Table of Contents
In this interview, Etienne Crete, the host of the “Desire to Trade” podcast, shares a critical lesson every trader should know: the importance of a trading plan. Etienne dives deep into the process of creating a streamlined, effective trading plan that can help traders simplify their approach and boost their success. He emphasizes how many traders overcomplicate the process, creating long, unwieldy plans that end up being more of a burden than a tool. Instead, Etienne advocates for a one-page trading plan, a method he has adopted and refined over the years, which brings clarity and focus to every trade.
In this blog post, you’ll learn how to create a practical and powerful one-page trading plan, just as Etienne does. He outlines the key elements that should be included: from defining your trading vision to selecting the right trading instruments and timeframes. By the end of this post, you’ll have a clear understanding of how to structure your own plan and why keeping it simple yet comprehensive is the best strategy for consistent success in trading.
Etienne Crete Playbook & Strategy: How He Actually Trades
The Power of a One-Page Trading Plan
Etienne stresses the importance of having a clear and concise trading plan. In his view, a one-page plan is more effective than lengthy, complicated documents. This approach helps you stay focused, organized, and confident in your trades.
Why a One-Page Plan Works
- Simplicity breeds clarity: Having a single page forces you to focus on only the most important aspects of your trading strategy, preventing distractions.
- Quick access: Instead of sifting through multiple pages, you can immediately review your plan and know exactly what to do.
- Easy to update: When things change or you want to refine your strategy, it’s easy to make adjustments to a one-page document.
Key Elements of a One-Page Plan
- Vision: Write down your long-term goal. This isn’t about getting rich quickly; it’s about creating the lifestyle you want through consistent, well-planned trades.
- Context: Define your trading schedule. Are you trading the London session, the New York session, or perhaps a specific time frame that fits your lifestyle? This helps maintain consistency in your approach.
- Instruments: Focus on trading specific pairs or assets that you know well. Don’t trade anything unfamiliar, as each asset behaves differently.
- Strategy: Clarify your entry and exit rules. Know exactly when you’ll enter a trade, how you’ll enter, and when you’ll exit. This reduces the chances of emotional trading.
The Importance of Defining Your Trading Strategy
For Etienne, a well-defined strategy is the backbone of consistent success. Without a clear strategy, trading becomes reactive and driven by emotions. Here’s how to build and refine a strategy that works for you.
What Should Be in Your Trading Strategy
- Entry Signals: Decide on the criteria you will use to enter trades. Whether it’s a price action pattern, a specific indicator, or a fundamental trigger, make sure you know exactly what to look for.
- Risk Management: Define your risk per trade. Etienne emphasizes not risking more than 1-2% of your account on any given trade. This protects you from large losses that can ruin your account.
- Stop-Loss and Take-Profit: Set clear rules for where you will place your stop-loss and take-profit levels before entering a trade. This ensures you’re trading with discipline and not adjusting these levels based on emotion.
- Trade Review: Keep track of your trades. Reflect on what worked and what didn’t. This allows you to adjust your strategy as you gain more experience.
The Role of Risk Management in Etienne’s Strategy
Risk management is crucial for Etienne, and it’s a key component of his trading success. By controlling how much he risks on each trade, he ensures that even if some trades are unsuccessful, they won’t have a significant impact on his overall capital.
Rules for Effective Risk Management
- Risk no more than 1-2% per trade: This limits the damage of any single loss and ensures that you can continue trading even after a string of losing trades.
- Position sizing: Adjust your position size based on the risk per trade. For example, if you’re risking 2% of your capital, calculate how much that is in monetary terms and adjust the lot size accordingly.
- Loss tolerance: Decide in advance how many losing trades you’re willing to accept in a row before you step back and reevaluate your strategy.
- Keep a buffer: Don’t use all of your trading capital in the market at once. Maintain some reserves for future trades.
Consistency is Key: Following the Plan
Etienne’s approach to trading is all about consistency. He believes that if you stick to your plan, your results will improve over time, even if individual trades don’t always work out.
