Inside the IDTA live trading rooms: 4 pillars for successful traders

October 17th, 2024
 

In the recent NinjaTrader Ecosystem webinar, “Inside the IDTA Live Trading Rooms,” International Day Trading Academy Founder Cameron Buchanan explored their trading philosophies and shared the style that has set up their traders for ongoing success.

Buchanan said there are two different styles of day traders that he encounters with his work at IDTA:

  • Fast scalper: Uses a fast-scalping type method where you’re getting in and out of the markets very quickly, low risk, small target, and trying to work on high win rates.
  • Slow style: More calculated, uses more indicators, and may use a lot more market generated information to make their decisions. They may go for larger targets, trade with more contracts, and go for multiple or split targets with multiple resistance areas.

For these two styles of traders, Buchanan and IDTA have developed four pillars to help educate and train these different styles of traders:

  • Market context and structure: Before you get into the markets, it’s important to learn the theories around market context and structure, balance and imbalance, liquidity zones, support and resistance areas, tools to use, and more.
  • Trade strategy (context and signal): Once you’ve mastered the first pillar, overlaying signals is the next step, including identifying patterns in the charts, particular price levels in support and resistance areas, and more.
  • Trade management: Determine where you enter and exit and how you manage those entries and exits as the trade is playing out.
  • Mindset: The final pillar is perhaps the most important, per Buchanan, as most novices don’t even consider the mindset aspect of trading until they begin trading; then they realize how crucial it is to master.

Buchanan goes in depth on trading rooms and options in the full presentation.

Watch a sample clip here:

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