MARCH SPECIAL: Save 80% Off Nial Fuller's Pro Trading Course (Ends March 31st) -
Nial Fuller

NIAL FULLER Nial Fuller
Professional Trader, Author & Coach

The 4 Pillars of Forex Trading Success

author thumb
By in Forex Trading Blog May 18th, 2015 | 21 Comments

the-4-success-pillarsMost people make trading far more complicated than it needs to be. Whilst it isn’t ‘easy’ to succeed at trading, it is a lot easier if you boil it down to its core components. If you do that, there are really only four pieces of the ‘puzzle’ that you need to focus on. If you’re spending time and energy focusing on anything other than these four pieces, you’re simply complicating the trading process and moving further off the path to success.

In this lesson, I wanted to take a simple stripped-down look at the four most basic pillars of trading. For anyone who has gotten off track and lost a lot of money, or for those of you who are new, this article will be extremely helpful for getting focused on what truly matters in trading…

1. Trade Entry Strategy

The first thing to say about trading strategies, is just that you need a simple one. Many traders don’t even really know what their strategy is or cannot easily define it, because they are trying to combine a bunch of different messy methods together. This is wrong and confusing and it’s the first reason why you’re likely not making money in the market.

So, the first thing you need to is learn a simple trade entry strategy that allows you to find high-probability entries into the market. I obviously recommend that you learn the price action strategies I teach in my trading course. But whatever strategy you learn, the most important thing is to commit to one strategy and master it to the point of having no question about when you should enter the market and when you shouldn’t.

There’s an old saying that goes something like, “Success happens when preparation meets opportunity”. If you are not properly prepared and know what your entry strategy is and when it’s present, you will not be able to take advantage of the best opportunities in the market when they arise. You don’t want to lose money in the market just because you were unprepared.

Once you’ve decided on your strategy, let’s say it’s price action, you need to then define exactly what your entry strategy is and write out your entry setups…make a trading plan. Something like this: “This is how I will enter the market…” then describe the setup briefly with a picture of a prime example of this setup.

Then, the hard part: Only enter the market if that (your setup) happens. Which leads me perfectly into the second core component of trading that you need to master…

2. Discipline

disciplineI like to think of discipline as the ‘glue’ that holds every aspect of your trading approach together. You will need to master discipline in order to stick to your entry strategy, money management strategy and exit strategy. Patience and discipline are basically the same thing in regards to trading; you have to be patient to wait for the best trades and you need discipline to be patient. So, we could just say you need discipline to wait patiently for the best trades; you cannot have patience without discipline, and you need both, so just focus on discipline.

Don’t make discipline complicated, and don’t over-think it. It’s really just about having mastered your trading strategy and then having the discipline to wait for the market to give you good a chance to execute your strategy.

Discipline also means you don’t interfere with your trades much, if at all, after you enter them. As I discuss more in-depth in my recent lesson the key to lasting trading success; the goal is to execute your trading edge (entry strategy) over and over, each time you see it form, and let it play out over that series of trades…that is how you let your trading edge work for you. If you start playing around with it too much (interfering after entering), you will basically be negating your edge. Ironically, it’s much harder for most people to simply enter a trade and walk away from it for a day, than it is to sit there and over-analyse it and do something stupid to it that ultimately causes you to lose money over the long-run.

It takes discipline to stick to your trade entry strategy, to ignore your trades after you enter them, to stick to your money management strategy and it to stick to your exit strategy, that means all of these things are not ‘easy’, but if they were, everyone would be a successful trader. So, you’ve got to do what most people aren’t able or willing to do if you want to succeed at trading; you’ve got to master your own ability to be self-disciplined.

3. Money Management

moneymanagementNext, comes money management. This includes risk management, how much you fund your account with and what you do with profits if you attain them.

The first step is to pre-define your risk per trade. You need to be TOTALLY confident in what you’re risking per trade…you have to literally not care about the money you’re risking on any one trade. This is crucial. You also need to be sure you have enough risk capital in your account so that you can let your trading strategy play out over a series of trades. Otherwise, you won’t give your trading strategy a real chance to work in your favour.

A good starting point would be making sure you have enough money in your account to enter 40 trades of the same dollar risk amount. For example, if you have $3,000 in your account, you could risk $50 per trade and even if you lost 20 trades in a row you’d still have $2,000 left and the possibility of another 20 trades or more. However, if you lose 20 trades in a row and believe you’re sticking to your trading edge…it’s probably not working, or you aren’t actually being disciplined and sticking to your edge. The point here is, you need enough money to act as a ‘buffer’ against getting emotional about anyone trade…

If you have a trade on and you know there’s only $50 at risk of your $3,000 starting amount, it won’t be a big deal for you if you lose. You can go to sleep knowing that even if it hits your stop loss overnight, you will wake up with $2,950 left in your account and you’ll still have at least 19 more ‘bullets’ left before you even lose a third of your starting amount.

The key to managing risk so it doesn’t contribute to emotional trading is two-fold:

  • Don’t’ start with money you can’t afford to lose. This is in regards to what you initially fund your account with. If you don’t have any money you can’t afford to lose, then don’t trade live until you do.
  • Don’t risk an amount per trade that you aren’t comfortable with. The easiest way to gauge this is to put a sample trade on and see if you can really just walk away for 12-24 hours and not feel the ‘urge’ to check it. You will have to dial-down your dollar risk per trade until you hit this dollar amount that doesn’t ‘spike’ your emotions and keep you checking your trade all day and / or up at night.

