Table of Contents
Miguel Tiexiera—aka the Traveling Trend Trader—sits down for a straight-talk interview about building a trading life that works anywhere. He’s a former bank trader turned full-time traveler who cycles across countries while managing positions, researching ideas, and broadcasting to help newer traders. Why he matters: Miguel’s a systems-driven trend follower who made the jump from intraday noise to clean, end-of-day execution—and he’s got the routines, tools, and rules to prove it.
In this piece, you’ll learn Miguel’s exact playbook: weekend prep to map levels, end-of-day execution to avoid screen-chasing, and volatility-based trailing stops to let trends breathe. We’ll cover his breakout and pullback entries, how he adds to winners on flags, and why patience, position sizing, and keeping other income streams reduce the pressure that ruins good decisions—plus the simple travel habits (think: one reliable daily check-in and time-zone proofing) that keep his strategy consistent anywhere.
Miguel Tiexiera Playbook & Strategy: How He Actually Trades
Core Philosophy: Simple Trends, Consistent Process
Miguel keeps the playbook clean: trade with the dominant trend, avoid intraday noise, and let math handle uncertainty. This section spells out how he frames markets so every decision downstream stays consistent and repeatable.
- Trade only when the price is trending; stand down in choppy conditions.
- Prioritize clarity over prediction: react to price, don’t forecast narratives.
- Use a small set of rules you can execute anywhere, every day.
- Focus on end-of-day data to reduce noise and decision fatigue.
- If the plan isn’t crystal clear on a chart in 10 seconds, move on.
Markets, Timeframes, and Tools
He sticks to liquid markets and timeframes that fit a mobile lifestyle. You’ll see how to narrow the universe, pick the timeframe, and keep tools minimal so your process is portable.
- Watch a curated list of liquid equities, indices, FX majors, and leading futures.
- Primary timeframe: daily bars for signals; weekly for bias and context.
- Keep chart templates minimal: price, a 20/50/200 EMA stack, ATR(14), and volume.
- Use alerts for breakout levels and moving-average cross checks; avoid constant screen-watching.
- Remove indicators that duplicate the same information—clarity beats complexity.
Trend Bias and Market Regime
Before hunting entries, he defines whether conditions reward trend-following or patience. These rules help you filter setups so you’re trading tailwinds, not turbulence.
- Bullish regime when price is above the 200-day and 50-day slopes up.
- Neutral regime when price pinballs between the 50- and 200-day; size down or pass.
- Bearish regime when price is below the 200-day and 20/50 are declining; prefer shorts or sit out.
- No new trades when ADX(14) < 18 and price is inside a 20-day range; wait for expansion.
- Tighten requirements after wide-range days; expansion often needs a pause before continuation.
Setup: Breakouts and Clean Pullbacks
Miguel favors two simple entries: fresh breakouts and first pullbacks in an emerging trend. The goal is to enter when risk is small and momentum is obvious.
- Breakout buy: close above the 20-day high with rising volume vs. 20-day average.
- Breakout short: close below the 20-day low with rising volume vs. 20-day average.
- Pullback buy: in an uptrend, buy a 2–3 bar dip to the rising 20 EMA that ends with a strong close.
- Pullback short: in a downtrend, sell a 2–3 bar pop to the falling 20 EMA that ends weak.
- Skip if the signal bar’s range > 2.5× ATR(14); spread/whipsaw risk is too high.
Entry Triggers and Order Placement
Entries are mechanical to avoid hesitation. Use these triggers and order tactics to reduce slippage and keep fills consistent.
- Place a stop order 1–2 ticks above the breakout high (long) / below the breakdown low (short).
- For pullbacks, enter on a stop above the signal bar high (long) / below the low (short).
- Cancel the order if not triggered within 3 bars; stale setups underperform.
- Avoid market-at-open orders; use stop or limit-stop to control slippage.
- If the spread > 0.15% of price or depth is thin, reduce size by 50% or pass.
Risk Sizing and Position Management
Sizing is volatility-based, so each trade risks roughly the same amount. These rules keep drawdowns survivable and winners meaningful.
- Risk per trade: 0.5% of account when the regime is clear; 0.25% in neutral conditions.
- Position size = (Account × Risk%) ÷ (Stop Distance in ATR × ATR Value).
- Hard cap: no more than 6 concurrent positions; max 3 in the same sector/asset class.
- Correlation filter: if two names move > 0.7 together, treat them as one risk unit.
- After two consecutive losers in a day, stop trading; resume next session.
Initial Stops and Trailing Exits
Stops must be placed at structure levels informed by volatility. Trailing exits are simple and consistent to let trends breathe without giving back everything.
