.
- It helps you deal with emotions. As discussed in the previous paragraph, watching the markets can cause stress for many traders, but once they are in the trade, their emotions go crazy, because now real money is on the line. And it seems that they also get more nervous with every second they are in a trade. They wonder if they should take profits or if it is too early. And when a trade is going against them, they wonder if they should give the trade “a little bit more room” or exit with a loss. I have watched many traders and seen first hand how they start to breath faster, start sweating to the point where I thought I might have to give them a paper bag to breathe into. If you ever watched me trade, one thing you would notice is that I am as cool as a cucumber. This is because I know exactly when I will exit a trade - even before I enter it. In fact, I use the bracket order function on my trading platform and put my trades on auto-pilot after I make my entry. In other words, as soon as my entry order gets filled, my platform automatically enters a stop loss and a profit target for me. At this point I just sit back and wait to see what happens. If the trade works out, I'm happy, but not overly so. I just smile and am thankful that the market gave me some money. If the trade goes against me, I don't get sad or angry. I know that losses are part of the business move on. I need to be focused and ready for the next trading opportunity. No time for emotions!
- Having a Personal Trading Plan means that you have created a Business Plan for how you will conduct your trading business. You will have built it from the ground up and thoroughly tested it to the point that you have confidence in what results you should generate. In short, you will believe in your plan and by extension, have developed the discipline to follow it. This did not happen overnight - it took hard work. Before committing real money to the markets, you will have extensively tested your plan and achieved satisfactory results. Now, all you have to do is execute your plan. You should not have to analyze every trade. And when day trading, you don't have time for this anyway. No more “what-if scenarios” will weigh down your decision making process. Your plan takes care of all of this and all you have to do is follow it. This is your plan and no one else's. You created it, understand it inside and out, and know that it works for you. Its just like taking the time to plan out a trip. If you do this before you even get in the car, the trip will be easier, more enjoyable, and you will have fewer surprises along the way. Wouldn't you agree?
10 Steps To Developing A Trading Plan & The Discipline To Follow It
The following 10 Steps are a very structured approach for taking you from where you are today, to where you want to be. And it doesn't matter whether you are absolutely new to trading or have already been trading for a while. Follow these 10 steps in this exact order, and we promise that when you are finished, you will have a trading plan you are comfortable with and have the confidence to use every time without fail.
Step 1: Decide What Kind Of Trader You Want To Be
Do you want to be a day trader, or a swing trader? And what markets do you want to trade? Futures, Forex, Stocks, or Options? This is an extremely important decision, since all other steps depend on this decision. This decision shouldn't be too difficult, because each trading style and each market has advantages and disadvantages. And you have to consider your restrictions (e.g. you can not be a day trader if you don't have time to watch the markets throughout the day).
But if you want, we can make it easy for you!
Our coaches have nearly 40 years combined experience trading everything: Stocks, ETFs, Forex, Options and Futures. And we have traded on many time frames: tick charts, 1 min, 3 min, 5 min, 10 min, 15 min, 30 min, 60 min, daily, weekly and even monthly. Since 2002, our primary focus has been on day trading futures, and it works great for us. So if you are unsure what to do, follow our lead and start with day trading futures.
In our Personal Coaching Program, your coach will help you to get started on the right foot and together with all the materials we have prepared for this program, you will learn everything you need to know to become the day trader you want to be.
Step 2: Find The Perfect Trading Strategy
By now you should know that your trading plan must consists of multiple trading strategies. They are an essential part of your trading plan and to feel comfortable with your trading plan, you must be comfortable with the strategies that you include in your plan.
In our Personal Coaching Program we will teach you four tested and proven trading strategies:
- The Simple Strategy (trend-following)
- The Boomerang Strategy (trend-following)
- The Ping Pong Strategy (trend-fading)
- The Seahawk Strategy (trend- fading)
These four strategies will allow you to trade in any market condition.
Step 3: Select Charting Software And A Trading Platform
You need charting software and a trading platform that supports your trading strategies and gives you an edge when competing against other day traders.
Over the years, we have researched and used many different platforms, and as a coaching student you will get access to the same tools and software programs that we use here at Rockwell Trading. The charting software and trading platform we use are top-of-the-line, and they come pre-configured for our strategies so that you don't have to mess around with any configuration or programming.
Step 4: Practice The Strategy
This step is absolutely crucial for developing the confidence you need.
You must practice your trading strategy for two reasons:
- You need to make sure that this strategy actually works for you. Never trust anyone else's performance report. These performance reports typically come with a bunch of disclaimers and many of them are pure fiction anyhow. You need to put any strategy you plan to use to the test. You need to make sure that you understand the rules and prove to yourself that the strategy will make money for you!
