Introduction & Overview

You made a smart choice to start here. This page will be your home base as you go through each step of the process. Remember, learning to trade properly requires a process. This guide will help you develop that process so that you can make good decisions at each step. First, please watch the video from Coach Matt Justice to get an understanding of the 7 steps that we teach.

Download the E-Book

If you don’t have a copy of the 7-Step Guide to Trading then download the PDF by clicking on the button below. This is the e-book that our videos are built around and you will use it as you view them. They are designed to complement each other.

Lessons Overview

Step 1: Start at the Top of the Markets

The first step is to conduct a market analysis. This means that you need to survey the overall financial markets to get a read on what’s happening on the technical charts, in the news, and around the world. This is a top-down approach to the markets. The ultimate goal here is to develop an opinion – also called market posture – on where you believe the charts are pointing. Remember, any market can move up, down, or sideways, and depending on your overall opinion, you’ll choose to use certain strategies or techniques.

Step 2: Choose a Trading Strategy

The second step in Tackle Trading’s Guide to Trading is to choose a strategy. Traders have strategies. These can vary considerably in terms of scope, aversion to risk, and management style. It’s very important that before you pull the trigger and enter a trade or investment that you need to identify which strategy is best based on the market conditions, your analysis, your portfolio, and your personality.

Step 3: Find and Analyze Potential Trades

Once you choose a strategy that fits your investment objectives, you’ll need to find and analyze potential candidates to invest or trade with. So how do traders find opportunities? There are several methods that are tried and true.

Step 4: Plan the Trade

Good traders have a plan. They know what they’ll do – or to a high degree of certainty, what they’ll do – even before it happens. Planning is crucial for success in all areas of life, but it’s particularly important when dealing with investments.

Step 5: Place the Trade

Once you’ve gone through steps one through four of your process, then it’s time to place the trade in your account. There are several things that need to be in place for you to be able to do this, however. First, you need to have an account with capital in it to trade.

Step 6: Manage the Trade

In the morning, you wake up, get ready for the day, get in your car for your morning commute, and you turn the engine on. Now you have to drive. The driving is the most important part. When trading, you follow your processes, you enter the trade, and now you have to manage.

Step 7: Journal the Trade

The last step, once you’ve exited your position, is to log it into a journal and keep a record of how each trade has performed.

Summary & Review

After completing the initial training on the 7-Step Guide to Trading, it’s time to take a moment to review this summary of the entire process from start to finish. This will help you to commit all 7 steps to memory so that it is easier to recall them all in the right order now like a real pro.