- Initial stop: 1.2–1.5× ATR(14) beyond the signal bar (below for longs, above for shorts).
- Structure confirmation: if the recent swing low/high is farther, use that instead.
- Move stop to breakeven after +1× ATR in open profit and a higher close (long) / lower close (short).
- Trail with a 2× ATR(14) stop from the highest close since entry (long) / lowest close (short).
- Exit on a daily close against the 20 EMA plus a follow-through bar; don’t negotiate with signals.
Adding to Winners (Never to Losers)
He pyramids carefully when a trend proves itself. Adds are pre-planned and kept smaller than the initial position to protect equity.
- Allow max two adds per position: at +1.5× ATR and +3× ATR in open profit.
- Each add is 50–60% of the initial size; total position risk must remain ≤ initial risk after stop updates.
- Move the trailing stop to reflect the new average price after each add.
- No adds if the trend is extended (RSI(14) > 75 for longs or < 25 for shorts) on the add day.
- Skip adds to major event risk (earnings, central bank, key economic releases).
Trade Avoidance and “No-Trade” Filters
Great trading is as much about the passes as the entries. These rules eliminate low-quality situations that drain capital and attention.
- No trades into earnings within 10 trading days; consider ETFs or futures instead.
- Avoid low-float or news-driven spikes; stick to liquid, institutionally-owned names.
- Skip signals inside multi-week wedges or overlapping bars; wait for a range break.
- Pass on gaps > 1.75× ATR that also close far from the midpoint; reprice risk is unstable.
- If three or more watchlist names trigger on the same theme, cap exposure to two.
Daily Routine (End-of-Day Execution)
He wins by repeating a tight routine: scan, plan, place orders, walk away. This keeps emotions out and consistency in.
- 60–90 minutes after the close: update charts, scan for 20-day breakouts/pullbacks, and tag A/B/C setups.
- Refresh ATR values, stop levels, and position sizes for any candidates.
- Place stop orders and alerts; confirm all risk and correlation caps.
- Log rationale and levels; screenshot entries so you can review later.
- Do not touch orders intraday unless a stop/target/alert triggers.
Weekend Prep and Watchlist Building
Weekends are for zooming out and getting organized. This is where you clean the slate, find themes, and set traps for the week ahead.
- Review weekly trends vs. 200-day; mark leadership sectors and laggards.
- Build a 15–30 name watchlist with levels for breakouts and pullbacks.
- Prune anything with a messy structure or conflicting signals.
- Simulate position sizing for each name so orders are one click on the day.
- Write a short plan for “what to do if wrong” on every A-tier setup.
Journaling, Metrics, and Review
Feedback loops harden edges. He measures what matters, so small drifts don’t become big leaks.
- Log every trade: setup type, regime, ATR risk, R multiple outcome, and notes.
- Tag avoidable errors (late entry, chasing, size creep) and count them weekly.
- Track hit rate, average win/loss, expectancy, time-in-trade, and max adverse excursion.
- Run a monthly review: kill the bottom 20% of setups by expectancy; double down on the top 20%.
- If drawdown hits 8–10%, cut risk per trade in half and pause new adds until equity recovers.
Traveling and Time-Zone Proofing
Miguel’s strategy survives travel because it’s built for low touch and clear checkpoints. These rules keep execution tight when life gets busy.
- Lock a fixed “close-check” window based on the exchange you trade; set redundant alarms.
- Use a single, secure broker platform on all devices; pre-load watchlists and saved orders.
- Always have offline copies of your plan and levels; sync when you’re back online.
- If connectivity is uncertain, size down and favor wider, daily-based setups.
- Missed a signal? Skip it—no catching up. The next clean setup is the edge.
Mindset and Discipline Rules
Finally, this is the guardrail layer. It stops tilt, protects capital, and keeps you trading tomorrow.
- Trade the plan or don’t trade—no “small exceptions.”
- One change at a time during reviews; test changes for 30 trades before adopting.
- Never increase size to “win it back”; size only increases after new equity highs and a full review.
- If you feel urgency, you’re probably late—reduce size or wait for the next signal.
- Your edge is patience plus process; entries are cheap, discipline is expensive.
Size every trade by ATR, keep risk constant across the market.s
Miguel Tiexiera hammers this first: volatility decides your size, not your hunch. Use ATR to translate market noise into distance, then set position size so a full stop equals a fixed slice of equity. That keeps a gold breakout and a tech stock swing equally dangerous—or safe—no matter their personalities. When volatility spikes, size shrinks; when it’s calm, size grows, but the account-level risk stays the same.