- Once you test a strategy for yourself and prove that it makes money for you, then and only then will you become comfortable with this strategy. You will know what to expect from the strategy, its winning percentage, its profit factor, draw-down potential, winning and losing streaks and other important factors. You will see how the strategy generates profitable trades You will learn how to get out of a draw-down after a few losing trades. This will make you confident trading this strategy. And when you are confident, it will be much easier for you to follow the strategy and execute trades.
Here's what we do in our Personal Coaching Program:
- On Day 1 we ask you to practice our scalping strategy “The Seahawk Strategy” on the e-mini S&P for at least 2 hours using the charts and simulator we provide.
- On Day 2 you will practice our trend-fading strategy “The Ping Pong Strategy” on the e-mini S&P for at least 2 hours.
- On Day 3 you will practice the Ping Pong Strategy on the Euro FX for at least 2 hours in the live markets.
- On Day 4 you will practice the Seahawk Strategy on 30-year Bonds for at least 2 hours.
- On Day 5 you will practice either the Seahawk or Ping Pong Strategy on a market of your choice.
- On Day 6 and Day 7 we ask you to trade the Simple and Boomerang Strategy on four markets (ES, YM, ZB and 6E) using the simulator.
You will record all your trades in special trading logs we provide and your trading coach evaluates these on a daily basis. Every week you will have a coaching call to discuss their trading logs. The goal of this first couple of weeks is to find trading strategies and markets you are most comfortable with.
Obviously, you will have an advantage when working with a coach who is evaluating your trading logs and can quickly point out mistakes and trouble spots. As a result, the time and effort to find and select appropriate strategies is shortened significantly.
Step 5: Learn Chart Reading To Improve The Performance Of Your Trading Strategy
When practicing and testing a trading strategy, you might have noticed that there a times when the strategy performs well and times when you get stopped out more frequently.
No surprise!
Usually a trading strategy is either a trend-following or a trend-fading strategy. A trend-following strategy works well in trending markets and will produce a higher than normal number of losses in a sideways markets. And a trend-fading strategy will produce great results in a sideways markets, but does not perform very well in a trending market. Most traders make a big mistake by usingone strategy all the time. But since the markets change from “trending” to “moving sideways” , trading only one strategy won't produce the results you need. So, you must learn to read charts and identify the direction of the market, before determining which strategy may be best to use: a trend-following strategy in a trending market and a trend-fading strategy in a sideways moving market.
Learning how to read a chart is one of the most important tasks for a trader, and it's not as difficult as you might think.
In our Personal Coaching Program we teach you chart reading in five days. It's not rocket science and you don't have to be right 100% of the time. At this point you should only get it right most of the time. Practice makes perfect, and over time you will get better. Here's exactly what we do:
- Day 8: Watch the videos “How To Identify The Direction Of The Market” (included in our Personal Coaching Program)
- Day 9 and 10: Practice identifying sideways markets and use the Ping Pong Strategy in this market condition.
- Day 11 and 12: Determine the direction of all four markets (ES, YM, ZB and G6E) and practice the appropriate trading strategy based on the condition of the market.
And of course you will submit your trading logs daily for evaluation and possible correction with your personal trading coach and have weekly coaching calls to ensure that everything is on track.
Before we move to the next step, your trading coach will ask you to do two more tasks:
- Day 13 and 14: Practice your least favorite trading strategy.
By assigning this task we push you out of their comfort zone. Your coach will pick a strategy that you don't like and ask you to practice it again for two days. We often see that a strategy that was initially discarded turns out to become a new favorite strategy. It's always good to leave your comfort zone from time to time and try something new and challenging!
- Day 15: Create a rough draft of your trading plan and discuss it with your coach
Since every week has five trading days, you will have a rough draft of their trading plan after only three weeks.
In our Personal Coaching Program we now take another two weeks (Day 16 – 25) and ask you to trade this initial plan on the simulator. Every day you submit your trading logs to your coach for evaluation, and every week you will have a coaching call with our trading coaches.
Based on this feedback we refine your trading plans and add, delete or modify trading strategies and/or markets on a case-by-case basis.
Step 6: Understand Money Management
Trade, risk and money management are the other important elements of your trading plan.
Money Management is the key area where many traders fail. Ralph Vince has proven in an experiment that without proper money management you can lose money despite having a profitable trading strategy. Let me say this again, you can lose money even ifyou have a profitable trading strategy!
It is important that you understand the basics of Money Management, since a good understanding of Money Management and its correct implementation can make or break you as a trader.
In our Personal Coaching Program we will cover this topic efficiently in only two days, since we have already preselected a Money Management Technique that we think is best, along with the proper parameters.
Here's what we ask you to do:
- Day 26: Watch the video about “Fixed Ratio Money Management” and practice it using the Seahawk Strategy and a $50 delta.
- Day 27: Practice “Fixed Ratio Money Management” using the Seahawk Strategy and a $150 delta. Experience the differen ce and determine the best delta for your comfort level together with your coach.
