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In this episode of the Desired to Trade podcast, Akil Stokes, a highly successful forex trader and educator, shares his journey and trading philosophy. From struggling to find a job during the recession to becoming a respected figure in the trading community, Akil has transformed his life through dedication to the craft of trading. With his competitive background as a former athlete, he approaches trading with the same mindset, constantly striving to improve and achieve success. Akil’s unique story of perseverance, from starting in the markets with little knowledge to becoming a full-time trader, resonates with anyone looking to break into the industry.
In this blog post, you’ll dive into Akil’s approach to trading, where he emphasizes the importance of discipline, the process over outcome, and the value of manual backtesting. You’ll learn how Akil manages risk, his trading strategies using advanced patterns like Gartley and Butterfly, and his insights on the psychological side of trading. By the end, you’ll gain actionable takeaways that you can incorporate into your own trading routine, especially around building a solid strategy and handling the inevitable drawdowns that come with trading.
Akil Stokes Playbook & Strategy: How He Actually Trades
Trading Philosophy: Process Over Outcome
Akil emphasizes the importance of focusing on the process rather than obsessing over individual trade outcomes. He believes that the key to success is sticking to a well-defined plan, regardless of the short-term results.
- Trust Your Plan: Stick to your trading plan no matter what. If you’ve backtested it and it shows positive expectancy, trust that the process will work over time, even if you face losing streaks.
- Trade with Consistency: Avoid jumping from strategy to strategy. Be consistent with your approach and give it enough time to show results.
- Accept Losses as Part of the Game: Don’t let a loss throw you off track. It’s part of trading. Focus on executing your plan correctly and move on to the next trade.
This mindset is essential because it helps you avoid making emotional decisions in the heat of the moment, keeping your trading calm and disciplined.
Strategy: Advanced Patterns and Price Action
Akil uses a blend of advanced chart patterns and price action to identify high-probability trade setups. He relies heavily on patterns like the Gartley, Bat, and Butterfly, combined with strong support and resistance levels.
- Focus on Advanced Patterns: Use chart patterns like Gartley, Bat, and Butterfly to identify potential reversal points. These patterns have proven to give reliable setups when combined with other technical analysis tools.
- Support and Resistance: Pay attention to key support and resistance levels. These are crucial for determining entry and exit points, as well as setting stop-loss orders.
- Use Multiple Timeframes: Akil recommends using higher timeframes (4-hour, daily) for overall trend direction and lower timeframes (15-minute, 5-minute) for precise entries.
By combining these techniques, Akil is able to increase his chances of success by aligning his trades with the market’s natural rhythm.
Risk Management: How Much to Risk Per Trade
Akil believes that managing risk is one of the most important aspects of trading. He stresses the importance of knowing exactly how much you’re willing to lose before entering a trade and never straying from that plan.
- Risk 1-2% Per Trade: Akil advises risking only 1-2% of your trading capital per trade. This ensures you don’t blow up your account if a string of losses occurs.
- Set Stop-Loss Orders: Always use stop-loss orders to limit your risk. These should be placed at logical levels, based on technical analysis (like the edge of a chart pattern or key support/resistance).
- Reward-to-Risk Ratio: Aim for a reward-to-risk ratio of at least 2:1. This means that for every dollar you risk, your potential reward should be at least two dollars.
By sticking to these rules, Akil ensures that no single trade can ruin his account, even during extended periods of drawdown.
Trading Schedule: Balancing Life and Trading
Akil is a big believer in balancing trading with other life activities to avoid burnout. He doesn’t sit in front of his screen all day, and he makes time to step away from the markets, ensuring that he maintains a healthy mindset.
- Trade Only During Optimal Hours: Akil trades the New York session, typically from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., when market volatility is high. This allows him to focus on quality setups without being glued to the screen all day.
- Take Breaks: Akil encourages traders to step away from their computers once they’ve completed their trading for the day. Engaging in other activities, like his coaching role in track and field, helps him refresh and keep a clear head.
- Avoid Overtrading: Don’t sit in front of your screen waiting for trades to happen. Only take trades when your strategy dictates it. Overtrading leads to mistakes and emotional trading.
