At Sublime Trading, we have had a routine that we've stuck with for many years, and it works. In this article, we're going to show you a breakdown of our weekly and daily routine.
Having a routine is critical if you want to see success. Unfortunately, this is often overlooked. Many individuals tend to think that they can approach investing without a proper plan of action.
People are busy. You’re all busy individuals. We get it. It’s not easy. We all want a routine that adapts seamlessly around our lifestyle without compromising on time and profit. So, that’s the first thing, we want to help you establish a routine that fits around your lifestyle.
The next thing I want to point out is that investing should be treated like a business, which means there’s a level of sophistication to it. This is, again, regularly overlooked, because investing is often portrayed as a get-rich-quick scheme online nowadays.
Remember, those who promises you quick riches will not be around when you lose it all. We have to be smart and diligent about our own hard-earned money.
One line I hear the most is, “I’m going to dabble in trading”. And so, if I lose money, then that means trading isn’t for me. But the truth is, investing doesn’t work for anyone that “dabbles” in it.
In order to increase the odds of success, we must have a routine. A routine may sound monotonous and repetitive, but it is essential if you want to avoid incurring huge inconsistent losses over the long term, and even over the short term as well.
At Sublime Trading, we have stuck with a routine for many years, and it works. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Our routine is simple, and we have been using it since 2007. We apply it consistently and are seeing exceptional results over the years. Let us break down our routine for you.
A Breakdown Of Our Investing Routine
Our routine effectively is broken down into two parts. We’ve got an in-depth weekend routine, which takes up to three hours depending on how busy the markets are, and a daily routine where we spend only a few minutes each day managing our portfolio. Since we’ve done our analysis in the weekends, we are fully prepared for Monday to Friday.
Our Weekend in-depth Routine
So, what do we do at the weekend? Well, we have a 3-tier system in place. First, we scan the markets (around 10,000 assets), then we filter a shortlist of assets (around 400 assets) using a charting software, and finally only a few assets will make it into our portfolio after our detailed analysis.
We look at the UK and US stock market, commodities and currencies. Putting all of them together, there are now over 10,000 assets that we can potentially invest in.
We don’t do them manually, of course. We use a stock screening methodology to find companies with particular characteristics we like. This saves us from having to analyse over 10,000 stocks and narrows our universe down to a few hundred high quality names.
One word about these stock screening scanners. There are cheap ones or even free ones out there too, but make sure you’ve subscribed to a good scanner – and the right one – for yourself. Having the right tool is the foundation to putting a portfolio together.
Before I actually used any stock screeners, I used to have a list of the 500 stocks in the S&P, and I would literally go through them one by one every single weekend. Now, not only that was extremely time-consuming, it also caused me to miss out on some strong trending stocks that weren’t in the S&P.
So, I would highly recommend everyone to try and get hold of a stock screener because it will make your life a lot easier. You will be able to find some of the best opportunities, as long as you have the correct settings in place.
Paying for a scanner can cost thousands of pounds per year, which is why we recommend you to subscribe to our newsletter. At Sublime Trading, we’ve already paid for it so you don’t have to. We do all the screening and share some of the high probability assets in our weekly newsletter.
Once the scanner has narrowed it down to a more manageable list of 300 or 400 stocks for us, we then input them into a charting software by Trading View, and filter them one by one. By using our proprietary tools, each chart will take us literally one to three seconds to analyse.
Important key levels of support and resistance are highlighted on our charts. Our tools automatically draw those levels for us. When support and resistance levels change, the software also detects them and makes those adjustments.
This is how we can clearly see where the price may be heading next in merely seconds. The stocks that meet our criteria will be identified as high probability opportunities and further shortlisted.
Now, when there are only 10 or 20 assets remaining, this is the last stage where we go through them in more details, and only up to four stocks will actually make it into our portfolio.
The stages may sound like a lot, but they are very important, and once you get into the routine of it, you can have this down in an hour or two. And as we mentioned earlier, we do all this for our community members.
Once we have shortlisted a few stocks into our portfolio, we then put those into 15-minute videos on our platform. This way, we save our community members a lot of time and money. And more importantly, this actually unites our community.
If you’ve been part of other communities, you may have found their process quite confusing. They all have many different analyses, and no uniformity at all to their process.
We, however, has a strategy and routine in place, and we stick to them.
This allows everyone in our community to share their ideas, to be on the same path, and to be in the opportunities at the same time. We believe that this brings in a strong sense of unity and also helps to increase the learning curve for our members.
It is important to understand that investors need to invest into the technology, the education, and the time. Because if you get the foundation wrong, you’ll always be struggling. Get the foundation correct, and all the hard work is basically done for you.
Just on a side note, never buy into signal services. Signal service is basically a process where the software does everything for you. However, the best approach is a combination of software and human discretion.
The software can do all the data and the boring stuff, but you should be managing the portfolio yourself. Human discretion is important when it comes to choosing the final assets and managing the portfolio.
Our Daily Routine
So, after we’ve done all the hard work over the weekend, it will only take a few minutes each day to manage positions in our portfolio. And this is the message we send to our members. We want the whole process to be as simple as possible.
Do all hard work on the weekend, so that your upcoming week becomes easier. The only challenge here is sticking with it day in, day out, week in, week out, year in, year out for the rest of your life. “Investing is simple, but not easy”. The best techniques are simple to learn, but being consistent with it is where the challenge comes in and where a lot of people often fail.