Step 7: Write Your Trading Plan
Now you have all the elements to build your trading plan:
- You know what kind of trader you want to be
- You know the markets you want to trade
- You have selected and tested strategies that you are comfortable with
- You have learned how to read a chart and know when to use each strategy
- You have a basic understanding of Money Management
Just take all these elements and put together your first draft of a trading plan. This is actually one of the quickest steps since we have already done all the prep work in the previous weeks.
Here's what we ask you to do in our Personal Coaching Program:
- Day 28: Complete your trading plan. Incorporate Money Management and all changes and modifications that you discussed with your coach in the previous weeks.
In our Personal Coaching Program we use software called the “Trading Plan Generator” that allows our students to create their own trading plan in less than 1 hour. Over the previous few weeks, coaches have carefully monitored your trading logs and discussed various aspects of trading in the weekly coaching calls. As a result, you typically have a personal trading plan you are comfortable with after only 6 weeks.
Step 8: Execute Your Trading Plan On A Simulated Account
Now that you have your trading plan, it's time to develop the discipline to follow the plan.
Therefore, for the next three weeks, we ask you to execute your trading plan on a simulated account:
- Day 31- 45: Trade your plan using the simulator we have provided and submit trading logs daily to your trading coach.
Working with a coach most of our students have the needed discipline after 3 weeks.
Step 9: Execute Your Plan On A Real Account
If you traded your trading plan successfully on a simulator, it's time to move to a real trading account. You can't buy anything with your paper trading profits, so eventually you will need to start trading with real money.
We want to make this transition as easy as possible, and therefore in our Personal Coaching Program our students trade at least twice with their trading coach. It's like trading with a safety net, since the coach can interfere if you aren't following their plan or are starting to “lose it.”
And believe me, trading with a coach gives you tremendous confidence and makes it much easier for you to start trading on your own.
As you can see, you will have developed your personal trading plan and the discipline to trade your plan in less than 9 weeks. At the end of our 9-Week Personal Coaching Program you have developed confidence in your own personal trading plan and the discipline to follow this plan.
As a result, most of our students confidently move to the last step:
Step 10: Use Money Management To Grow Your Trading Account
Once you have proven to yourself that you can follow your trading plan and have been able to consistently make real money trading small lot sizes, you are ready to start growing your account. At this point it doesn't matter if you are only making $100 per week. What's more important is that you are consistently profitable. This is the key to letting money management grow your trading account. As you have learned in step 6, money management can be a turbo-boost for your trading activities, if applied correctly. Use leverage responsibly and you will be surprised by the results.
Here's What You Get With Our Personal Coaching Program
A comprehensive 9-week program that will teach you how to build your own trading plan and confidently implement it in a live trading environment:
- Decide what kind of trader you want to be
- Find the perfect trading strategy
- Select charting software and a trading platform
- Practice the strategies
- Learn chart reading to improve the performance of your trading strategies
- Understand money management
- Write your trading plan
- Execute your trading plan on a simulated account
- Execute your trading plan on a real account
- Use money management to grow your trading account
Personal guidance and mentoring from your own dedicated trading coach:
- Initial trader assessment and goal setting session
- Daily review of your trading log and focus sheet
- Weekly coaching call to assess progress and discuss possible corrective actions
- Two private live trading sessions with your coach
Complete access to all seven Rockwell Trading Home Study Courses:
- Introduction To Day Trading
- Day Trading Home Study Course
- Day Trading Strategies
- Money Management
- Can You Make A Living Day Trading
- Developing A Trading Strategy
- Day Trading Workshop
Specially designed course materials and resouces including:
- Welcome Guide
- Course Outline
- Daily Focus Sheet
- Quick Start Guide
- Trading Log
- Long Term Planning Guide
- Trading Plan Generator
- Daily and weekly refresher videos
Post program support for 30 days following the completion of the Personal Coach Program:
- Weekly trading log review from your coach
- Access to our special monthly 2-day live trading session
- Lifetime access to our restricted Personal Coaching Program Traders Forum
Sound Interesting?
We think so! We also think this is the most comprehensive Personal Coaching Program in the Trading Industry. We frankly don't know of any other way to quickly and efficiently get a trader to the point that they can confidently and consistently trade the markets. In just 9 weeks, each of our Personal Coaching Students is taught and drilled on how to: (1) determine the direction the market is moving in; (2) select the most appropriate strategy for the market condition; and (3) how to use trade, risk, and money management to protect and grow their trading account.
How Much Does The Personal Coaching Program Cost?
The cost to enroll in the Rockwell Trading Personal Coaching Program is $3,997. This is an all inclusive price and covers all the services, materials, resources, and support necessary to complete the 9 week Personal Coaching Program and 30 day Post Program Support Services.
Give us a call or send us an email if you would like to discuss this program in further detail and speak with one of our trading coaches. We have a limited number of seats available each month, so we recommend that you contact us as soon as you can to see if our Personal Coaching Program is right for you.
