How to create high quality trade ideas?

Hey everyone! 👋

This week, we will be taking a look at the ingredients that go into creating and posting high-quality trade ideas.

While many think that a good trade idea begins and ends with finding a high probability chart setup in a liquid, volatile asset, the *best* trade ideas often combine multiple disciplines - which could include macroeconomic analysis, fundamental analysis, technical analysis, or some combination therein - into one cohesive unit. Getting in the habit of incorporating all of these factors into your thought process can lead to much higher quality setups, whether or not you choose to share them with the community.

Let’s jump in!

There are a couple of questions that you should ask yourself when trying to come up with high-quality ideas, and they boil down to the familiar five:
Who, What, Where, When, and Why.

Let's start with Who.

WHO:

Who is this trade idea meant for? When posting a trade idea, don’t assume that the idea is one-size-fits-all. The most obvious way TradingView helps in this regard is by categorizing posts by asset class, so FX traders are looking mostly at FX ideas, and crypto investors aren’t constantly exposed to commodity futures spreads. However, there are more subtle ways this happens as well. Different traders and investors often have different styles of trading, and so even within a single asset class, a long-term investment idea may not be applicable to a short-term trader. When creating a trade idea, it may make sense to identify to readers (and yourself) who this idea is for, and within what strategy it might best fit.

WHAT:

Most ideas do a great job at answering this question! It’s very simple: at its core, what does this idea want to do? Whether that idea boils down to shorting the stock market or building a long/short cryptocurrency spread, make sure that your idea clearly identifies what the core thrust of the trade is.

WHY:

This is the crux of any good trade idea. Why should someone commit capital and risk money according to your vision? It is common for traders, especially new traders, to think that answering this question comes down to building up a confluence of price patterns, indicators, and chart drawings until they line up and it is all systems go. In some cases, this serves as a reasonable answer to the “why” question - especially when assets have strong momentum.

However, oftentimes this approach may not go deep enough. What if the long technical setup on your chart is in a stock where the company’s business outlook is worsening? What if the descending triangle you’re looking at trading occurs within a larger bull market? This is where incorporating multiple disciplines, whether it’s fundamental analysis or macroeconomic understanding, can improve the quality of your trade ideas. Understanding some of the context surrounding the asset you’re trading can serve to layer probability in your favor.

Here’s the bottom line: the current price in any market is a reflection of the consensus view of the future. It’s important to illustrate *why* that pricing might be materially incorrect.

WHERE / WHEN:

It’s important to illustrate why *right now* is the right time to act on the idea, and this is where technicals can come in very handy. Broadly speaking, fundamental data on most assets only comes out once every couple of weeks, if that. It’s even longer between fundamental data releases for stocks. Because of this, utilizing price patterns, indicators, candlestick charting, and other technical analysis can be extremely helpful in defining risk, pinpointing entries, and trading more efficiently overall.

This is also where clean charting comes in. It’s important to identify how trader positioning, supply and demand zones, and other factors (that technicals help illustrate) affect the timing and risk of the idea. In addition, when publishing an idea on TradingView, the chart is one of the most visible and prevalent ways of communicating this information. Making these items clearly defined can significantly improve the quality of a trading idea and ensure clear communication of the important information.

So there you have it - the key questions that are at the core of any good trading idea! We look forward to seeing how this framework is incorporated into future posts.

Thanks for reading! Hope this was helpful!

See you all next week. 🙂
– Team TradingView

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