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I’ve been trading stocks and forex all my life. One thing I gradually became aware of during this experience was that the strategies which make the most logical sense typically are the ones which work the best.

Lets face it, you could spend 2 life times trialing all the investment strategies people offer you. There are so many out there and I am sure most of them have some merit. What I have found though (and this in no way passes judgment on the merits of any investment strategy) is that if I really think logically about many of the investment strategies which have come my way, there are often holes in them… big ones at that too.

Strategies generally make sense. The problem I am talking about is not about making sense, it concerns completeness. When these strategies do not cover all possible scenarios, you can be left in a position where you need to make decisions that are not following the strategy. The amount of judgment you can bring to such forced decisions depends on how close this situation is to others covered by the strategy. In a worse case scenario, it could be a complete guess.

Personally I think that making decisions like this, decisions which are outside the logic of an investment or trading strategy, is gambling. Its not a good situation. Sure you may make money with this gamble, but you could lose it too. Its no different than blackjack. A robust and complete trading strategy should take these gambles away from you. There should be no guesses. You should just plan the trade and then trade the plan.

The other problem with this is that no matter what happens to your returns from that point, you will never know if it happened because the strategy worked or because of the guess you just made. This also can create problems as it must impact your confidence in the strategy. If your confidence is impacted, this may further cause you to divert from the strategy in other circumstances, exacerbating the problem.

So if you are thinking about trading a new strategy, short cut experiencing some pain and loss. Go through the logic of the strategy in a robust and thorough manner. Are there scenarios you can see, which the strategy possibly does not cover? If so, try and get answers for those scenarios. If you can’t get answers for them, personally, I’d avoid the strategy. Lets face it, going to the horse races is much more fun

And once you are happy with the logical analysis you have applied, don’t forget to dummy trade for a while too. In dummy trading you will probably find a number of scenarios you never thought of. This gives you the chance of ensuring the strategy deals appropriately with them too, without risking any money. Good luck.

After decades of profitable trading, Gnifrus Urquart enjoys discussing his favorite trading strategies and offering general trading guidance Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service

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