How to Stay Consistent
- Trade according to your plan, not the market: Don’t chase after every potential setup. Stick to the setups your plan identifies, and avoid getting swayed by market noise.
- Set aside emotions: Emotional trading is often the result of not following a clear plan. If your plan tells you not to trade on a certain day, then don’t.
- Review your performance regularly: Keep track of your results, and make adjustments if something isn’t working. This can help you stay on track and improve over time.
The Value of Backtesting and Demo Trading
Before trading live with real capital, Etienne emphasizes the importance of backtesting your strategy and demo trading. This allows you to test your approach without the risk of losing money.
How to Test Your Strategy
- Backtest: Review past data to see how your strategy would have performed. This gives you confidence in the rules you’ve set for your trades.
- Demo trade: Practice your strategy on a demo account for a set period. This gives you a feel for how your strategy works in real-time market conditions without risking real money.
- Reduce position size: When moving from demo to live trading, start with smaller positions. This helps you build confidence and ease into live trading.
The One-Page Trading Plan: Simplify Your Strategy for Success
In his interview, Etienne Crete, the host of the “Desire to Trade” podcast, explains how a simple, one-page trading plan can drastically improve a trader’s consistency and clarity. Many traders make the mistake of overcomplicating their plans, creating massive, multi-page documents that are difficult to follow and easy to forget. Etienne, however, advocates for simplicity—he believes that a one-page plan is not only easier to implement but also keeps traders focused on what truly matters: their strategy, goals, and risk management.
Etienne’s approach to the one-page trading plan includes several key elements. First, it forces you to define your trading vision and goals clearly. Rather than getting lost in the weeds of day-to-day trades, you’re constantly reminded of the bigger picture and why you’re in the game. He also recommends outlining the core components of your trading strategy, including your entry and exit rules, as well as your risk management approach. By having these essential points in one easily accessible place, traders can stay on track and avoid being swayed by market noise or emotional decisions.
Defining Risk: How to Protect Your Capital with Smart Sizing
Etienne Crete emphasizes the importance of defining risk as a key component of any successful trading strategy. In his interview, he explains how many traders overlook the crucial element of risk sizing, often putting too much capital at stake on a single trade. Etienne recommends keeping your risk to a maximum of 1-2% of your total account balance on each trade. This approach ensures that even after a series of losses, you won’t lose enough to derail your entire trading career.
By defining risk and sticking to this rule, traders can protect themselves from the emotional and financial turmoil of large, unexpected losses. Etienne also highlights the importance of adjusting position size based on the risk you’re taking. For example, if you’re risking 1% of your account on a trade, calculate the appropriate lot size to match that risk. This disciplined approach not only protects your capital but also helps you make more calculated and informed decisions rather than acting impulsively in the heat of the moment.
Create a Clear Vision: Setting Long-Term Goals for Consistency
Etienne Crete stresses the importance of having a clear vision for your trading journey, which he believes is crucial for long-term success. In his interview, he shares how many traders get caught up in short-term gains and forget to align their trades with a bigger picture. By defining a long-term vision, traders can maintain focus on their ultimate goals, whether that’s achieving financial freedom, building a sustainable trading career, or living the lifestyle they desire. Etienne notes that a clear vision not only provides direction but also serves as a constant reminder of why they trade, especially when times get tough.
Etienne recommends writing down your vision and revisiting it regularly. This could be as simple as stating that you want to trade full-time within the next few years or that your goal is to develop a particular strategy. Once your vision is defined, it becomes much easier to create a focused trading plan that aligns with these long-term objectives. By keeping your vision front and center, you’ll have the motivation and clarity to stay disciplined, make consistent progress, and avoid distractions or impulsive decisions that can derail your success.