Once you start making profits, don’t just compound them in your trading account forever. Withdrawal some each month, I recommend at least 50% of them. There’s no reason to keep excessive money in your trading account, and when you ‘bank it’, it feels more real to you and so you’re less likely to give your profits back to the market.

4. Trade Exit Strategy

exitstrategyFinally, just as you need an entry strategy, you need an exit strategy. I have found that far less traders have trade exit strategies than have entry strategies. Ironically, it may be even more important to have a pre-defined exit strategy or plan, than an entry strategy.

When traders don’t have an exit strategy in place prior to entering a trade, they usually exit with far less profit than they otherwise would have, or they make no profit on a trade that was up over 2 times their risk at one point. Maintaining discipline is a lot easier if you have a plan of how and when you will exit a trade, as opposed to just ‘winging it’ as most traders do.

How you exit a trade will depend partly on market conditions at the time you enter. For example, if there’s a strong trend in place, you may elect to exit a trade with a trailing stop loss or perhaps aim for a bigger risk reward like 1:3 or 1:4, rather than 1:2. Conversely, in a range-bound market you would look to exit near the boundaries of the range or aim for a smaller risk reward like 1:1.5 or 1:2. The point is this; you need to predefine how you will ideally exit your trade before you enter, otherwise you’re basically just ‘driving with no destination in sight’, and in order to get to where you want to go, you have to first know where it is you’re going.

To learn more about these 4 core components of trading success, check out my course and members area. As always, email me here if you have any questions.

Good trading – Nial Fuller

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Nial Fuller

About Nial Fuller

is a Professional Trader, Investor & Author who is considered ‘The Authority’ on Price Action Trading. His blog is read by over 200,000+ followers and he has taught 25,000+ students since 2008. In 2016, Nial won the Million Dollar Trader Competition. Checkout Nial's Professional Trading Course here.
Nial Fuller Professional Trading Course Preferred broker 2020 v1

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  1. Tayo Adeosun

    Most of (if not all) what you are saying here are very true.

    Reply
  2. Mike Thomson

    In order to make a profit trading Forex, you must first change your thinking about the currency market and spend some time to study the Forex market and develop a good trading strategy.

    Reply
  3. Ray54

    After years of wading through the swamp of complicated, dubious strategies, I happened upon your course, which is fantastic value and has helped me tremendously. Thank you!

    Reply
  4. Sergio

    Hi Nial,

    I must congratulate you on your awesome website and the consistency with which you manage to maintain it, not many forex related websites are updated and maintained with relevant content to the same degree that you maintain this site. Kudus to you.

    Reply
  5. Oludayo

    Thanks. I really appreciate your guide as I planned to take your course. Thanks fo r the encouragement.

    Reply
  6. Cat

    Thank you so much for sharing your experience and provide a very true 4 pieces of articles . This is a very good lesson for every traders.

    Reply
  7. TASWA

    That’s an addition to my basket of successful trading. You seem to read the minds of newbie traders and always spot-on on their mistakes and problems. The last point here is still a difficult path for me navigate (i manually close my trades too early, only to see them cruising without me, missing on huge profits) but after reading this article, i think i have found a solution – sitting on my hands and let my pre-defined exit strategy work out.

    Reply
  8. Md Ikhlas

    Truly, extremely useful! Thank you Nial! =)

    Reply
  9. harpreet singh

    Thanks Nial, really a very good article

    Reply
  10. Imomon Raymond

    The 4 Pillars should be No.1 lesson for anybody who wish to go into forex trading. This money mgt is now understood clearly.
    THANK YOU NIAL. YOUR ARTICLES HAVE BEEN OF TREMEDIOUS GUIDE TO ME.

    Reply
  11. Joseph Pereira

    Nial, you just can’t help it but being an AWESOME trader and teacher!! Thank you ever so much for sharing of your precious time and trading wisdom!!! I am deeply grateful!!

    Reply
  12. Igor

    Spend more time to analyze the market and prepare for the opening of the transaction. Write a plan of opening, keeping and closing the deal in your diary. It will give you confidence and peace of mind. This must be done each time before starting work.

    Reply
  13. Josephine

    Thanks Nial for the article. It will go a long way to help me improve the way I trade.

    Reply
  14. Enoch Bulus

    Your articles are quite enlightening and empowering. Thanks.

    Reply
  15. Otavio

    Thanks Nial – these articles help maintain my discipline; they also answer some almost “subconscious” questions I was trying to formulate but couldn’t – THX!!!!

    Reply
  16. Bharat Shiyani

    Thanks Nail & Team, Alway Rocking Article appreciate it.. Thanks for the Lovely Price Action Strategies….Love it..

    Reply
  17. shekhar

    Good lesson as far as pillar no 3 & 4 are concerned.
    Thanks Nial.

    Always love to read your articles.

    Reply
  18. shekhar

    Great article! Agreed!!!

    Reply
  19. Mina

    A great piece as always. I’m making trading complicated recently because I’m lacking these four pieces of trading success. Thanks for sharing Nial

    Reply
  20. Mario

    Another great article! I always look forward to the next one.

    Reply
  21. KRISTOFA OKENTA

    Dear Nial,
    If we should religiously be a good disciple of your mentoring, our limit will be beyond the sky. Thank you.

    Reply