Finding Trading Consistency: How to Become a Self-Sufficient Trader

You find your trading consistency the same way you become consistent at anything — like walking, playing guitar, or learning a new language. You become consistent through so much practice that it becomes automatic. 

It’s when you start to see things unfold in slow motion. You know when price movements fit your patterns, and when they’re just a bit off. And you get a feeling in your gut when it’s time to make your move.

This is what learning to trust yourself looks like. And when you’re there, you’ve become a self-sufficient trader.

You take support from awesome communities like our SteadyTrade Team. And you give just as much back.

You don’t look to other traders for stock picks. Instead, you look at others’ trades to learn more about what works for you.

It’s not easy, and no two traders will find the same path there. But you can get an idea of what to expect on your journey … Let’s dive right in!

When Things Click

Did you catch the SteadyTrade podcast episode where we talk about the ‘aha’ moment? Do yourself a favor and listen to it now if you haven’t heard it already.

This is what we always try to teach through our SteadyTrade Team mentorship program. We’re all on a journey together. If you’re putting in the work, eventually you get somewhere. It may not be where you expect, but you’re learning and growing the entire way.

In every journey, there’s a midway point. You don’t always know where it is when you’re starting out. And that can get discouraging. 

But there are some things that many successful traders have in common. We’ll look at those today.

I can’t give it to you yet, though. There’s always gonna be a bit of struggle first. These are the steps that most beginning traders take.

Want Trading Consistency? Be Willing to Do the Work

The first step toward trading consistency is ALWAYS commitment.

For a lot of people, the process is similar. First, you have to learn the basics. So watch a ton of videos. Learn from your mentors.

• We have a great YouTube channel that you can subscribe to.
• If you want premarket sessions, I try to offer them every day. There’s no cost, and they cover Q&As, potential hot plays, and general tips I’ve learned in my 13+ years of trading. That’s over on my Instagram channel and on YouTube.
• When you’re ready for more — we’ve got a lot! Join our SteadyTrade Team for twice-daily training and all the knowledge I can dump on you. Check our podcasts where we discuss all things trading.

The most important part of this step is getting lots of screen time to watch the market unfold.

This is where you learn to understand patterns and variables. You start getting a sense for stocks that may work with your strategy. Trading volume, float, and premarket gap-ups start to mean something to you.

This is where you start building the habits that will define you as a trader.

Find Your Setup

Your tools will help determine how far you can go.

Some things are essential, like finding a broker. Other things, you technically can skimp on a bit. But if your goal is trading consistency, I wouldn’t recommend it.

The tool I use every day is StocksToTrade. To me, it has some of the best stock screeners out there. Its news scanner can help you understand the news catalysts that move stocks. Its charting features help make trading smooth. Especially if you’re an old guy like me who remembers what trading used to be like! 

Get your 14-day trial of StocksToTrade for only $7.

Figure Out What Kind of Trader You Are

At this point, it might feel like you’re juggling a lot. You’re chasing stocks on different watchlists. You pay a lot of attention to former runners and stocks in hot sectors.

And you’re always confused when a stock you think can run starts to tank instead. 

A really important thing to do here is to track your trades. That means tracking loads of data. Then you can start to see what setups work for you.

If this sounds simple, it’s because I’m giving it to you as straightforward as I can. What it really looks like is consistently waking up and prepping before the market opens. It’s also studying, watching the market play out, and making sure your watchlists target the right stocks for your strategy.

And, of course, you’ll lose, sometimes A LOT. Then lose a little and win a little. 

Trading consistency isn’t having one awesome trade in your week. It’s having both good and bad trades on your ledger. But the bad ones are ideally smaller — and you get out of those trades fast.

And neither your wins nor your losses define who you are as a trader.

The Mental Part of Trading Consistency

I want to spend a little time talking about the trading mentality. Trading can bring out the best parts of you — your discipline and focus. It can make you laser in on the things that really matter to you in life. 

Maybe your goals are financial. Maybe you want to create a better life for yourself and your family. These are honorable goals. They can give you the fuel you need to become a disciplined trader.

Energy can be a good thing if it pushes you to study and wake up at 5 a.m. It can be bad if it pushes you into a trade and makes you risk your account’s health. 

Trading turns a lot of people into gamblers! These kinds of people never find trading consistency. They risk blowing up their accounts on every bad trade they make. 

