Stock Trading Tips: Five Benefits of Using Trading Tools

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In stock trading, market behavior will keep changing. Especially since the emergence of cryptocurrency trading, it has now become harder to predict where and when to trade for best returns on your investment.

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However, with trading platforms like Pepperstone, you can have a trouble-free life as a trading robot carries out your transactions. Trading tools are programs that use mathematical algorithms to decide whether and when to trade. The robots come up with signals that are translated to make orders and make it easier to trade. This removes the stress from the trader. Here are five significant benefits of using trading tools in stock trading:

1. Backtesting

Backtesting is a stock trading method that enables traders to see how well a strategy or model would have done before the actual trade took place. Backtesting utilizes trading tools for historical marketing data to establish the viability of the idea. This feature allows you to test various trading strategies without having to spend a cent.

When creating automated trading tools, all rules have to be thorough and leave no room for interpretation. The computer shouldn’t make any guesses.

Traders can use these rules and test them on historical data before risking their money on live trading. What happens is that your chosen strategy is tested against the past performance of securities and other investments to give you an indication of future performance.

A careful and thorough backtest will allow you to evaluate and polish a trading idea or strategy. You can also ascertain how much you expect to win or lose on average per unit of risk.

2. No Emotions

Emotions are some of the biggest stumbling blocks of stock trading. Fear is a defensive force that holds you back from making the right trading decisions. Greed is an emotional force that makes you jump on any trading opportunity without carefully thinking it through. Trading tools are free from all these emotional vices.

Tools use past strategies instead of emotions to come up with the most quantifiable data for trading. Traders have an easier time trading effectively and stick to the plan because their feelings are kept in check.

Also, the trades are executed automatically. This means that you won’t have the time to question or think twice about your decision. Besides, the tools can also help keep in check those who tend to overtrade. These are the people who would buy or sell at any perceived opportunity.

3. Faster Transactions

A human trader has to analyze a trade before executing an opportunity manually. However, trading tools are automated trading robots that generate orders immediately after the trade criteria are met.

In stock trading, getting in or out of a trade within seconds can make a massive difference in the outcome. When using trading tools, once you enter a position, all other orders are automatically generated. Such orders include protective stop losses and profit targets.

Markets sometimes move quickly. It can be demoralizing to have your trade reach the profit target or go past the stop loss level, before entering the orders. Automated trading tools prevent such occurrences from happening.

4. Diversified Trading

Automated trading tools and robots allow one to trade multiple accounts or strategies at once. This allows the trader to spread the risk over various instruments while creating a hedge against a losing position.

Any human will have a hard time trying to accomplish this task. However, trading tools make this possible and execute it efficiently within seconds. The computer scans for trading opportunities across various markets and generates orders, while also monitoring the trades.

5. Discipline

Trading tools help preserve discipline even in volatile markets because trade rules are established, and trades are executed automatically. Humans often lose trading discipline because of emotions such as fear of losses or the desire to obtain more profit from a trade.

However, using automated tools to trade helps keep discipline because the trading plan is followed to the latter. Also, they help minimize "pilot errors." For instance, if you want to make an order for 100 shares, you will not erroneously enter an order for 1000 shares.

One of the biggest challenges that stock traders face is to plan a trade and execute the plan in the trade. Even when a trading plan has the potential to be profitable, traders who ignore such rules alter the system would have had. If someone ever told you that they have a trading plan that is 100% accurate, they are lying. Losses are part of the game.

Losses can, however, be psychologically traumatizing. If the trader has two or three trading losses in a row, they might opt to skip the next trade. If the next trade would have been a winner, the trader has destroyed the system’s expectancy. Trading tools enable the trader to achieve consistency by trading the plan.

Final Thoughts

Although appealing for a myriad of benefits, stock trading can be psychologically traumatizing. This why you need to consider using trading tools to make better trading decisions. Besides backtesting, you will also enjoy other benefits such as speed, discipline, and diversified trading. Also, you will take away the emotions that are a stumbling block for stock trading.