A few years my daughter was in kindergarten and was enrolled in a before and after school care while my son was in all day care at another location. One evening I picked one child up and when we got in the car my mind automatically shifted my driving to home instead of going to pick up the other child. Luckily, the mind glitch didn’t last long and I realized the noises coming from the back seat were not as loud as they typically were. At that moment, I remember thinking about how convenient it will be when they are finally in one drop off and pick up location. I imagined when that day would come. I calculated how many months, weeks and day until that day. Well, that moment came and for three goods years, no child was left behind. LOL! As moms, we hit that critical stage in life at one point or another when we have so much on our plate and wish we had ten versions of us around to get the job done. Better yet a robot to do all the work so we can go the spa day every day or be the like the characters in the movie Bad Moms!

Fortunately, when it comes to trading, having a robot to work for you when you otherwise don’t want to do the work can be done. Trade automation simply is having the ability to create an opening order where you define your entry, stop loss and target with one click, and your trading platform does the rest for you. I’ve heard the phrase “fire Wall Street and hire your broker” and essentially what that means is that once you’ve made the decision to take control of your investments, it doesn’t just end with replacing Mutual Funds for ETF’s.  If neither has no protection to the downside they will both lose money. Secondly, you do not want to make trading another job! Placing a trade without exit rules to get out when the price reaches your target for taking profit or a stop loss to get out if you are wrong creates unlimited gains but also unlimited losses. I don’t know about you but in the first few months as a new trader, I’d place my orders and once the orders got filled and switch back and forth gawking at the charts waiting for the stocks to move in my direction. Even though I had exit orders already in place I wanted to watch it happen live. Well, naturally what I did was make trading a 9:30am-4pm job. This continued for quite some time and I finally had a moment and realized that the reason we automate our trades is so that we can go out and do WHATEVER we want to do because the broker will handle the rest. I kept thinking what if the price gaps and my order doesn’t get filled? I then discovered that in addition to having entry and exit orders I could add alerts to let me know if the stock was approaching the support and resistance levels and also when my order was filled. This added indicator slowly allowed me to give up control and before I knew it, I longer had to sit and stare at the charts all day. This allowed me to go out and do other things with my time.

So it can’t be that easy, can it? Well, let me go over how I prepared for this week’s trades and let you be the judge.  After a wonderful 3-day basic training in Toronto this past weekend, I arrived home late Saturday night and did not get a chance to review the Options reports that are available to Tackle pro members in addition to the Forex, Stock and Commodities report from our great team of coaches. Sundays are my chill days and other than attending Church, I pretty much spend the day with family. Monday was a busy day so I just managed the trades I already had. On Tuesday, I got to watch the options reports and of the list of the bulls and bears, I chose one bull and prepared for the trade. I glanced at the chart and I identified my entry, stop loss and target. Next, I went to the option chain and found the expiration month and deltas for the strategy I was using and then placed the contingent order to get me in if the price was at or above the previous day high, the stop loss below support and target at last known resistance level and hit send. The order did not fill on Tuesday and I was ok with that. Whereas before and I’d be making all sorts of adjustments to make that order fill right away. See as a new trader you just want to hear the chime on your computer that the order has filled to feel like you have accomplished something so you start to bend the rules and make adjustments rather than just allow nature to take its course. As you become more and more seasoned, you will appreciate the TIF – Time in Force which is a tool that lets your broker know whether the order placed is just for the current day or GTC Good til Cancelled. My order was a GTC, which means that the order remains pending until I cancel it. Wednesday morning the markets opened and at 9:30, got an alert on my phone as I was driving that my order was filled. I did my little celebration dance and went on about my day. Naturally, I want to be right on the trade and make my profits but if I’m wrong, I already know how much I’m losing if the stock price goes against me because of my predefined automated exit strategy. I am happy to report that the stock I selected was GILD and a 3% ROI over one day is not too shabby if I do say so myself.  

Whether I decide to take some profits today or let it hit its target is another blog all in itself on managing trades. The point is that is that if your goal is to get out of the rat race and you’ve decided trading is your way out, spend more time on the education learning technical analysis and trading strategies, not the opposite which is entering a trade and having to look at the chart all day waiting for a miracle to happen. Automate your trades and make life easy. The great benefit being that you can apply this to whatever markets you choose to trade. In addition to my options trade, I’ve entered a trade every night this week on the EUR/USD currency pair all automated of course. I have found that the more I automate my trades the less emotion I have towards a particular stock. I’m more disciplined and consistent with my daily routines.  How you choose to run your trading business could be completely different from anyone else. For me, I decided early on that trading was going to be my business and I was not going to make it my job. Having a predefined entry and exit strategy and having your broker execute them, makes them the employee and me the business owner with time and freedom do what I want.