“If only I had…”

Finality produces a certain kind of clarity, of re-evaluating what has gone by.

Trading activity does not allow for much meaningful reflection. The space in which one can reflect has to be muscled around everything else; usually to take care of something — crap! The dog!  

Routine enabled reflection — usually on weekends — is one thing, yet your mind is still labouring over the other day’s mishap or that data print to come on Tuesday. You are still in the game and the minutiae of daily life clouds it over. And these are just the details. We do not care about the details. Why?

Because tomorrow you will never trade again. None of it matters. You are finished. What then?

Blind optimism — perhaps, fanatical faith — in making it in your trading career is not merely a good idea, but a minimum competitive trait. As a certain Alex Haywood once said it — how else will you keep going while you climb the mountain of bones belonging to those who once sat next to you?

You can paper over fanatical optimism and tag it as passion, yet this obscures the most important question to ask: What if I never make it?

To the passionately boisterous this sounds heretical. Watchumean — fail? Get this loser out of my face! To the constant moaners — note: secret optimists — they say this to cope. They may repeat these words but not really believe it. There! I survived saying it!

They all have a second chance, and a third, fourth and a fifth… Hope takes the shape of any container it needs to. The hope that your future self will figure it out; no big deal if the present does not. But if you cannot start figure it out now, how can you do so in the future? By having no finality on your trading, you will never have to cut the bullshit and get real.

Hope, then, will prevent you to ask the most important question, to really consider: What if I never make it? And what if the end comes tomorrow?

To really ask would be a liberating experience; liberating to cut through whatever daily life minutiae and to truly reflect. Because you accepted there really is an end, and it is a beautiful thing. Because you had the courage to ask before you actually die. If I never made it — then why?

Why was I unable to hold a routine… control myself… apply myself … learn from others — why….?

The best positively skewed trade I can take right now is to say: I bet you know exactly why you cannot make it. Why you cannot push past whatever in your trading career — to take home a few dollars; to grow your account or to re-invent yourself and make a comeback. The few that truly do not know are likely too wet behind the ears.

To answer that question is to write your trading obituary, and it is powerful since there is a finale and no further hope. The guy is dead! And to write it like an old-school newspaper obituary, since this should not be an apologist ten-page, essay-ramble. That is disguised hope. Instead, the tiny rectangular newspaper column forces brevity; just one or two main accomplishments, or infamous acts and now…. he’s dead.

And I really mean write. Reflecting while walking around is better than most, but to write is a whole other world. Even better — write with pencil; slow yourself down. Then re-type it via computer.

So, once you really convince yourself that you may never trade again, sit down and write why you failed. Ask — what killed my career? Write 200 words, then immediately scrap the first one hundred words as this will be half-hearted apologetic fluff — the real stuff comes at the end of the word limit.

See? Finality. It is a great bullshit filter.

Keep it to yourself and read it frequently. Or I would love to read your ‘trading obituary’ if you email me at bogdan@axiafutures.com. With your permission I think it would be great to anonymously discuss this in our community.  

***

Axia Futures
4 Endsleigh Street London GB WC1H 0DS
+44 20 3880 8500
https://axiafutures.com/

Social Media:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AxiaFutures/
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/Axia-Futures/
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Contacts:
Demetris Mavrommatis — Co-Founder, Head of Trading
Alex Haywood — Co-Founder Head of Strategy

Trading Techniques To Become More Profitable Trader Introduction

In this blog post, we will summarize trading techniques to become a more profitable trader. This will be a collection of the YouTube videos we have posted for the trading community. As traders, we always want to improve. By choosing this career, you are effectively saying: “it is my job to learn every day and there is no way around it”. Also, the best experience is the one we have been exposed to with our own skin. Yes, we can learn from the experience of others but it is never the same. It never has the depth of the hard-earned lesson. So in this blog, we will use the experience of the traders from the trading floor, but I want you to really stress test those ideas and tips yourself. Question them! Ask yourself, if this is true in your own trading. We will help you with that by using the questioning framework.

