Just like learning to speak another language or how to play the piano, day trading is a practice that requires a considerable amount of time in order to be successfully mastered. However, ‘putting in the hours’ alone is not enough to ensure success. Without a clear progression plan in place, you risk falling into a cycle where certain bad habits become engrained and you make the same mistakes over and over again. To help you avoid that trap, here are four ways to improve your day trading skills.

Improve Your Day Trading Skills

1. Practice day trading

If you want to refine your day trading skills, you need to be actively practicing. However, as we said earlier, your time needs to be as positive and productive as possible. First, you need to create a trading plan to enable you to track your progress. Once you’ve done this, you should focus on a single activity (entry points, stop loss, profit target etc) using a demo account. By focusing on a single aspect of your plan at a time, you’ll learn more quickly and easily what works well and consequently, what to avoid.

2. Review your day trades

Once your trading plan is in place, it’s important to carry out regular self-reviews to assess your progress. You should start by looking at how closely you followed your daily plans. Consider whether there were trades you were supposed to take but didn’t or ones where you failed to follow your exit plan – these are problems you need to reduce. At the end of each week or month, you should look through your charts for that period to identify areas of concern and improvement within your strategy itself. Ask yourself questions like, is there a certain time of day where I encounter more losses than wins? Did the price continue to move past my profit target on a regular basis?

3. Distance Learning

Can you think of a more effective way to up your trading skills than enrolling on an academic course specially designed to equip you with specialist skills? And if you choose distance learning, you’ll be able to do all of your study online, at the times that suit you and your lifestyle best. One of the best online institutions is Anglia Ruskin Distance Learning – its offering includes an enterprise-focused MBA which will give you a deeper insight into the way any type of business works, so you can develop your career with confidence.

4. Get help

Day trading requires a great amount of discipline, however, in such a high pressured situation, it’s easy for lapses in judgment to occur. Choosing a person who can hold you accountable for your trading is therefore a savvy idea. This person could be a fellow trader or simply a friend or family member. With a trading referee chosen, you’ll have someone who you can keep updated on your performance and who can help ensure that you remain focused on your plan and avoid unnecessary mistakes. Follow our advice and you’ll be well on your way to becoming a day trader