{"id":20112,"date":"2022-09-19T07:30:52","date_gmt":"2022-09-19T11:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jeffclarktrader.com\/?p=20112"},"modified":"2022-09-19T07:30:52","modified_gmt":"2022-09-19T11:30:52","slug":"my-top-down-approach-to-making-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/my-top-down-approach-to-making-money\/","title":{"rendered":"My Top-Down Approach to Making Money"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/successful-traders-have-this-non-negotiable-quality\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Last week<\/a>, I wrote about one of the most painful problems many traders just can&rsquo;t seem to solve.<\/p>\n<p>I call it the &ldquo;boom-bust&rdquo; cycle. And I&rsquo;ve seen it happen to hundreds, if not thousands, of traders.<\/p>\n<p>It happens when a trader goes on a losing streak, giving up all of their previous hard-earned gains in the process. Because they can never seem to hold onto profits very long, most give up.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">The Importance of a Detailed Trading Plan<\/h2>\n<p>This painful cycle boils down to one reason&hellip; lack of preparation. Many traders simply jump in with both feet and no plan.<\/p>\n<p>When things are going well, they invest more and more. They start to believe they&rsquo;ve unlocked the perfect strategy&hellip; Until it blows up in their face.<\/p>\n<p>But it&rsquo;s often when things go sideways that you need a plan the most. So, today I&rsquo;ll share my &ldquo;top-down&rdquo; approach to creating a winning strategy.<\/p>\n<p>To start, a good trading plan will cover every part of the decision-making process.<\/p>\n<p>Things like identifying a potential opportunity, what it will take to get into the trade, position sizing, and how to exit the trade for either a profit or a controlled loss.<\/p>\n<p>All those things are important, but there&rsquo;s one that stands above the rest. And it&rsquo;s what we&rsquo;re going to focus on today&hellip;<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">How To Identify a Great Trading Opportunity<\/h2>\n<p>Before you can make money on a trade, you must first decide <em>what<\/em> you want to trade.<\/p>\n<p>I use what I call a &ldquo;top-down&rdquo; approach to make this crucial decision.<\/p>\n<p>The top-down approach means identifying which market or asset class is likely to offer the most reward with the least amount of risk.<\/p>\n<p>For traders, that means finding a market with lots of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jeffclarktrader.com\/glossary\/#:~:text=back%20above%20it.-,Volatility,over%20a%20sustained%20period%20of%20time%2C%20it%E2%80%99s%20called%20a%20%E2%80%9Cvolatile%E2%80%9D%20market.,-Volume%20Weight%20Average\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">volatility<\/a>. A volatile market is one that has big moves almost every day, both up and down.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Volatility is the fuel that gives traders their advantage over long-term buy-and-hold investors.<\/p>\n<p>For long-term investors, volatility is undesirable as it usually means seeing losses in their portfolios. For us traders, however, volatility is our lifeblood. Without volatility, it&rsquo;s much harder to outperform the market.<\/p>\n<p>A volatile market lets us buy low and sell high&hellip; and then sell high and buy low on the very next trade. While volatility is risky for long-term investors, for traders it&rsquo;s the opposite.<\/p>\n<table bgcolor=\"#eeeeee\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"10\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\" style=\"border: 1px solid #D7D7D7; margin-bottom:20px;\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"padding-left: 15px;padding-right: 15px; padding-top: 15px; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;font-size:17px; line-height:24px;\">\n<p align=\"center\" style=\"-ms-text-size-adjust: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: none; margin-bottom: 20px; font-size: 18px;\"><strong>Free Trading Resources<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"-ms-text-size-adjust: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: none; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 0px\">Have you checked out Jeff&#8217;s free trading resources on his website? It contains a selection of special reports, training videos, and a full trading glossary to help kickstart your trading career \u2013 at zero cost to you. Just <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jeffclarktrader.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">click here<\/a> to check it out.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">Where To Find the Biggest Moves Today<\/h2>\n<p>While bull markets in cryptocurrencies and stocks have stolen the show the last couple of years, there&rsquo;s an even hotter market that&rsquo;s just getting started&hellip;<\/p>\n<p>Between inflation, geopolitical conflict, and persistent shortages in everything from labor to raw materials &ndash; the volatility in the foreign exchange (forex) market has been incredible to see.<\/p>\n<p>Forex is used to make bets on which currencies will rise or fall in value. It&rsquo;s the most widely-traded market in the world.<\/p>\n<p>And it&rsquo;s on fire right now.<\/p>\n<p>Many countries are trapped with inflationary pressures, forcing them to raise interest rates\u2026 Which can create extreme volatility in currencies.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, multiple major currencies are trading at levels that haven\u2019t been seen in decades!<\/p>\n<p>This is the beginning of the biggest shift in monetary policy that the world has seen in over 14 years. These shifts tend to create long-lasting trends, making forex an attractive market for years to come.<\/p>\n<p>Imre Gams<br \/>Analyst, <em>Market Minute<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>P.S.<\/strong> I&rsquo;ve been testing a new forex strategy for the past few months. Right now, the track record is a perfect 10-for-10. Just last week alone, you could&rsquo;ve made $2,440 with one trade if you&rsquo;d followed my instructions on when to get in and out.<\/p>\n<p>I&rsquo;ll be sharing more details in the weeks to come&hellip; So, stay tuned.<\/p>\n<p><!-- MAILBAG BEGIN --><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align:center\"><strong>Reader Mailbag<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>What would you like to know about forex trading?<\/p>\n<p>Let us know your thoughts &ndash; and any questions you have &ndash; at <a href=\"mailto:feedback@jeffclarktrader.com\">feedback@jeffclarktrader.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><!-- MAILBAG END --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is why so many traders struggle to be profitable\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"service":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"publication":[10],"person":[76],"newsletter-type":[],"ticker":[],"class_list":["post-20112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-minute","publication-market-minute","person-imre-gams"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20112"},{"taxonomy":"publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publication?post=20112"},{"taxonomy":"person","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/person?post=20112"},{"taxonomy":"newsletter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletter-type?post=20112"},{"taxonomy":"ticker","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarktrader.com\/market-minute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ticker?post=20112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}