Also, check out similar tips not only from this post but also from previous posts such as Fix The Root Cause Of Your Trading Mistakes or Brief Nuggets Of Trading Wisdom – Trade Considerations.

The Questioning Framework

For this blog post to have a more meaningful impact, we will define a goal first. The goal is simple. After the highlights from the videos below, there will be a set of questions that I want you to answer. The main objective will be the work on your side. Sitting with these questions might give you more value, than just watching the videos down below. But first things first.

There is an old wise saying that “questions are the answers”. Since we want you to take as much as possible from this post, do not take only the defined questions but incorporate the questioning framework in your process. What does it mean to do so? On a regular basis, look at everything related to trading and create a question out of that. Have you been doing similar mistakes repeatedly? Ask yourself what would prevent you to stop doing so. Are your losers bigger than your winners, ask yourself how you can reverse that? Have you seen recently a piece of news that had an impact on the markets, ask yourself how you can be prepared next time similar news hits the wires. This is the questioning framework. A reverse-engineered process for observed reality.

Let’s get started.

Tips For Overtrading

Trading Tips Highlights

In this video, Isaac walks us through the tips about overtrading with his trading colleague from the trading floor. They both summarize several key aspects to overtrading.

The main message:

• understand your state – are you bored, you might be more prone to over-trading
• prep yourself in the highest quality possible – lack of prep might lead to the impulsive type of trades
• wait for windows of increased volumes – new flows can unlock more opportunities (Bonds cash open, Bonds Auctions, Cash Opens, Speakers time windows, News, etc.)
• trust the order-flow – what does tape tell you in quiet times in comparison to other times when you felt tape is giving you what you want (moves in your direction with good health)
• increase selectivity – avoid false positives or poor expectations of the moves by understanding what the current moves are capable of, E.g. are they capable of moving as far as you would like
• create a checklist of “activation criteria” – when you feel you are making trades out of boredom, create a checklist for yourself to highlight “activation” criteria you are waiting for, and don’t touch your trades unless those criteria are met.

Trading Questions

Key questions to ask yourself:

• When waiting in more quiet periods, what are your “activation” criteria?
• How does the order-flow that activates your conviction looks like?
• Do you know the specific times when new flows of money are unlocked during the day, every day?
• How do you identify on a daily basis, what state of mind are you?

Read and digest these questions. Let them sink, leave some time before answering them. Then come back and write the answers.

What Professional Traders Do And Losing Traders Don’t

What is the difference between a professional trader and a losing trader? Apart from the obvious traits like discipline and patience, there are several key differentiating factors.

First of all, they don’t trade just the pattern, but the pattern within the situation. Based on that situation, they understand what pattern to use and how to attack the market. They also don’t try to predict high or low, leave that to the ego. They try to trade the meat of the move where chances are skewed on their side and low or high has been established.

Last, but not least, they know when to push with size! They understand their conviction setups and get big on them. Now, ask yourself a question: can I improve on any of these points? Let us know what you think in the comment section below.

Trading Questions

Key questions to ask yourself:

• Are you consistently trying to pick low or high of the day? If so, why is that? Does your stats support you have an edge in doing so and not just occasional luck catching the V reversal move and getting dopamine spike?
• On highly asymmetric moves, do you put your max size? What are your most asymmetric setups? What do you do to get better at them?
• Do you know when to trade which pattern? Can you tell the difference between the more favorable time and the less favorable time for a technical pattern?

Final Recommendation For Trading Questions

This exercise is all in your hands. The reason why is the questioning framework important is that it forces you to constantly challenge yourself. You can implement these questions or any questions that make you a better trader into your intraday, daily, weekly routines. Having a conscious time to think deeply about your process makes you a better trader, in the long run, so keep it up.

