e trading tools
Rolf
The best traders are very efficient at what they do while most amateur traders do not follow a set trading
routine and have an inconsistent approach. Having an established routine is important and you can see it in
many other areas: before a pilot takes off, he has to go over the same 100+ points checklist every single time;
a surgeon has a very strict pre-surgery routine to follow and almost all professional athletes are religious about
their pre-game routine.
The benefits of a routine are that it minimizes mistakes especially unforced mistakes it allows you to add a
professional layer of consistency to your approach, it makes you super productive because you avoid
unnecessary tasks and it also calms you down because you know exactly what to do.
The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine. Mike Murdock
Indices: here I use a 4-split screen with the major indexes I pay attention to (the S&P 500, the DAX,
the Hang Seng and the Nikkei 225). Each morning, I first check what has happened during the
overnight session in Asia and how the Asian markets performed to get a general feeling for risk
appetite and investor sentiment more on that later.
Commodities: Again, I use a 4-split setup and track Gold, Crude Oil, Silver and the DJ Commodity
Index. Although I dont trade Commodities, it is important for me to see how certain commodities
behave; mainly the correlation of oil, AUD and CAD; and the connection of Gold for risk appetite and
safe-haven flows are interesting.
Commodity profile
Those two profiles are only used for the broader market analysis. The next profiles show the markets I trade
actively:
The Euro: the EUR/USD is among my most traded markets. On the left, I have the regular EUR/USD
chart open. On the right you can see the DXY (US Dollar Index) and the Euro futures. I use both for
additional information when forming trading ideas.
EUR/USD
profile
with
the
My next profiles look the same. I have one for the AUD/USD and a profile where I track the Forex
triad: USD/JPY, EUR/USD, and EUR/JPY.
Create
templates for your drawing tools
After you drew your first trendline, you can see the dialogue box on your screen. Under Template you can
create new templates or apply a specific template to a drawing tool. It really helps make your live much easier
and charting more efficient. This works with all other charting tools as well not only trendlines.
5 Create alerts
Not every trader uses multiple screens and to be honest, from my own
experience I know its not necessary if you know how to organize yourself. However, to make sure you dont
miss any important price behavior, you can and should use the alerts function in Tradingview.
You can see the general alert settings on the left. Again, you can fully customize the alerts to your needs. You
are not limited to price alerts only, but you can also create alerts based on moving averages, price channels or
%-price movements within specific time intervals.
Alerts at price levels do not necessarily signal a trade entry; price alerts are usually set at price levels
that could potentially signal a trade, but where some discretionary thinking is required. Thus, a price
alert should just draw your attention to a specific chart and should not be confused with a pending
order.
If you use support and resistance levels, you can simply click on the level on your chart and by clicking the
alarm clock in the dialogue box you can create an alert for that level.
Create
price alerts directly for your drawing tools
I highly encourage you to use alerts as often as you can to make sure you dont miss price moves.
1 Chart preparation
The evenings should offer enough time to sit down and perform a thorough market analysis. Go through your
charts one by one and analyze what you see. Update your levels, evaluate your indicators, perform a multiple
timeframe analysis and zoom out a little to get a better perspective.
you can usually see that support and resistance levels tend to break and dont hold. Whereas, during risk off
days, you typically get much more rational price behavior. Of course, thats just a very general and basic way
of looking at fundamentals, but it highlights the importance of following fundamentals.
Here is our list of sites we visit every day in the same order. Youll see that news often overlap since there is
only so much going on in the world. We read a mix of broad market news and some independent market
analyses:
Bloomberg.com/markets
Reuters markets
Market Pulse
Ashraf Laidi
Of course, we keep track of the news for that day. We use the Forexfactory news calendar and Nasdaqs
earnings calendar although we dont trade stocks, corporate earnings are a key driver for markets.
To make the process more effective, I bookmarked all sites and display the menu in my browser so that I can
just skip through the individual sites. To give you an idea, 30 45 minutes is really all you need to get a good
enough picture of what is going on.
Crude Crude is an important commodity for traders in almost all markets. Commodity currencies
(mainly AUD and CAD) have a high correlation to crude; energy stocks are even more correlated to
crude; consumer spending, inflation and other macro variables are affected by oil prices as well
DJ Commodity index a broad market measurement for the performance of a basket of commodities.
Especially important for Forex traders with exposure to the US-Dollar
Bonds
We just briefly take a look at the Bond developments as another clue regarding risk sentiment and risk
appetite. Unless there has been a major move, we dont pay much attention to it >> Finviz Bond overview
Every trading session should start with a brief review of your previous trading day. Its not necessary to get
too much into the details at this point, but you want to get an idea of where you are with your current trading:
Edgewonks trading journal comes with a lot of emotional trading analysis and the
Tiltmeter visualizes your current state of mind and how well you have been respecting your trading rules:
A red Tiltmeter shows that the trader has repeatedly made mistakes and broke his trading rules
A short look at your Tiltmeter can provide information about your current mindset and how well you have
been trading lately. If you notice a lot of emotional and behavioral problems, maybe you shouldnt trade for
that day and work on your mental game to sort out what is causing your problems.
Disclaimer: Tradeciety is behind Edgewonk.com
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. Abraham
Lincoln
Being stressed, bored or uncertain about what to do are clear indications that you havent done your
homework.
Did you make any mistakes or managed your trades in an inefficient way?
A complete performance review should be done over the weekend, but a short review of your trading day is a
must so that you can be aware of negative behavioral patterns or weaknesses in your trading immediately.