When things click, you learn what to do with all that extra energy. That’s one of the marks of achieving trading consistency.

Look at Your Mistakes

If you want to reach trading consistency, it’s not enough to know the market’s patterns. You’ve gotta know the patterns you follow as a trader.

If you’ve been trading for a year and you’re still losing, it may be time to give your trading journals a long, hard look. Are you consistently losing on one type of play? Are you chasing stocks and overtrading?

Again — this is all OK. The only way most people learn trading consistency is by making mistakes. The important thing is that you learn from these mistakes and avoid repeating them. 

The way you break bad patterns in your trading is through adaptability. A big reason most traders lose is that they get locked into their patterns. They stop looking at their trading journals critically. They start believing in their trade ideas, not testing them against evidence. 

Listen, pot stock lovers, I’m saying this for you. I don’t care if you cleaned up after the election. If you keep playing your thoughts about a stock and ignoring the way the money line moves, you’re gonna get burned.

The market changes, and you’ve gotta change with it.

Finding Trading Consistency: Learn From Others

I’m lucky to have a part in a great community of traders at the SteadyTrade Team. 

But don’t just take it from me. (This review was for when we called our community StocksToTrade Pro.)

Our goal with the SteadyTrade team is to share knowledge, not just alerts. If you’re just following someone else’s stock picks, you’ll always end up chasing trades. It’s not good from a mental standpoint or if you want to find trading consistency. 

You don’t want to blindly follow alerts. A lot of chat rooms on the internet have become breeding grounds for pumps. When these big chat rooms share a stock alert — WATCH OUT.

That said, I stand by our Oracle Alerts and our Breaking News Chat. We control our alerts service and have experienced traders patrolling our chat room. And our alerts are about teaching the process. Promoters know they’re not welcome there.

Test Case: How Roland Wolf Got to Trading Consistency

If you gave me a $4,000 account and told me to turn it into $300,000 in a year, I’d have a heart attack!

But that’s exactly what Roland did. Like me, he’s a student of Timothy Sykes. In four years, he hit $1 million.* 

He’s a builder who hit his target by being really consistent.   

Roland found one strategy that worked for him and kept banging on it until he got over the pattern day trader (PDT) rule. He didn’t mix it up or try anything fancy. Instead, he did the thing that he knew worked for him. And he didn’t have a big enough account to risk taking chances.

Of course, that’s not all there is to the story. I’m sure there’s some trader out there who didn’t royally mess up on their way to trading consistency. If there is, they’re not bragging about it…

Anyway, Roland thought he’d figured it all out. He was thinking he could stop studying and rely on the plays that always worked.

He bought into Sino-Global Shipping America, Ltd. (NASDAQ: SINO). He went all in around $7 a share and held it overnight — in premarket it was up to $13. Then he got greedy.

Roland ignored advice to sell, and, right out the gate, the stock started tanking. Then he watched his account-changing profits dwindle. He finally got out near breakeven. 

But the lesson he learned for this trade was exactly what he needed, the click. After that, he worked his butt off to find trading consistency. The advice to cut his losses quickly stuck — but only after he’d lost out on a big trade.

(*Always remember: Most traders lose money. Successful traders put in many years of hard work, experience, and dedication. Trading is inherently risky. Do your due diligence and never risk more than you can afford to lose.)

Conclusion — What Trading Consistency Looks Like

This is what it looks like to find trading consistency…

You have a system AND you stick to it. You don’t get in your head about trades or start fantasizing about how high your profits could go. With every trade, you’re disciplined in your trading plan. And you take some losses and have the wisdom to learn from your mistakes.

Your system will probably be different from other traders’ systems. That’s because you tailor it to your strengths. You don’t get FOMO over trades that you’ve missed. You know that tomorrow will always hold a new opportunity. 

Let’s say you spend 15 hours a day studying and watching the market. Your odds of finding consistency will be better the longer you stay in the game. Isn’t that cool? Every trade involves some risk, but in the long run, you can control A LOT. 

If you’re ready to take the next step in your trading education, come join us on the SteadyTrade Team. We always push each other to become better traders. Plus you get access to everything I could ever teach you about the markets. 

So that’s it. You know what you need to do to get here. Start working.

Have you felt that click on your journey to trading consistency? Let me know in the comments — supporting each other is what this community is all about!