Don’t forget to check out articles you might also like:

• Trading Psychology: How To Develop The Skill of Discipline | Axia Futures
• How To Deal With Missed Trading Opportunities – Trading Psychology | Axia Futures
• Trading Psychology: Why Top Traders Embrace Pressure | Axia Futures

If you like our content and would like to improve your game, definitely check one of our courses that teach you all the techniques presented by AXIA traders from a market profile, footprint, or order-flow. If you are someone who likes to trade the news, we have a great central bank course. And if you are really serious about your future trading career, consider taking AXIA’s 6-Week Intensive High-Performance Trading Course.

Trade well.

JK

Fix The Root Cause Of Your Trading Mistakes Introduction

In this blog post, I will be talking about one approach how to fix the root cause of your trading mistakes. We have all been there. We do a mistake, promise ourselves we will never do it again and then we mess up. Again! The problem in many of the cases is our brain wiring of how we deal with mistakes. More importantly, how we deal with fixing those mistakes. Since our brain, most of the time runs in a Fast mode (read Kahneman’s Thinking Fast And Slow), the first solution to our problem is usually the one of the addition, not the one of subtraction. Most of the time, we introduce a rule, a crutch to overcome the issue, and not really a fix of the underlying issue. So how can we do that? How can we actually fix the root cause problem? A lot has to do with “stillness”.

Dealing With Fast System In Your Trading

In the video down below, Branigan introduces one concept of how he is tackling his overtrading behavior.

In the video, he talks about how he does not fix his issue just by introducing the new rule. He goes deeper. He is accessing his slow system by thinking deeply answering the key question:

What is the underlying beahaviour leading me to overtrading?

What he describes is the breakdown of the multiple factors:

1. Lack of Preparation.
2. Impulsiveness.
3. Noise (too much “noise” aka Information Overload)
4. Lack of Trust

Why is this breakdown important? It demonstrates the acts of not being still enough to actually trade well. It introduces behavior that leads to overtrading. These are his compounded triggers. So how can we introduce this stillness in our own trading?

Stillness Is The Key

As Ryan Holiday writes in his book, Stillness Is The Key:

“So much of the distress we feel comes from reacting instinctually instead of acting with conscientious deliberation.”

We react based on our wiring. The core of the wiring is similar for most humans but we all react differently to different triggers. So what is the stillness one needs to build in order to become a better trader? As always the devil is in the detail. I have observed over and over that stillness can’t be built by putting a sticker on your monitor: “be patient”. Patience comes from knowing what you are good at. And then, you deliberately perfecting it over and over again. You make it 1% better every time you trade it. I have noticed that once you become obsessed with the thing of making your PLAY better, you will become less reactive, you start to introduce more stillness in your game. And that stillness will lead to less reactiveness because you will know exactly what to look for. What do I mean by that? Here is a partial excerpt from one of my debriefs:

What you can see above is me trying to describe all the clues that I have seen in a particular play. This is followed by many screenshots from all different angles. Profile, Footprint, 1sec chart, 2minute chart, big picture chart. Annotating. Trying to beat the crap out of it in the debrief. What have I seen? What did I miss? What can improve my clarity? Where I could get bigger? Where I could get a little bit more patient and why? I am obsessed with repeating these debriefs over and over and over again. Like a mad man. If I have to write down every time 10 same things I have seen. I will do that! Why? Because I know that in the long run, it builds my stillness. And, suddenly, after many iterations, I start to see new things because the previous knowledge has been integrated so deeply, that suddenly I have the capacity to see new stuff.

Key Takeaways About How To Build Stillness

All of what I have described strengthens what Bran talked about. The better I prepare, the less impulsive I become. The bigger detail I deliberately build with each of my plays, the higher trust I have for my play. Confidence comes when the ability to read the market clearly becomes deeply integrated. And that only comes after being obsessed with your play from A to Z over and over until you become much more still when waiting for your play.

Thanks for reading, don’t forget to check our content on AXIA Instagram.

