Octa, a financial broker with globally recognised licenses, celebrates its 13th birthday this summer. In some cultures, the number 13 has a special significance. For example, the Chinese omit the thirteenth floor in multi-level buildings as unlucky. The Japanese, on the other hand, associate this number with good fortune.

In a series of three articles, the experts at Octa will share 13 time-proven and well-tested tips—one for each year of the broker's successful track record in the financial markets. These recommendations aim to help you improve your trading outcomes and progress towards your financial goals. The number 13 may or may not possess supernatural qualities, but following these 13 recommendations will very likely bring you better results in trading!

Below is the first of three articles. In this series, the experts at Octa share 13 practical recommendations based on the broker's 13 years of experience in the market.

The first article outlines five crucial elements that will help you form a firm foundation for trading success.

1. Acquiring theoretical knowledge to unlock new practical opportunities

Octa continuously studies its clients’ experiences to gain first-hand insights into the traders' minds and finetune its products and services to their demands. A vast majority of Octa's clients who achieved consistent profits indicate continuous learning as one of the cornerstones of their success. They read trading content online, sign up for dedicated educational courses, and study the strategies of professional traders to keep up with the best practices.

Another factor of success that many emerging traders underestimate is having a fluent knowledge of basic financial concepts. For example, you should learn to calculate your potential profits and losses for a given order based on the lot price and spread amount to be able to use risk management tools properly. Likewise, you need to know how the support and resistance levels work and what the candlestick patterns are to be able to identify potential entry points correctly. In trading, as in any other comprehensible system of knowledge, advanced techniques are unlocked step-by-step. Progressing along the learning curve is only possible if you start by mastering ground-level concepts.

Octa offers various educational resources, including its YouTube channel, which boasts more than 1 million subscribers, and a broad scope of educational materials available within its proprietary trading platform, OctaTrader.

2. Keeping your emotions under lock and key

Many professional traders compare their ideal mental state during a trading session to the workings of a robotic assembly line. Each movement is time-efficient, precise, and purposeful. Each sequence of actions leads to a measured, predictable result. There are no impulsive or chaotic moves, and nothing is left to chance. In a perfect world, your trading sessions would look like that, too.

Alas, reality imposes its own—imperfect—conditions. One day, you may be tired after work. Another day, you feel fine, and your brain functions like clockwork—but the market is feverish with wild fluctuations, and your predictions fail time and again.

This is where self-discipline and the right mindset come into play. You can't control the market environment, but you definitely can control your emotions—and make sure they don't undermine the efforts you put into achieving consistently positive results.

3. Establishing a solid risk management strategy

In trading, potential profits always have a reverse relation to risks. In other words, you can only achieve significant gains by exposing your capital to a proportionate degree.

Risk management techniques are part of any successful trader's toolkit. The concept of risk in trading is based on risk tolerance—or the amount of loss you are prepared to handle. Your risk tolerance depends on your starting capital and long-term financial goals. In their turn, these factors define the choice of trading instruments.

For example, if your goal is to obtain a supplementary source of income without delay, you may consider Forex trading, which allows traders with modest starting capital to gain regular income for day-to-day purposes.

4. Improving your time-efficiency

Less experienced traders often spend an excessive amount of time comparing expert predictions and trying to validate their decisions. However, the vast field of trading information available online is very diverse in terms of quality and trustworthiness, so it's no wonder that obtaining valid and actionable trading advice becomes an uphill battle.

To solve this problem, Octa embedded a dedicated feed with curated expert content into its proprietary trading platform, OctaTrader. This toolkit is called Space and is currently available for all OctaTrader clients across all regions of the broker's operation. With Space, OctaTrader now offers a customisable stream of actionable trading recommendations that you can transfer to your chart in a few clicks.

5. Learning from the mistakes of others

In trading, as in life, mistakes are inevitable. Given that, studying various lifehacks allows you to navigate the most notorious pitfalls and keep away from trouble. You don't have to make all the mistakes in the book and learn the hard way. Instead, you can choose a broker with extensive educational capabilities—and study typical client cases, reinforcing the acquired knowledge on your demo account if you need additional first-hand experience.

Conclusion

In the next instalment of our three-piece mini-series presenting 13 crucial trading recommendations, we will give you a short list of the most impactful skills that allow successful traders to achieve consistency and turn trading into a steady source of supplementary income in a reasonable amount of time.

About Octa

Octa is an international broker that has been providing online trading services worldwide since 2011. It offers commission-free access to financial markets and a variety of services already used by clients from 180 countries with more than 42 million trading accounts. To help its clients reach their investment goals, Octa offers free educational webinars, articles, and analytical tools.

The company is involved in a comprehensive network of charitable and humanitarian initiatives, including the improvement of educational infrastructure and short-notice relief projects supporting local communities.