So, when we say we “manage our portfolio Monday to Friday”, what exactly does that involve?
All this involves is managing our existing positions in the account and looking for new opportunities in the market. Now, the existing ones come first. We never want to look for new positions before we’ve managed our existing positions.
We need to see whether we need to move our stocks a lot closer to the market or not. If the market is turning against us, we want to exit early to potentially reduce our losses.
On the other hand, if one of the positions is going in our favour, we want to make sure that we are taking advantage of it and maximizing our profits. And once we have done that, we can add new assets into the portfolio, and these new assets generally come from the weekend analysis.
Sometimes, opportunities will arise during the week. We may miss something on the weekend. The weekend scans may take breakouts which have occurred in the past week into consideration, but if a breakout occurs on Tuesday, we want to make sure that we are still scanning to ensure that we are on top of the market.
In a strong bull market, the screening process may take longer. In this case, we may actually have to do our weekend routine in the middle of the week. But essentially, if we’ve shortlisted our stocks already, it should be far simpler during the week.
Opportunities are always presenting themselves, which is why you should treat investing as a business. Take it seriously, do your preparation, do some planning, and stick to a routine.
As you can see, our routine is actually quite simple. It’s not complicated. It just requires the right knowledge, the right tools, and the consistency and your commitment.
Start your routine at the weekend when the markets are closed. Take your time. It may take a few hours, depending on how busy the markets are. Then, during the week, take a few minutes each day to manage your portfolio or add more positions to the ones that are running into healthy profits.
Other Important Key Points
Conduct Your Analysis On The Closing Price
We conduct our analysis on the closing price of each day. Why? Because we are not day traders. We are trend traders. We look for big moves in the markets. We hold positions for long periods of time. It’s not uncommon for us to hold our positions for 18 to 24 months in a strong trend.
This also means that we don’t stare at the charts all day long. We’re not interested in intra-day activity because that’s where all the noise is, there’s a lot of volatility, and ultimately that’s where a lot of people lose significant sums of money. Our analysis is always conducted at the closing price of each day.
Only Log Onto Your Brokerage Account When You Really HAVE To
This might be the most important advice I can give you, which is, only log onto your broker account when you need to.
For instance, if you look at your account one day and see a high amount of profit, but then the next day it dropped down 15%, that could add emotions to your investing and cause you to make mistakes.
Seeing your positions move up and down in profit and loss can tax on you emotionally, certainly in the early days. This is regularly overlooked, I think.
When you open a position, you’re ultimately accepting the risk that you might lose money. People tend to forget this. They think, “right, I’m going to invest this, and it’s just going to go in my favour.” No. Everything is based on probabilities, not certainties.
Avoid seeing the amount in your account, and only log in when you need to manage a position. This will help with your emotions while you’re investing.
If you have a trading software – which you should have – note down where you entered the position and where you have your stops. Focus on the technical analysis process of investing. Focus on the charts, look at the support and resistance levels, and stop spending time staring at your profit and loss.
Look At The Indices
The main indices are the S&P500, NASDAQ, Dow, FTSE100, and the UK index. It’s essential to create a foundation based on the indices and the natural (seasonal) movement of the stock market.
We want to know which times of the year the price is likely to be in a strong trend, and when we are likely to see pullbacks. We tend to see pullbacks in February and September, and this allows us to prepare for any declines and to be aware when we can re-enter the market.
From September to November, we tend to see new trends emerging. And that’s when we want to start placing further positions in the market and jump onto trends throughout the next trend cycle.
When support levels are being created, we can actually take advantage of that. As Warren Buffet said, “Where people are being fearful, be greedy; and where people are being greedy, be fearful.” Where a lot of people panic, we are actually looking for opportunities there.
Just a side note, sometimes we see trends move into December as well, known as the Santa Clause rally. Doesn’t happen every year, but as trend investors, we hold our positions because December could ultimately be a very fruitful period.
Charts Are Truths
Ignore the noise, ignore the news, ignore opinions. 99.9% of what you hear are just noise. It’s misleading, and it will make you make decisions that you’ll regret later. The charts, on the other hand, tell us everything that we need to know. Focus on the charts and block all the noises out.
It’s important to understand that institutions pay a lot of money to get news early. So, by the time we, the everyday person, hears the news, it’s already old. It has already been factored into the markets. Follow the charts, because the charts are telling the truth.
Focus On The Long-Term Trends
We want to keep trading as simple as possible. And when you focus on the long-term, you end up staying in a trend for a long period of time. It’s very easy to get sucked into the promises of get-rich-quick schemes and short-term trades.
Stick to the long-term plan, set up your own investing routine, and make consistent wealth between now and retirement. You do not need to stare at the markets for several hours a day, instead, spend more time doing the things that you love in life.
We want you to be able to do less and make more money, and fit investing around your lifestyle.
We at Sublime Trading really want to switch this around. We want to demystify it, spread the simplicity of good financial literacy, make it fun and more accessible for the savvy everyday person.
If you want to keep up to date with our stocks at Sublime Trading, then don’t forget to sign up to our newsletter. And also, take a look at our scorecard, go through the questions and see whether you are on track to a wealthy retirement. On completion, you will also get access to our FREE Launchpad Starter Kit to help you reaching your financial goals.