Stick to Your Rules: Why Discipline Beats Emotion in Trading
In his interview, Etienne Crete emphasizes that sticking to a set of predefined rules is one of the most important habits any trader can develop. Etienne explains that discipline is what separates successful traders from those who fall victim to emotional decision-making. When traders deviate from their plan—whether due to fear, greed, or impatience—they often make costly mistakes. He advocates for having a trading plan with strict entry and exit criteria and sticking to it, no matter how the market behaves in the short term.
Etienne also highlights how rules act as a safeguard against emotional trading, which is often the root cause of losses. By following a structured approach, traders can avoid getting swept up in market noise and stay focused on the strategy that works. Even after a string of losses, Etienne insists that sticking to the rules helps build consistency and resilience, which are key to long-term success. As he explains, it’s not about winning every trade; it’s about following your rules and maintaining your discipline through the ups and downs.
Backtest and Demo: Testing Your Strategy Before Going Live
Etienne Crete underscores the importance of testing your strategy before committing real money to the markets. In his interview, he stresses that backtesting and demo trading are crucial steps in building confidence and refining your approach. Backtesting allows traders to simulate their strategies on historical data to see how they would have performed. This provides valuable insights into the strategy’s effectiveness and potential weaknesses. Etienne suggests that without this step, trading live can feel like jumping into the unknown, which increases the risk of costly mistakes.
Additionally, Etienne recommends using a demo account to forward-test your strategy in real-time market conditions, but without the risk. By demo trading, traders can become more familiar with how their strategy performs in varying market environments, and they can fine-tune their approach without the pressure of losing money. He advises that once the strategy is proven in both backtesting and demo trading, traders should begin live trading with a reduced position size to further test it before fully committing. This disciplined approach ensures that traders enter the live market prepared and confident, minimizing the emotional strain and increasing their chances of success.
Etienne Crete’s trading philosophy revolves around simplicity, discipline, and structure. One of the key lessons from his approach is the importance of having a clear, concise trading plan. By keeping the plan to a single page, traders can focus on what truly matters—such as their goals, risk management, and strategy—without getting bogged down in unnecessary details. This simple but powerful approach allows traders to stay focused and organized, reducing the chances of emotional trading or being distracted by market noise.
Risk management is another cornerstone of Etienne’s strategy. He advocates for limiting risk to 1-2% of your capital on each trade, ensuring that even after a string of losses, your account remains intact. This discipline helps prevent large drawdowns and keeps traders in the game for the long term. Equally important is the need for a well-defined trading vision. Etienne believes that by setting clear, long-term goals, traders can stay motivated and aligned with their objectives, helping them avoid impulsive decisions and maintain consistency.
Lastly, Etienne emphasizes the value of backtesting and demo trading before committing real money to a strategy. These practices allow traders to refine their approach and gain confidence in their decisions. By testing strategies on historical data and in real-time conditions, traders can better understand their strengths and weaknesses, ensuring they’re fully prepared when they begin live trading. All in all, Etienne’s trading lessons highlight the importance of simplicity, discipline, and thoughtful preparation in achieving success in the markets.
Related posts:
- Etienne Crete Trader Strategy: Build a Playbook that Actually Works
- Etienne Crete Trader Strategy: Trend Trading Basics That Actually Work
- Etienne Crete Trader Strategy: Practical Rules From a Pro Who Lives It
- Etienne Crete Trader Strategy: Range Confluence That Actually Works
- Trader Strategy with Jason Graystone: How Pros Really Build Freedom
- Andrew Menaker Trader Psychology & Strategy: How to Build an Edge You Can Keep
- Stacey Burke Trader Strategy: How to Build an End-of-Day Edge without Burnout
- Mike Bellafiore’s Trader Strategy: How to Build Consistency and Edge
- Etienne Crete’s Trader Strategy: How He Navigates the Markets and Builds Consistency
- Brian McAboy Trader Strategy: Build a Real Business Around Your Edge
- Sovit Manjani Trader Strategy: Build Doable Systems, Not Just Profitable Ones
- Kiana Danial Trader Strategy: Build a Patient, Goal-Driven Portfolio