The articles you might also like:

• Trading Psychology: How To Develop The Skill of Discipline | Axia Futures
• How To Deal With Missed Trading Opportunities – Trading Psychology | Axia Futures
• Trading Psychology: Why Top Traders Embrace Pressure | Axia Futures

If you like our content and would like to improve your game, definitely check one of our courses that teach you all the techniques presented by AXIA traders from a market profile, footprint, or order-flow. If you are someone who likes to trade the news, we have a great central bank course. And if you are really serious about your future trading career, consider taking AXIA’s 6-Week Intensive High-Performance Trading Course.

Trade well.

JK

Trading Your Ego Vs Your Plan Introduction

In this article, we will focus on the aspect of trading your ego vs your actual plan. Many times we are caught doing the “wrong thing” only after the damage has been done. Then we wonder why we did that, promise ourselves in our debrief we are not going to do that again and then go and repeat the same mistake over and over again wondering what is wrong with us. If this sounds familiar, trust us, this is how the majority of traders feel especially when they are still in their early stage of their trading career. Although there is no one recipe for how to overcome the ego easily, there are a couple of hints that can help you on your journey of becoming a consistently profitable trader dealing with your emotions. But first things first.

For more context around trade examples described below, watch the video.

Manifestation Of Ego In Trading

As most of you already know, by choosing trading as a career path you have put yourself on the journey to directly face your ego in its rawest form. Probably there is no other career out there that will leave your ego exposed as much as the trading. To truly understand what we are dealing with, we need to accept first, that our brain is not wired for trading by design. If we look deeply into a function of our prehistoric lizard brain and pass the two most important functions of this brain, survive and reproduce, we will find an additional program on top of it. Avoid discomfort. A program that all humans share. And trading is all about dealing with discomfort.

Discomfort can have many forms. From avoiding losses moving that stop-loss away bit by bit, not clicking the button when the opportunity screams at us, averaging down when being married to a trade, and so on. All these occasions have something in common: they are uncomfortable. And when we have to directly face the discomfort, our deeply established belief system kicks in, our ego fights back and damaging self-talk picks up. Now let’s have a look at a couple of those examples and what we can do about them.

Examples Of Ego Trades

Not Willing To Accept Loss Ego Trade

In the trade above, the trader was able to execute his trades with success (within the blue box). He is on a positive run and the previous conditions of trading suited his style. He was able to make money in that particular environment. Suddenly market conditions have changed, a trader has not recognized this change and got long (see blue arrow). This time outside of the conditions that previously made him money but given the previous good run, the trader does not want to give these profits away. This then manifests in the unwillingness to get out of the trade when things get worse. The ego kicks in. Avoid discomfort manifests itself in “not giving back the profits”. A typical recipe for disaster is if the trend sets up after our planned stop and we start to average down into a big drop. Not only we are creating a condition to give all our previous profits away and usually some more, but also we are signaling to our brain that averaging is acceptable behavior. In this trade, we got punished but there will be situations when we average and we actually get rewarded. This reward of unacceptable behavior is actually strengthening the synapses to do the same thing next time when a similar situation appears.

The Justification Ego Trade

In the example below, we have a similar example but a trigger might be different. In this case, the trader still believes that he/she might be still right with short position although all the market-generated information is screaming that the trade has been invalidated. Unlike in our first example, the discomfort our ego is trying to avoid in this case is not to be wrong on a trade and therefore does everything possible to justify staying in a trade “a bit longer”.

So why being “wrong” on a trade is such a problem? Why “losing after we won” is so hard? Why “accepting loss” is so difficult? It all has to do with our innate need to avoid discomfort. Ego then just needs to kicks in and execute your deep beliefs associated with avoiding discomfort. A belief that has been formed at some point in your past to deal with the discomfort. Everyone’s belief system is different, but they all have one in common: they are not rational and have impulsive characteristics. So where we can take it from here?

