Project Manage Your Forex Trading

After identifying your Best Forex Brokers In Australia and then trading style – day, scalp, swing, social or position – you’ll need to develop a trading strategy.

And while there are hundreds of Forex Trading Courses and tutorials to explain the technical aspects, today we’re going to take a step back to focus on an often overlooked aspect of successful forex trading: organisation and project management.

Very few traders experience instant success and, to be honest, those that do often have a lot of luck on their side. Consistent gains come from consistent time spent researching, watching the market and, of course, testing and retesting your strategy as you refine your metrics and variables. (Note: if you started trading forex in the hope of scoring easy money with minimal input – sorry to disappoint. Building a great forex trading strategy takes some effort and involves tracking and managing a lot of data.)

So before diving into the pips and charts and drawing tools your preferred forex trading platform offers, think about how you like to tackle big projects with multiple moving parts. Your own memory? Notes app with reminders? Big wall of colour-coded post-its? Notebook and pen and paper?

All can work but, we suggest investing in an app specifically designed to help you visualise workflows and set timelines for particular goals. Work management tools can help ensure that you meet your forex trading goals by giving structure and accountability to your trading activity, key features they offer that will help you include:

• Task lists. Keep a running to-do list of topics to research, markets to watch or adjustments to make.
• Project management. Until you get into the rhythm of trading, workflows with custom prompts and notifications can ensure you stick to your forex learning or trading plan.
• Basic accounting. Unless you live in a forex tax-free jurisdiction, you’ll need to keep careful track of your gains and any losses to avoid incurring penalties come tax time. Centralising all this information in one place not only makes preparing your filing less stressful, but it’s also a helpful way to see your progress as your strategy develops.
• Budgeting. Webinars, courses, and apps are examples of non-trading-related costs you may have. Those purchases can add up, however, and it’s important to keep your trading-related expenditures under control. An in-app budgeting tool keeps you accountable to yourself and can serve as a powerful reminder that nothing substitutes for patience and dedication.
• Collaboration. Unless you are using a dedicated social trading platform, it can be helpful to give and receive input from like-minded people who share your dedication. Clunky message boards can do the job, but most work management apps also have a team communication component that you can use to share insights with a handpicked community.

But what if you’re an experienced or semi-professional trader? Do you still need project management tools? We think yes. Think of it this way: if structured workflows and centralised communication can save you admin time and increase your trading profits, what have you got to lose? Consider the following examples:

• Managing multiple brokers. If you’ve signed with multiple brokers as a means of hedging your trades between brokers or use different brokers so you can get the lowest spreads using a project management tool with contact or lead management features can simplify the work of visualising your positions or identifying the best broker for a specific position.

Remember, trading platforms, such as MetaTrader4, have limited visibility and can only show you information about activity on the platform with only one particular broker. This is especially true when using Automated Trading Platforms. To get a big-picture view, you’ll need an external tool to centralise your data. Sure, you could use a massive, multi-tabbed spreadsheet, but that would require a significantly larger time investment. The time you could spend doing market research, opening new positions, literally anything else.

• Sports arbitrage. If you’re in the UK and you are into spread-betting, you’ll need to monitor all the odds on offer with different brokers while also using Hedging Strategies for the risk. You’ll also want to do this in such a way that the bookmakers don’t catch on. Using a project management solution with multiple workspaces keeps all the information associated with a single book or oddsmaker in one place, while also helping you track your overall activity level, the better to avoid detection.
• Trader management. Overseeing multiple traders, but not yet prepared for a MAMM or PAMM account? A workflow tool with communication features centralises activity and keeps everyone in contact.

Bottom line: There are plenty of good reasons to consider a project management tool. Without the right organisation and planning, you can help yourself minimise the chances of making mistakes that may prove costly in terms of losses and even time. And as a trader, you want to focus on good habits that lead to a positive trading experience.