Pick a standard risk per trade, calculate stop distance in ATR, and let the math output share count or contract size. If your stop is 1.5× ATR, size so a stop-out equals, say, 0.5% of equity—never more just because the setup “feels good.” Miguel Tiexiera also caps concurrent positions and watches correlation so multiple “different” trades don’t secretly stack the same risk. The result is smoother drawdowns, steadier compounding, and zero guesswork when emotions try to take the wheel.
Trade price, not predictions: daily trend signals over intraday noise
Miguel Tiexiera keeps it simple: the price is the only vote that counts. Instead of guessing macro turns or reacting to headlines, he lets daily closes confirm direction and momentum. That shift removes the twitchy scalp mindset and replaces it with clean, repeatable signals. If the trend is up on a daily structure, he looks for entries; if it’s messy or sideways, he stands down.
Miguel Tiexiera also avoids the lure of constant screen time by relying on end-of-day routines. One decisive read beats a hundred intraday flips, and it slashes error-prone overtrading. The edge comes from consistency—same timeframe, same triggers, same risk—so outcomes reflect the strategy, not mood swings. When the chart disagrees with his opinion, the chart wins, and the order is canceled.
Diversify by underlying, strategy, and holding duration to smooth equity.y
Miguel Tiexiera spreads risk on purpose, not by accident. He mixes uncorrelated underlyings—indices, commodities, FX majors, and select equities—so one rough patch doesn’t sink the month. Then he layers strategies, pairing breakouts with first pullbacks, so different edges fire in different regimes. Finally, he staggers holding durations, letting some trades run for weeks while others are quicker swings, which evens out the equity curve.
Miguel Tiexiera treats correlation like a position in itself; if two names move together, he sizes them as one risk unit. He also rotates exposure when a theme gets too crowded, trimming or skipping fresh entries until correlations cool off. The aim isn’t maximum excitement—it’s maximum reliability across market weather. When the mix is right, losers feel smaller, winners stack cleaner, and the account grows with fewer nasty surprises.
Use breakouts and first pullbacks; predefine stops, trails, and adds.
Miguel Tiexiera keeps entries binary: fresh breakouts or the first clean pullback in trend. A breakout must close through a clear level with expanding participation; a pullback must tag a rising average and finish strong. If the bar is a wild outlier, he skips it—he wants tight risk, not drama. Orders are placed as stops above the signal bar for longs (below for shorts), and canceled if they don’t trigger quickly.
Stops and exits are scripted before entr, so there’s nothing to debate later. Initial stops sit beyond structure or a volatility multiple; trails step up only after price proves itself. Adds happen into strength, smaller than the initial size, and only when the trailing stop keeps total risk contained. Miguel Tiexiera never adds to losers, never widens stops mid-trade, and never overrides the exit signal just because the story sounds good.
Respect regime filters; stand down in chop, press when expanding
Miguel Tiexiera doesn’t force trades when the market’s paying badly. If price is stuck between key moving averages and the range is compressing, he sizes down or sits out entirely. When expansion shows up—range breaks, directional closes, rising participation—he leans in with his A-setups. The idea is simple: match aggression to conditions, not to boredom or FOMO.
Miguel Tiexiera also uses volatility to decide how tight or loose to play defense. In calm, trending tape, he lets winners breathe; in jumpy, headline-driven markets, stops and targets get stricter. He treats regime assessment as a daily pre-flight, not an afterthought. That rhythm—stand down in chop, press in expansion—keeps the equity curve rising without the stress spikes.
Miguel Tiexiera’s edge comes from stripping the job down to what moves the needle: daily trend structure, clean levels, and preplanned execution you can run from anywhere. He trades end of day to dodge intraday noise, lets moving averages frame bias, and takes binary entries—fresh breakouts or the first pullback in trend—so there’s no debating what a “good” setup looks like. Risk lives in the position size, not the story: stops go beyond structure, trails do the heavy lifting, and he only adds when price confirms with the next breakout or a tight flag. The psychology is equally mechanical—if a signal doesn’t trigger quickly, it’s canceled; if a trade turns, the stop handles it; if the chart disagrees with his opinion, the chart wins.
What makes this durable is how Miguel Tiexiera engineered it for real life. He keeps a curated universe, checks levels once daily, and plans around connectivity so travel never becomes an excuse. Correlation and exposure are capped, income beyond trading reduces pressure, and patience is treated like a position—press in expansion, stand down in chop. The result is a portable playbook: simple rules, consistent sizing, and a routine that compounds because it’s repeatable on a bike in Portugal or at a desk at home.