Edge And Belief System

Although overcoming our ego in trading is a long journey and probably never be 100% intact, we can start working on a process of how to be more in control in our trades. But all of that won’t be possible without understanding that we need to have an edge in the first place. Because without the edge (check-out how you can build your own edge with our help), no matter how bulletproof we are, we will be constantly improving strong emotional composure on a poor edge foundation. Taking it from there, I would also recommend reading how one of our Axia Junior traders is tackling the problem of being too attached to his trades dealing exactly with what we have just discussed.

If you liked this article, you might check these videos as well:

• Trading Psychology: How To Develop The Skill of Discipline | Axia Futures
• Trading Psychology: How To Stop Overtrading | Axia Futures
• How To Deal With Missed Trading Opportunities – Trading Psychology | Axia Futures

Thanks for reading and until next time, trade well.

JK

Why do Trading Losses Matter More?

According to research that underpins Prospect Theory (Kahneman & Tversky) losses are felt twice as much as gains – this explains why they are more easily recalled and also why traders seek to mitigate loss before looking for profit. But why is this the case? Evolution. Humans have evolved to avoid dangerous situations – your natural instinct to prepare to fight, flea or freeze at the first sign of danger (a bush rustling) has been extremely helpful in not getting eaten by a tiger. But, when put into a trading situation, this instinct causes the same reaction to potential loss of money – a desire to get out of the situation. So, even when onside on a trade, the fear of losing can overwhelm the pre-planned assessment and likelihood of a trade working and cause snatching of profit (fleaing). More dangerously, when offside, the immediacy of a potential loss causes a fight instinct that can result in averaging and greater loss.

• Dealing with Missed Opportunity
• 3 Habits for Trading Quiet Markets

3 Ways to Manage Trading Psychology

1. Consider Trades in terms of ticks rather than P+L by doing this the link between price movement and loss is broken. If a trade is expected move 20 ticks to target and after 10, it pulls back 5 ticks before going to target this is much easier to handle. Instead, attaching a monetary value and thinking “I was $1000 up and now I’m only $500” brings in fear that you could have ‘lost’ and could lose more so should get out of the situation. This is particularly important when increasing size – a trade in ticks is exactly the same in its movement whether trading a 1 lot, 10 lot or 100 lot.
2. Categorise your trades. Being able to compared like-for-like trades not only creates a better understanding of the trade itself, but perhaps, more importantly, gives you the opportunity to objectively look at how the trade performs over time. Accept that trades will never have a 100% success rate so taking a loss is inevitable, not something to be feared. Whereas exiting a trade early can damage the overall performance by reducing average profit on winning trades
3. Debrief your trade not just from a technical point of view but from a psychological perspective too. The aim here is to recognise common traits and situations that allow you to be influenced by subjectivity instead of your plan. If, for example, when onside, your desire to snatch profit often gets you out of a trade, then a trigger can be created: as soon as that felling is felt it should trigger a planned response to review the plan of the trade. This can be reinforced by writing down the trade plan and category before hand so the potential psychological pitfalls are recongised and accepting before entering.

Learning about what impacts your trading psychology, is just as important as learning to trade different strategies – every mistake or success has both a technical and psychological cause. Remember losing money is not the same as being eaten by a tiger.

Richard

P.S. Click here to read Part 4

Learn More About Trading Futures

To learn to trade futures and develop your career as an elite trader then check out our range of Trader ​Training courses on offer. Our flagship 8 Week Career Programme can be attended live on our London Trading Floor or virutally from home as an online trading couse. It is the most comprehensive training programme in the proprietary​ ​futures​ ​trading industry and is based​ ​upon years of successful in-house skill​s ​development​.

The appeal of day trading Forex and futures captures the hearts and minds of many new traders. Can you imagine earning a living day trading the world’s financial markets without having to leave the comfort of your home? Most people dream about exiting their 9-to-5 jobs so that they can pursue generating an income for themselves and live life on their own terms. While day trading may sound like an exciting option, many inexperienced and newbie day traders are surprised when they discover some the common challenges within their new career path. Axia Futures offers a range of day trading courses that dive deeper into this topic, but in this blog post we’ll help you get a high level overview of what is day trading and whether or not it’s worth your pursuit.

