Adulting comes with the glory of getting to make decisions. Sometimes they’re really fun, and sometimes they can be stressful. And when you’re a trader or investor, you have even more decisions to make, so the framework you approach those decisions with becomes pretty important.
Ask the Right Questions
One of the questions we get the most from beginning traders is, “What market should I trade?” And they think that’s the decision, right? Stocks, options, ETFs, futures, Forex — there are so many choices out there.
But that decision needs to be built off a framework. The framework I come back to is: What resources do you have to deploy?
The first resource is money. If you have $500 that you can afford to put toward trading, maybe you can trade a Forex account at the start, but it’s unlikely you’ll be able to trade futures.
The second resource is time. If you have a very demanding corporate job or run your own business, you may not have the time to sit and day trade, which feeds into what market you choose. But if you have a situation where you can allot a few hours a day to trading, that’s a different resource available to you, and it can affect what market you trade.
Another resource is energy. Not everyone is designed to sit there looking at very volatile chart action and trade it. Other people get antsy if they’re trying to do longer-term trades, and then they go fiddle with things when they shouldn’t.
Every decision you make in your trading can come back to money, time, and energy because they’re all resources we have to deploy, and nobody has a limitless amount.
Change Up the Order
Another question we get a lot is, “Hima, what charting software should I use?” I don’t know why, but a lot of beginning traders get really hung up on this one. And again, you can come right back to the same framework.
Let’s start here with time. Depending on how much you have, you can research the plethora of platforms out there. I mean, compared to when I started over 20 years ago, there are just SO many.
Or you can create some efficiency by searching a web engine like Google or an LLM like ChatGPT or Claude, talking a little bit about your trading intentions, and finding a platform that may work for you. I would not go down a rabbit hole of trying to study 100 different software platforms. That’s just not going to end well.
Then there’s money because they all have different costs. Even something that’s free may still have a cost to it. For example you may have to experience ads that interrupt your trading concentration. If you have a pricier account, you have to consider those fees as part of your trading losses and gains so that the monthly charges aren’t quietly eating into your account.
And then, of course, there’s still energy: how much effort do you want to spend learning the software to accomplish your specific trading goals? It’s different for everyone.
These are a couple of ways the framework you use can help make smoother decisions, whether you’re starting trading or making changes along the way.
So again, the decision framework I come back to is money, time, and energy. It applies in trading, and it applies in regular life too.
🚨 PS — Weekly Trading Show TOMORROW 🚨
Be sure to join me at Ticker Request Live for our 30th broadcast on Aug 11th at 4:30 PM ET!
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