The Trend Following Bible: How Professional Traders Compound Wealth and Manage Risk

CHAPTER 6

Your Complete Robust Trading Plan

Should I enter this trade?

Should I wait?

I made some money; should I take it?

I think the market will come back; I am not going to exit now with my loss!

I am sure the market will continue rising!

Shoot … What do I do now?

A trader with a complete robust trading plan will not ever say—or even think—these questions or statements. You MUST have a solid trading strategy. Having a trading strategy is probably the single most important thing you can do in order to succeed with trading. Having a trading strategy means having a predefined set of rules that you have developed or accepted for your trading. It means knowing what you're doing instead of just gambling. Too many people start off trading without a strategy, which means that they're completely unprepared.

When you have a complete, well-thought-out trading plan, you mitigate the emotional roller-coaster.

You will know exactly what you need to do! It is your job to follow the plan. If you can't follow the plan, I strongly suggest you do not start trading.

First, I want to be very clear that this is exactly how I approach trend following. It is not magic in any way whatsoever. It simply appeals to me as well as many others. There are other ways to trend follow besides the breakout and retracement strategies that I use. My goal is to share with you exactly what I do every workday. When a market does trend, various methodologies can work such as moving average crossovers, Bollinger breakouts, ...