Definition of Day Trading

Day trading is the activity whereby an individual buys and sells an asset in a short period of time, usually within a day. Day traders aim to generate profits on short-term trades and multiply their earnings over the long-term. 

Today, there are a variety of trading platforms and online brokers who have made day trading more accessible to aspiring traders. For those with the right capital and risk tolerance, day trading offers a means of extracting profits from financial markets band being rewarded for your correct analysis and interpretation of market moving data. 

There are many successful pro day traders who have made day trading their full-time job. At Axia Futures we are proud to host some of London’s most elite traders on our futures desk and that we are able to expose new traders to their wisdom. Still, many who join the industry find it challenging to achieve success in day trading. According to a study by Brad Barber at the University of California, researchers found that only 1% of day traders were able to make consistent profits.

In our opinion, one of the major contributors to this shocking statistic is the lack of quality training that’s available to new traders. Further, there are many so called “trading educators” who sell a fantasy about trading but do not earn their primary income from trading. This is a fundamental difference between Axia Futures and other educators. The traders on our trading floor make up the top one percent of traders and our trading courses model their best practices and strategies.

Everything we teach is tried and tested with real capital and is utilised on a daily basis by our team. If you want to learn how to trade successfully, then you need to learn from professionals with demonstrated success.

How to Day Trade

Day trading requires developing certain skills and characteristics. You will need to learn how to embrace uncertainty and unpredictability so that you can benefit from market volatility. You will also need to master patience and develop the ability to wait to act on perfect opportunities. At these moments it’s important to act with speed and conviction while maintaining flexibility in your thinking to reevaluate new information.

On the one hand your personal skills and traits are important and on the other hand so too are the markets you trade. An essential element in every market is sufficient liquidity. Why? Because liquidity dictates the ease at which you are able to scale a position and move in and out of a market without affecting its price.

Why is Day Trading Challenging?

Expert traders understand what it takes to succeed in the world of trading and ensure that they have as many controllable factors in their favour as possible. Top performing traders utilise professional trading technologies, premium tools, data subscriptions and work in teams to identify opportunities and areas of personal improvement.

When new traders enter this highly competitive environment, they are often unaware of how these factors tilt their odds of success and do not understand why they under-perform more experienced professionals.

To learn more about how to day trade and develop your career as a trader within a professional environment then check out the Axia Futures 8 Week Intensive Trading Course and our other more specialised Trader ​Training programmes. It is the most comprehensive training programme in the proprietary​ ​futures​ ​trading industry and is based​ ​upon years of successful in-house skill​s ​development on our trading floor.

Axia Futures
4 Endsleigh Street London GB WC1H 0DS
+44 20 3880 8500
https://axiafutures.com/

Social Media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AXIAFutures/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/AxiaFutures
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/Axia-Futures/

Contacts:
Demetris Mavrommatis – Co-Founder, Head of Trading
Alex Haywood – Co-Founder Head of Strategy

Map Embed:

The Digital Distraction and the reducing valve of consciousness

The younger trading generation arrive on our trading floor with an inherited cultural deficiency of having a digital leash connected to their senses waiting for the digital gas pump to fill them up with entertainment, distraction from the “now” and the need for a new hit of mental Class “A” stimulation.

This lack of concentrated, fully absorbed attention leaves an individual with little chance to map the inner landscape of the market and the structure of patterns, not only from a probabilistic perspective but also from a more subtle angle of constant evolutionary market change which in the end slows down the trader’s market adaptation process. Coupled with this is how the individual interfaces with the market from a sensory and emotional perspective so as to ensure his/her decision making protocol is geared towards executing trades with a solid, definable yet dynamic edge.

