In the previous three posts, I talked about distinct characteristics (principles) that may be necessary to help make us consistently profitable in technical, financial trading.

A process or a way that we can apply to any methodology, within reason. So, am I saying that the method or system by which we trade is secondary to some overarching principles? Yes, I am. The most significant of them being the trader’s psychology for which I’d highly recommend ‘Trading in the zone by Mark Douglas’.

I have chosen discipline, quantitative and discretionary as my trading hooks, my principles (and combined them with trading psychology). In other words, they are the platform to which I link my trading system.

Is a trading system not as important? When we start, we all look for a method first and are ignorant of the more critical needs of principles. I guess it would be like an athlete working tirelessly on technique but ignoring fitness.

Once I have my underlying principles sorted (my fitness), I can then more easily add systems as I need (technique).

More importantly, trading principles force us to be more selective about our system. The strict criteria of trading laws act as a standard for system selection and amendment; this is the same if we traded in price action, intraday currency pairings or was a gap trader of a daily equity chart.

P.S. For next month I’d like to discuss something that I’m working on at the moment, the need to combine both intuitive and systematic.

Instinctive is how most traders start and how we lose our money, often all of it! We learn that lesson and try again, but this time with a systematic approach, and if we do this well, we might not lose as much.

As a discretionary trader (i.e. not simply a systems trader) what I believe is necessary to tip the balance and propel us into creating a real trading account is a finely tuned and disciplined balance of both aspects. How to go about achieving this is something we’ll explore.