By having a clear schedule and setting boundaries, Akil avoids making impulsive decisions and maintains the focus needed for long-term success.
Psychological Resilience: Dealing with Drawdowns
Trading isn’t all about strategy—it’s also about how you handle the psychological challenges that come with it. Akil’s journey involved overcoming significant setbacks, and he shares key lessons on how to stay mentally strong during tough times.
- Don’t Let Drawdowns Derail You: Losses are part of trading. Akil stresses that many traders fail because they give up after a few losses. Stick to your strategy even when things aren’t going your way.
- Focus on Continuous Improvement: Akil follows the Kaizen philosophy of continuous improvement. Every day, aim to get better, whether it’s refining your strategy, improving your trade execution, or strengthening your mindset.
- Separate Ego from Trading: Don’t let your ego dictate your trading decisions. If you lose a trade, don’t beat yourself up. Stay objective and focus on executing your plan in the next trade.
By working on your psychological resilience, you’ll be better equipped to handle the inevitable ups and downs of trading without letting them affect your decision-making.
Education and Mentorship: Helping Others
One of Akil’s main focuses today is teaching other traders, and he often shares that the process of educating others has helped him solidify his own understanding of trading.
- Learn by Teaching: Teaching others is a powerful way to deepen your own knowledge. Akil’s journey into education began when he started blogging about his own struggles as a trader, and it evolved into a full-time career in trading education.
- Find a Mentor: Akil highlights the importance of mentorship in his own development. He credits his progress to learning from others who were more experienced. Finding someone to guide you can accelerate your learning curve.
- Share Your Journey: Don’t be afraid to share both your successes and failures with others. Being transparent can help you connect with a community of traders who will support you and help you grow.
Embrace the Process: Why Focusing on Execution Beats Chasing Outcomes
In Akil Stokes’ approach to trading, one of the key principles he emphasizes is focusing on the process rather than obsessing over the results of each trade. Akil believes that successful trading isn’t about hitting home runs with every trade, but about executing consistently and following a proven strategy. The outcome of any single trade is out of your control, but the way you approach each opportunity—based on your strategy and plan—is what truly matters. Akil’s experience has shown that traders who chase quick profits or become fixated on individual trade results are more likely to make emotional decisions and deviate from their systems, leading to mistakes and losses.
Akil’s advice to traders is simple: embrace the process. Trust in the plan you’ve developed, and execute each trade with the same discipline, regardless of whether it’s a winner or a loser. By focusing on following your strategy precisely, you build the kind of consistency that leads to long-term success. This mindset shift is crucial because it helps you stay grounded during periods of drawdown or when trades don’t go as planned, preventing emotional reactions from influencing your decision-making.
Maximize Risk Management: How to Keep Losses Small and Consistent
Akil Stokes places a heavy emphasis on risk management as the cornerstone of his trading strategy. He believes that the key to long-term success in trading is not about hitting every trade out of the park, but about managing the risk on each position and ensuring that no single trade can wipe out your account. Akil advises risking only 1-2% of your trading capital on each trade, which helps to protect your account during drawdowns and reduces the emotional impact of losing streaks. This approach allows traders to stay in the game, even after a series of losses, without the fear of catastrophic losses.
By sticking to a strict risk management plan, Akil ensures that even if a series of trades go against him, he can recover and continue trading. He also stresses the importance of setting stop-loss orders at logical levels based on market structure, such as the edge of a chart pattern or a key support or resistance level. This way, you’re not just blindly setting stops but placing them where the market has a clear reason to reverse. With his risk management principles, Akil helps traders avoid the common pitfall of risking too much on each trade, allowing for consistent growth and longevity in their trading careers.
Patterns & Price Action: The Secret to Identifying High-Probability Setups
Akil Stokes is a strong advocate for combining advanced chart patterns with price action to identify high-probability trade setups. In his approach, he frequently uses patterns like the Gartley, Bat, and Butterfly, as well as traditional support and resistance levels, to pinpoint potential reversal points. Akil believes that these patterns, when properly identified and combined with price action confirmation, can provide traders with clear, actionable opportunities. By focusing on the structure of the market rather than just relying on indicators, Akil helps traders align themselves with the natural flow of price movements.