None of this is possible when your phone vibrates inside your pocket whilst at your desk and your immediate gaze and concentration from the market is arrested to the age of “likes” and “retweets”. At that very moment you are losing edge in the market.

Our Elite Traders, I’m speaking about traders with the ability to make six figure plus days, have one common trait. Ruthless focus in the markets when their edge is in play. Nothing distracts them from a fully absorbed experience whilst they dynamically question their trade through every sensory input the market supplies them in every second. This application is consistent, month in, month out, and when there is no market movement within their current edge framework, their attention shifts to updating new ways to perform better next time they are faced with a similar pattern of events or they prepare themselves for potential market opportunities that will be coming out later in the week. They are fully absorbed in what it is to be a market speculator and an ultimate professional.

I often hear from the older trading generation outside of our firm – those who began before the day trading game and the art of speculation became truly professional and the need for a solid approach started becoming an edge – that the markets are different and dominated by algorithms and market efficiencies leave very little opportunity for the discretionary trader. The integration of AI and machine with humans is the way forward they mutter to give themselves an excuse for their own skill deficiencies. This all falls on deaf ears at Axia Futures. We have traders having the best performance years of their careers and climbing new realms of profitability that would leave the past generation with having to revise their current belief systems of making money in today markets.

At Axia Futures we are a group of fully discretionary traders who continue in pursuing the path of the great and unlimited potential in our cognitive, multi sensory and awareness capacities in order to extract edge from the market.

At Axia Futures we fully believe in the high cognitive intelligence of the human decision making matrix within the arena of market speculation. This capacity for success as mentioned in the start of this article lays in the ability of having fully absorbed attention which generates heightened awareness.

So how do we cultivate our attention in the current age of distraction and fragmented attention?

The accelerated adoption of eastern practices into our western reductionist culture is encircling our reasoning mind at an accelerated rate. The shift from our immediate sensory perception to make sense of our surroundings to the inner world, or the doors of our perception, to enhance our experience behind the veil of our sensory diluted vision seems to have seeped into the way we wish to make sense of our surroundings through a more awakened state. Many Eastern practices and ideas are being adopted within the high performance arena of speculation.

The age of reason seems to be making way to the age of awareness

Last weekend, a group of our traders attended a workshop by the renowned Guy Burgs who studied and practised many years in meditation and chi Kung in Asia under the guidance of some of the worlds greatest living masters. Much of the teachings were breath based and how to harness your breath so as to operate in a fully aware state beyond the interference of our mind. His principal teachings focused on operating in a highly cognitive and aware state whilst being non stimulated but rather in a calm but effective state of being. They learnt that the architecture of our breathe movement can significantly alter the immediate experience of how we process our sensory environment and hence the success of how we execute in a state of clarity and full attention.

At Axia Futures one of our principal beliefs is that once a trader has developed his/her edge in the evolutionary landscape of the financial markets, then he/she has the cognitive skill set and broad concentrated awareness to apply his/her edge in a consistent manner. So for this to happen we continue to explore practises in modern western approaches and/or the more mystical eastern philosophies and teachings so as to develop a framework of performance that keeps us not only extracting profits from the market but also turns us into happy and fully aware individuals in this full experience of life whilst also being significant contributors to our community. And this is because a fully rounded human is one that can fully contribute to oneself and the broader community.

Edge pursuit is a continuum and thus our exploration of our development should operate on the same spectrum within a fully absorbed state.

So how are you ensuring that you have the techniques and practices to remain fully focused and absorbed in your chosen discipline of performance?

By Alex Haywood

Axia Futures Co-Founder

To learn more about how to day trade and develop your career as a futures trader within a professional environment then check out the Axia Futures 8 Week Intensive Trading Course and other our specialised Trader ​Training offers. It is the most comprehensive training programme in the proprietary​ ​futures​ ​trading industry and is based​ ​upon years of successful in-house skill​s ​development​.