No matter what business you’re in, consistency will determine your ultimate success or failure. Look at any nationally recognized name brand, and one thing you notice is that the product is reliable; you can count on it to do what it says it'll do. Ray Kroc built an empire on the idea that people wanted consistency in their hamburgers — that they knew that a Big Mac would taste pretty much the same and be of the same quality no matter what city they were in.

Trading is no different. To make money over time, you must be consistent — with your methods, strategies, and profits. The person who has a spectacular trade one month and a 75% drawdown the next month will find it tough to make a career out of trading.

In this lesson, several Tradingmarkets contributors reveal their thoughts on the importance of consistency in their trading. I hope you find these insights helpful.

Mark Boucher

Consistency means being disciplined and waiting for real, proven opportunities before committing your capital. It also means looking around in a lot of different areas so that you can always find an opportunity in some place. Always look for a high-reward low-risk opportunity, always be looking at enough markets, asset classes and enough things so that there’s always a good opportunity.

Jeff Cooper

As I explain in my videotape, consistency is one of the factors that has contributed to the success that I’ve had. Consistency to me means trying to hit singles and doubles, and maybe a few stand-up triples, rather than trying to swing for the bleachers every time I’m at bat. As a short-term trader, I can’t let things move against me in the long term — I’ve got to trade in the time frame that I’m in. If a trade goes against me, I can’t live in hope on a longer time frame that it’ll come back. Consistency means capitalizing on short-term momentum. You don’t sit down at a smorgasbord and try to be a pig and eat the whole thing at one time, you need to take small bites.

Kevin Haggerty

I’m interested in patterns and change in direction, and I just stick to what I do. What I teach at the seminars is what I do, and it’s not any more complicated than that. I have certain patterns that I like, certain retracements and extensions. If somebody trades one thing, they should stick with it; then you start to add more to your bag of tricks as you go. The whole thing is about recognizing buying and selling pressure and change in direction, so whatever vehicle you use to do that, you just do it -- and you do it as many times as it presents itself. You get an entry pattern, and you stick with it, and you do it as often as you can. The discipline of trading is: You do what works and you keep doing it. A daytrader is really managing a portfolio; they have a finite amount of money. Your money management has to be very consistent. As far as doing it, you do what works — all the rest of the stuff is crap.

Gary Kaltbaum

Trading consistency is vital, especially if you feel you have something that works. I can tell you that every time I’ve deviated from my trading methods, I’ve been wrong. When I deviate from what I do best, I generally fail. Trading is not just physical, it’s emotional. When you get outside of your own window your normally trade in, it brings up a lot of emotions and that can screw up your trading even more. If you’re good at what you do, have conviction. The whole idea behind this is that when you’re trading you make sure you never lose big, and you’re always around for the next game. If I hit three out of ten stocks, I’m going to make good money as long as the other seven are small losses. The key is having as much conviction as possible, and that comes from being consistent and not losing too much money on the downside.

Dave Landry

I’m a momentum trader, and I like to trade in the direction of the underlying trend. Cooper once said that surprises normally happen in the direction of the underlying trend. For me being consistent is taking trades in the direction of the trend. For example, on the last day rates were cut, the market initially had a knee-jerk and it did what you’d think it would do — it would go up — and I found myself tempted to buy the QQQs, and stocks in general that day, but that was going against the major trend. On that same day, although I was tempted to jump in and buy stocks, I found myself sitting on my hands and following my own rules. By the end of the day, the market actually started going back down again, so I would have ended up long and would have taken positions that went against my rules, not consistent with my methodology. By forcing myself not to get caught up in the euphoria, I actually found myself short by the end of the day.

One more thing, to stay consistent, I like to go back and read my own commentary!

Jon Najarian

Investors and traders have to keep in mind that they can’t eat like a bird and s--- like an elephant. If you are taking 1/4-1/2 point profits, you can’t let your losses run for a dollar. You have to take the losses at the same level that you would take profits. Anything else, and you’re really setting yourself up to fail. If you look at anybody’s account who is down substantially — a small portion of us could point to a horrible event like the stock traded down 40% on the opening and you had no chance. Outside of that, the reason you see losses in 99% of traders' and investors' portfolios is that they are letting those losses run and they become a long-term investor. As the trade goes against them, they become an investor. That’s one of the big mistakes everybody makes, at least when they’re learning the game, and hopefully after they’ve learned the game they make fewer and fewer of that same mistake because that one will really cripple their ability to trade.

Tony Saliba

Primarily managing emotions. Expectations. Being able to try to second guess what could have been, be disciplined in whatever your approach may be because it works for many different approaches. Stick to your game plan even when other unbelievable opportunities seem to be presenting themselves to you. Sometimes you might leave something on the table. It’s all about discipline. It’s all about setting meaningful goals and sticking to them. A lot of people get themselves into jams because they overtrade or feel that their trading will bring them to a promised land, but generally speaking the best traders aren’t setting out make themselves rich as much as they’re setting out to make sure that they don’t overtrade and lose too much and are able to take advantage of all the opportunities

An important part of trading consistency is having a written trading plan to refer to. Once you have defined your trading parameters, it's easier to follow your rules. This takes the guesswork out of trading -- the setup either fits your rules or it doesn't. If you haven't already formulated this plan, I'd recommend doing one as soon as possible.

Take it from the pros, being consistent in your trading is the key to your success. Strive for it every day.

For The Best Trading Books, Video Courses and Software To Improve Your Trading Click Here