What are the most effective ways to optimize your technical analysis workflow?

Try to get into zones which are confluence and higher time frame confluence is key for high success rate. Risk to reward should be used wisely and nothing less then 2 is recommended. Go with major trend, and fine tune your level on entry so as to minimize your risk / stop loss

I’m my experience: - less is more. - get some understanding of your tools; this helps sharpen your intuition in their choice - keep things simple as far as possible but not more; - follow your trading strategy; I.E. respect your SL/TP limits - review regularly and backrest to fine tune the efficacy of your tools. Try different combinations to find what works for you, - finally remember that the market may remain illogical longer than you remain liquid

In my experience, the best traders look at a large number of charts to gain a holistic picture of markets. It's helpful to understand the macro drivers and where money is flowing in markets. Over-reliance on a single chart or indicator can get you into trouble when markets shift. That said, good technical analysis, like a good investment thesis, should be simple and easy to understand. It's easier to make money trading with the prevailing trend - objects in motion tend to stay in motion until a force acts upon them. Look for set-ups where there is asymmetric risk-reward in your favour and a confluence of supportive signals.

The market is for you a technical analyst to take advantage using the best tools, platforms and concept that works best for his trading psychology and personality. Being a chartist or fundamentalist, a TA will choose which of the indicators in each perspective that has proven to deliver optimally. Avoid too many indicators and drawing on the chart. Just precise and specific information to guide a specific direction in anticipation.

-First of all, understand your purpose. -For this, consider factors like data accuracy, ease of use, and customization options. It will guide you to find suitable tools, helpful in meeting your goals. Also, keeps you away from wasting your time using unnecessary tools. -But before you start using these tools, have a basic understanding of them. -Some common tools are Excel for basic analysis, Python for data manipulation, and Tableau for advanced visualization.

A trading plan should be such, that it can be used with minimal human intervention to arrive at an informed buy/sell decision. In my experience, this is how it can be done stepwise: 1) Choose a variety of indicators- from price/volume/open interest study, to oscillators to pattern identifiers. 2) Backtest these under a variety of market circumstances, & make a distinction about which ones are more effective in bullish, bearish & flattish markets. You can also segregate indicators based on which asset class they give best predictions for. 3) Assign weightages to indicators based on their effectiveness that you derive under step 2 above by backtesting This way, the indication, would be a weighted average of indicators & more effective!

A trading plan should be about what you will do if the market moves a certain way, not what the market should do. If you are a day trader prepare a trading plan, before the next trading day in the evening or night, if you are a new day trader prepare a plan 1-2 hours before the market opens in the morning. While creating a trading plan, consider 3 scenarios, Case 1 - Market open flat Case 2- Market open gap up Case 3 - market open gap down. You should have a detailed plan ready with levels, for each scenario. Having a trading plan helps in avoiding emotions and being more accountable. Write down your trading plan, every day, and then aftermarket check did you follow your plan or not. It will help you understand your behaviour.

Before a technical analyst becomes a topnotch professional in this, there must be a show of track record backed up with a working trading plan. Which makes it look more intentional than emotional for every trade that was taken on an account. Trading plan will help to reduce anxiety and excitement in trading and enhance, patience, logical & critical thinking and confidence in trading.

You trading plan must cover the aspects below: - Risk-Reward Ratio: It strikes a balance between the risk and potential profit in each trade. A recommended ratio could be 1:3. - Position Size: This determines the amount of capital to allocate and helps manage risk. It's advisable to limit daily losses to no more than 2-3% of your total capital. - Stop-Loss and Take-Profit Levels: These safeguards protect your capital and secure gains. - Indicators and Signals: Identify trends by looking for Higher Highs (HH) and Lower Lows (LL), then consider trading support and resistance levels. Or use a strategy you believe in.

A trading plan is the first line of defense agsinst potential risk exposure. It is also a tool which brings stability to a trader's psychology. Trading is a business and should be planned.

Backtesting is a total effectiveness gauge of a strategy to evaluate its profitability. The historic data will enable to see clearly how a strategy can be applied to trade and react with the price data and draw a conclusion from the entire process at the end. Optimization of such strategy can be done or MT4/5 and tradingView. Be honest with the review thereafter.

avoid doing the following in backtesting Data Selection Bias - don't use data that suits your strategy, instead use different market conditions to understand roubustness of strategy. Over optimization - Don't use parameters that only fits the data. If you are using parameter just based on the data and trying to fit parameter to data it may result in overfitting, resulting in poor performance in live market Neglecting liquidity, transaction cost, and slippage while backtesting, as these factors can affect the performance of strategy in real market, without considering you will not get a picture of how strategy will perform in real market. Lack of Out-of-Sample Testing: Not reserving a portion of your data for out-of-sample testing.

Backtest your strategy, and make sure your strategy has an edge first, before you work on your psychology, trade plan etc. If your strategy has no edge, whatever things else you work on will be futile.

Whilst backtesting is a giant step in the right direction, it rarely works. The first issue is backtesting comes after the fact. Second issue is curve fitting. Parameters input will explain the past, but most likely not the future. Nonetheless, backtesting can provide plenty of valuable statistical feedback about a trading system.

