Narrow Your Focus, Broaden Your Wins

There aren’t many things you NEED to do in trading to succeed. Different styles, approaches, and methods can all work. But one thing I think is non-negotiable (apart from risk management) is a specialism.

I have not ever seen a winning ‘jack-of-all-trades’ trader.

Not one. Now that doesn’t mean they aren’t out there, but I’ve not seen one…

The best traders specialise in one of two ways.

1 – Market

One way to specialise is to be focused on one market or a handful of similar markets. They learn how they move and know the market like the back of their hand. The little clues in the way price moves that you only pick up by watching that market for hours and hours.

2 – Strategy

Another way to become a specialist is to be a strategy expert. Maybe you ONLY trade momentum and so focus on trading bull flags? Or perhaps you like to trade exhaustion, so focus on looking for those types of plays You don’t mind what market you trade (but you may have favourites), you go where the setup starts to form.

Today, think about your specialism.

What can you narrow your focus down on?

A market or a strategy.

Are you good at the open, the close, a trend day, the day after a trend day, or news? There are so many ways to play this game. Which is good… But it does mean we can spread ourselves too thin sometimes.

Focus wins the game.

(And if you already are a specialist, how can you narrow that down even more? I’ve got another podcast episode coming out soon where I talk to an amazing trader who focuses on one market and one strategy… and he’s doing very well.)