Balance
“Our most successful clients maintain a healthy relationship with the financial markets.”
Giles Watts, SVP & Regional Business Director, UK & EU
City Index
It is important to have periods of rest and reflection. We can’t expect to be performing in our top 90-percent at all times, you’ll just run on empty.
George Morgan, Club Nutritionist
Saracens
Why balance is key to trading success
It’s easy to see why mental fatigue sets in for so many traders, as they sustain a tremendous amount of focus every day. We examine how having better balance in your life can help improve your trading performance.
Trading burnout doesn’t happen overnight. It sets in after a long period of paying exhaustive attention to the markets, and can quickly ruin even a top-performing trader’s morale.
“It is important to have periods of rest and reflection. We can’t expect to be performing in our top 90-percent at all times, you’ll just run on empty.”
George Morgan, Club Nutritionist, Saracens
Why do traders feel the need to spend countless hours researching the markets or planning new strategies? Because important market developments are happening constantly. While markets can close, for many traders the opportunity cost of not being prepared for when it reopens is too great to ignore. A trader might think they could be more successful if they poured more time and effort into the markets. This narrow view of achieving success can be confused for being a determined trader.
However, our SVP & Regional Business Director, UK & EU, Giles Watts, explains that successful City Index clients “know when to step away from the market. Maintaining perspective and balance is vital to their success. They use risk management tools, taking the emotion out of their trades.”
Saracens Club Nutritionist, George Morgan agrees with this idea, adding, “it is important to have periods of breaks, rest, and reflection. We can’t expect to be performing in our top 90-percent at all times, you’ll just run on empty.”
Finding the right balance
A trader should also use tools to achieve a more balanced portfolio. If you decide to set yourself a guideline to stop after three consecutive losing trades, for example, our Performance Analytics tool will alert you in-platform. You can use our tool to set limits and targets to suit your trading plan – giving you the opportunity to step back and assess your trading decisions when you feel refreshed.
Balancing your trading strategy requires you to address areas you need to improve, and that means delving into the data. If you don’t have easy access to relevant data, you can’t work out where you are going wrong – which means you can’t improve.
“A trader needs to know how balanced they are at all times,” says Ann Hunt, CEO, Chasing Returns. “We have an interesting metric within our Performance Analytics tool: your discipline level for the day. If you’ve had a lapse in your strategy in the morning and have been breaking your own rules, you might see that your discipline level has dwindled from 100-percent to 60-percent when you return in the afternoon.”
With City Index’s exclusive Performance Analytics tool you can gain key insights into your trading performance with in-depth metrics. From details on your best performing markets to analysis on the success of your daily opening trades, you can quickly identify profitable habits. Collate your successful and underperforming trades, get a nudge to avoid a risky trade, or set an alert to warn when you’re about to hit your self-imposed limits – all within one easy-to-use tool.
Find the balance in your strategy – open an account today and start analysing your trading habits with Performance Analytics.