“History repeats”. This quote by Karl Marx fits into modern market strategies as well. Use historical data before you delve into actual trading to avoid any loss. By identifying flaws and fine-tuning strategies, you can improve their performance and make more informed decisions in the future. Observe market patterns and behavior tend to recur over time. Often, historical price behavior repeats itself to some extent. So, always backtest your strategy.

Trading journal in the hand of a technical analyst is like a diary in the hand of an average person. Trading journal will entail the details of one's trading. For example: - Date and time of trade - Asset traded with its trading size - At what opened price and closed price - Closed in profit or loss - Automated close by Take profit or stop loss or manual - Why closed manually, what is the event that warranted the decision _ALL the above should be able to submit to a technical analyst what assets to focus more on and which to avoid going forward. Trading journal is a very resourceful material in technical analysis.

This is most essential but very few do this. A regular trading journal should be maintained with date, script, entry, exit, qty, margin required for trade, p&l and most importantly %P&L. %P&L based on your entry exit shows the real trading style of a trader as average risk and reward can be easily been obtained from it.

Can’t emphasise enough on this. In my experience, blotters help to relive the moments of trade decisions. This gives a great insight into how the market played out as against one’s anticipation. Also, the money management discipline could be analysed with maintenance of blotter or journal of trades. There is no powerful tool than one’s own observation and analysis of trade decisions and outcomes.

Religiously note down each now and everyone of your trades. Each trade will help you understand your mistakes or successes. Information especially about your process helps you improve on it.

I recently realized how crucial to maintain a trading journal. Earlier, I faced loss not only once but at least 4-5 times. Luckily, it was not that bad. It is true that keeping a trading journal is boring, but this is also true that it reduces the chances of mistakes. The trading journal includes: 1.Trade details- Date, instrument, prices 2.Goals 3.Trading strategy 4.Emotions and reasons for trade 5.Risk management 6.Market conditions 7.Trade outputs- Loss and Profit 8.Lessons learned 9.Performance metrics 10.Charts

To have a less challenging and progressive workflow in technical analysis profession, learning is a continuous process that must be taken with high sense of responsibilities. Do have a relationship with other TA professionals you can share ideas and thoughts with, keep a relationship with a mentor for guide and clarity, do have an accountability partner and study and research group to enable continuous development and growth in career.

Youtube is a free university.. But, the performance of the trader is not the strategy.. it is something the individual is.. Professional guidance helps, mentoring goes a long way in shortening the learning curve.. The key tenets of a successful trader is his mindset, consistency and discipline.. a learning attitude and an open mind.. everything else is secondary.. Markets are nothing but a mirror of the trader !

Best part of being a market participant is what we know is never enough, so its essential to learn every something from market or anyone doing good out there. It helps improve the lags in our trading system or style. When we say learn, it’s not just what to do, it also involves what should not be done.

Learning from others’ experiences helps you understand real-world implementation of trading strategies. People who have tried things before you know what to do and what not. Watching YouTube videos offers great help in understanding trading strategies. Read blogs and listen to the Podcasts to make informed decisions. However, what works for others does not mean will work for you too. So, you should listen to everyone but act to your judgment. Don’t blindly follow what people say, use your mind as well.

I have read many books on technical analysis, trading, and investing over the years which helped to get a better feel for who I am as an investor. While there is significant value in reading about the "greats" it is still a challenge to apply what you've read to your own investing. However, if you read enough you'll gravitate and begin to apply systems that align with you, and you'll eventually narrow your focus. However, you can still be the "most read" person on investing and still make a lot of mistakes and create losses. There is no solution for avoiding losses, just managing them.

1) Work on your psychology and understanding yourself. Try to understand your risk apetite before start trading in the market. 2) Use money which have no emotional connection with you. 3) Plan your Weekly, Monthly and daily risk apetite. 4) Try to understannd how you behave under different market conditions, and what emotions you feel when you are in losing trade and winning trade. Do you feel fearful when trade is going in your favour, and hopeful when trade is gooing against you ? work on this expect as its the most importnat factor, because how you think when your position is open is going to ultimately affect your trades final outcome. Avoid doing aditional analysis after the trade is executed, as it will make you break your rules

Avoid taking plenty of small profits only to suffer big losses. Equity markets are range-bound, from zero to infinite. Go for the big wins. Good things take time.

By closely observing one’s own trading behaviour and outcome, both profitable and loss making moments, one might be able to identify patterns. Eg., I find that most of my successful and highly profitable trades in are in downward cycle. Similarly, follow on trades (one executed just after making a hugely successful trade) tends to go bad. These observations help identity one’s pitfalls or success drivers, and accordingly adopt suitable strategies.

If trading was all about technical analysis, observing data, and considering others’ experiences, no one would ever face problems. Emotions play a crucial role in trading. Emotions like fear and greed lead to impulsive trading decisions. Folks, successful trading requires discipline, patience, and effective risk management strategies with technical analysis.

Find a mentor or guide to talk to and share your learnings & mistakes. Trainer will just share knowledge, mentorship will build skill and discipline.