Using video recording to improve your trading

Recently I spent several days working just on recording videos for my very popular e-mini trading course. While doing so I came up with some ideas on how you could use video recording of this sort as a useful aid in mastering the art of emini trading. I would like to share them with you in this article.

The videos in question were recorded in real time while I was taking trades on the Bracket Trader simulator. I mention this deliberately for now I do not think it was the best way to do it. I now think that the best way to record them would be by using the playback function of Sierra Chart, a very popular charting and trading platform, sped up at least 5 times. There are some advantages to doing so that are not afforded when recording in real time. And, trust me, recording actual trades in real time is the worst way to handle this even if it sounds much more ambitious than the other options. This and similar issues that deal with the most effective ways to record educational trading videos for your own training are addressed below.

Why is recording from the playback the best way to do it? For two main reasons, at least: first, you can prepare your recording very well and, second, you can speed it up and as a result produce a shorter video that takes less space on your hard drive, not to mention that it also takes less time to watch it. Remember that you are still the main actor in this process. Yes, you and not the price or charts. You want your trade to be good so that you can review it time and again in the future. That may mean trying to do it a few times before you get it optimally right in order to preserve it in your video library as a learning resource. Trying it a few times until you get it right is a good way to train yourself in executing your trades optimally, but that cannot be done in real time as in real time you get only one chance to do it. You can, though, do it as many times as you want using the playback data stream. And since you can speed things up too, this does not have to take as long as doing it in real time. These are certainly very useful advantages. Now, for each of your e-mini trading setups, you can take a few trades making sure that each time you are doing it optimally. Doing so multiple times until you get it right in the best way possible is, as I mentioned, a good training in itself, but once you have recorded a few videos like that you may only need to review them from time to time, say over a weekend, so that you are sure that you still remember how to do it optimally. And reviewing them from time to time is certainly another good way to maintain the best possible trading form.

You may also want to record examples of what you think are your worst or most common trading errors along with their painful consequences of losing money systematically. Reviewing frequently how badly they damage your bottom line could be a good way to reduce or even completely eliminate their occurrence from your trading.

Now, let me contrast recording from the playback with recording actual trades in real time. There are two dangers here: one is missing a good trading opportunity when preparing the recording and the other is messing up your trades because of the extra clutter that the video software is bound to introduce. Even if circumstances like that were to happen only from time to time, it is not worth to take chances. Trading, day trading especially, is already a form of gambling, but if done intelligently it can certainly be quite profitable. But doing it in a risky way for the sake of showing off or something along these lines is the dumbest way to engage in gambling there is. Be prudent; don’t gamble frivolously with your hard earned money.