It's amazing how many traders recognize the need to follow a trading plan, but don't structure their development along a training plan. It's like going to the gym and randomly working on various stations and weights. Are we really going to achieve an aerobic fitness integrated with our fitness of strength and flexibility? Notice how professional athletes invariably work with professional trainers. The goal is to get the most from each session--and to get the right things from each session.
Left to our own devices, are we truly going to test and push our limits? Will we even keep score and know if we're getting better?
A platform such as TradingSim allows a trader to replay a market bar by bar, track relevant indicators, make trading decisions, and see how those decisions work out--all without risking any money. It is a kind of gym where we can work on selecting the best opportunities, finding the best risk/reward entries, managing risk and positions, etc. This is especially helpful for day traders, who can practice identifying the kind of day we're in and figuring out how to best trade it.
Notice how this is practice in pattern recognition, but also practice in executing trading skills. We can track our simulation P/L and identify--specifically--the parts of our game that we need to work on. Maintaining a positive training psychology--coaching ourselves for progressive improvement--is key to maintaining a positive trading psychology. Through practice trading, we can practice the skills we need to coach ourselves to success.
How we learn determines how we perform.
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