For Akil, it’s not just about recognizing patterns but understanding how price behaves at key levels. This involves studying how the market reacts when it approaches support or resistance zones and looking for confirmation signals like candlestick patterns or price breakouts. By using multiple timeframes, Akil further refines his entries, starting with higher timeframes for trend direction and zooming into lower timeframes for precise entry points. This approach, which blends pattern recognition and price action, allows traders to filter out noise and make more informed, higher-quality decisions when entering trades.
Trust Your Trading Plan: How to Build Confidence in Your Strategy
Akil Stokes firmly believes that trusting your trading plan is crucial to success. Over the years, he has learned that no strategy is perfect, and not every trade will be a winner. However, what separates successful traders from those who struggle is the ability to stick to their plan, regardless of the outcome of any single trade. Akil emphasizes the importance of having a clear, well-defined strategy that you believe in, based on solid principles and consistent execution. When traders trust in their plan, even through tough losses, they can remain disciplined and focused on long-term growth.
Akil’s own journey involved learning to trust his plan after facing significant setbacks. He admits that early in his career, he was often tempted to deviate from his strategy when things weren’t going well, but he learned that consistency, not impulsiveness, leads to sustainable results. Now, he stresses to other traders that belief in their plan helps them stay grounded during periods of drawdown or when market conditions aren’t ideal. By having confidence in the strategy, you reduce emotional trading and increase your chances of success, knowing that the results will reflect the strength of your plan over time.
The Power of Discipline: Trading Through Drawdowns Without Losing Your Cool
One of the most important lessons Akil Stokes imparts to traders is the value of discipline, especially during drawdown periods. Trading is inherently cyclical, and even the best strategies will experience losing streaks. Akil emphasizes that staying disciplined through these tough times is what separates successful traders from those who eventually quit. He explains that many traders fail not because they lack skill, but because they give up when their strategy faces a drawdown. By sticking to your plan and maintaining consistent execution, you give yourself the best chance to weather the storm and come out ahead in the long run.
Akil’s own trading career was filled with setbacks, but it was his discipline and ability to stay calm during these challenging moments that helped him push through. He encourages traders to trust their systems and not be swayed by short-term losses or frustration. According to Akil, it’s easy to get emotional when things aren’t going well, but true success comes from sticking to your process, regardless of the temporary downturns. This approach ensures that when the market turns in your favor again, you’re ready to capitalize, maintaining a steady path to profitability without letting emotional turbulence cloud your judgment.
Akil Stokes’ journey from a struggling trader to a successful full-time forex educator is a testament to the power of discipline, consistency, and continuous improvement. One of the core principles he advocates is embracing the process over obsessing about individual trade outcomes. By focusing on executing his plan and trusting the strategy, Akil has built a trading career that emphasizes long-term growth rather than short-term results. He believes that the key to success is not about trying to win every trade, but about consistently following a well-thought-out trading plan and managing risk effectively.
Risk management is another pillar of Akil’s approach. He stresses the importance of only risking 1-2% of your capital per trade, ensuring that no single loss can derail your entire account. Coupled with a strict adherence to stop-loss levels and maintaining a positive reward-to-risk ratio, Akil ensures that his trades are aligned with sound money management practices. Additionally, his use of advanced chart patterns and price action, combined with support and resistance, allows him to identify high-probability setups that minimize risk while maximizing potential reward.
Beyond technical strategies, Akil highlights the psychological aspect of trading, particularly the need for emotional resilience during drawdowns. He emphasizes the importance of staying disciplined, not abandoning your strategy during tough periods, and avoiding the trap of overtrading. For Akil, the real key to success lies in trusting your system and having the mental fortitude to push through challenging times. By sharing his story, Akil inspires traders to build confidence in their approach, trust in their processes, and commit to continuous self-improvement, knowing that trading success is built over time with patience and perseverance.
